1 an anthropology of the japanese robot review by mateja kovacic robo sapiens japanicus: robots, gender, family, and the japanese nation by jennifer robertson university of california press, 20178 jennifer robertson’s most recent book on robots in japan is an easy-to-read ethnography-based overview of the ways that the national robotics policies in japan are shaping the contemporary japanese society as well as the ways that the neo-traditionalist society shapes robots. she focuses specifically on gender and family from an anthropological perspective, and proposes that the robots and the seemingly innovative policies are not socially innovative at all. robertson demonstrates this through an array of examples, including the innovation 25 program and the accompanying propaganda strips that portray the ways that the innovative technologies are used in a traditional family setting. drawing on further case studies seen through a robotics lens, such as human rights and health care robots, robertson further demonstrates that robots are envisioned by the pm shinzō abe’s government to consolidate traditionalism and nationalism in the japanese society. this might be seen as counterintuitive at a first glance because robots carry the aura of the futuristic progressive post-human society, but as robertson demonstrates—and this is the highlight of her book—revolutionary technologies do not guarantee societal revolutions. in fact, they often “sell” the image of a progressive society but more often re-assert the (pre)existing social norms, values, and structures. the main contribution of this book is therefore robertson’s firmly demonstrated argument that robots in japan not only re-assert the existing societal condition but are in fact reviving the past imperialistic frameworks—of both family and society. in this book, robertson builds and expands on her previous works—for those who have read her articles before, this book will provide an updated and expanded synthesis of her continuing research on robots and gender in japan. she also successfully employs her previous work on takarazuka, an all2 female theatre in japan, to discuss the construction of gender, and includes robots in this discussion. she then criticises the unreflective gendering practices of male roboticists who reproduce traditional gender norms and gender performativity in their “innovative” humanoid robots. by doing so, roberson creates a link between traditional society and traditional gender norms asserted through robots. while all chapters work successfully around robertson’s golden thread, chapter 7 on cyborgableism comes as slightly disconnected from the book’s narrative. in this chapter, she writes about the societal perception of disabled individuals and the discrepancy between this perception and the health care robotics research. perhaps the somewhat implicit idea was to demonstrate yet another paradox of the robotic innovation of the japanese society, where robots are made and utilised within a traditional mindset. in the particular case of cyborg-ableism, not much has been changed about the ways that the private companies and roboticists discriminate against the disabled despite creating the enabling technologies such as exoskeletons. the discussion on uncanny valley in the same chapter also slightly deviates from the book’s golden thread, as the idea of the robotic uncanny linked with the fear and anxiety produced by the traditional way of looking at the human body seems under-elaborated in relation to the book’s overall framework. robertson concludes her book with a very needed “reality check,” to remind her readers that robots are shaped by the past and existing social and cultural contexts. she also shows the reader how important it is to discern between the robot hype and what is really out there. aside from japan, many countries, including dubai and south korea, are using the still-developing technologies to promote their societal agendas as well as to boost their global image. the message of the book therefore is that the utopian futuristic images of society mask underlining problems. overall, the book demonstrates robertson’s unique dexterity in researching japanese culture, and bringing together different phenomena and perspectives to analyse society in a holistic and systematic way. robertson contextualises robots with history, popular culture, religion, spirituality and other important aspects of the research with ease and dynamism that will appeal to readers. the book provides an updated synthesis for those who are familiar with her work, but it will also be helpful for anyone interested in contemporary japan. thanks to robertson’s avoidance of academic jargon and her smooth writing style, the book will be an easy and informative read for both academic and general audience. mateja kovacic is a british academy postdoctoral fellow based at the nissan institute, university of oxford as well as a visiting research fellow at the urban institute, university of sheffield. her 3 research has a multidisciplinary focus on robots, from autonomous vehicles to humanoid robots in japan and beyond. she also specialises in the history of technology and science, and the material history of tokugawa japan. mateja's current projects includes the politics and political history of humanoid robots in japan, as well as collaborative projects on autonomous delivery drones in africa, urban automation and robotics, and robotics and ai in china. © 2018 mateja kovacic the art of aging review by sarah hall aging and loss: mourning and maturity in contemporary japan by jason danely rutgers university press, 2014 jason danely’s exploration of the experiences of japanese elders and their negotiation of aging in his book follows along what one would very much imagine was his natural progression of thought, throughout his years of research on the topic. overtly artistic in nature, the author invites his readers in to inspect the intricacies of japanese culture, as an art teacher gathers his students to marvel at a masterpiece. in turns humorous, tense and poignant, danely’s vignettes of his conversations with his informants allow their voices to seep through, despite the boundaries of translation, and a sensitive reader will be allowed to feel some fraction of the emotions embodied during danely’s research. this is not the sort of ethnography that is easily summarized. each chapter of the book addresses different emotional states, related through the lens of danely’s interactions with his informants, and incorporating broader players such as the japanese government and the strain of having a super-aging society. throughout the narrative runs a strain of devotion to family and ancestors and deep-seeded fears of becoming a burden, of needing to be taken care of by those who once depended upon you. “to most of the older people i spoke with, longevity meant that in spite of the ‘promise of adulthood’ and self-cultivation, eventually they would become a burden on others” (p. 4). over and over again, informants relate to danely a desire to not burden others, in terms of both physical need, but also, in the case of one man, sato-san, an emotional burden. struggling with such topics as cultural authenticity, a good death and self-value, the reader is enveloped in danely’s almost personal interest in these people. more friends than informants, he relates times of helping mori-san to move house, gardening, volunteering, and amusing flirtations. in all of this, the impression is built of the author as a neighbor, of having lived in kyoto, in truth, rather than the more traditional anthropologist as a temporary guest. he ends with an offering of his own sense of loss, having completed his work and his time in japan. “was i now abandoning them too?” (p. 186). if fear of dependency is what they related to danely, devotion to the memorialization of their dead family and ancestors is how they largely illustrated and dealt with that fear. “the most prominent way in which japanese culture shapes and is shaped by the experiences of older adults is through images and ritual practices for the ancestors and spirits of the family dead...” (p. 12). the theatre of memorialization is related to the reader as a way for the elderly to demonstrate to their heirs the way they (the elders) wish to be treated after they pass, to be remembered and respected. informants who seem more content are those who have better relations with their families, and trust that their families will do right by them, viewing kinship as an exchange (p. 68). “circulating sentiments perpetuates the bond of memory between the living and the dead, and with each turning back to face the departed, there is a sense of seeing one’s own future as well...” (p. 31). while largely working for this piece, danely’s voice is, at times, fairly dripping in sentimentality. the author’s artistic inclinations, and his flowery descriptions will, perhaps, occasionally cause a foot to tap in impatience for something slightly more empirical. long passages, waxing particularly on the beauty and mystery of the mountains and the cemeteries – “there was something dreamlike about this sudden transformation from city to mountain, the ghostly wisteria growing wild through the treetops or the traces of wild pigs digging up bamboos shoots in the spring.” (p. 70) – while poignant, may detract from the point he tries to make. from a linguistic standpoint, danely’s insertion of many original japanese words (rather than merely translating it and asking for the reader’s faith) and occasional subsequent discussion on the possible nuances of the chosen vocabulary brought in some intriguing peripheral points of interest, in addition to granting extra confidence in danely’s command of the japanese language. this book is well-written, easy to read, but rather than falling into simplicity, invites the reader into deep reflection on the proffered narratives. it is a work that often evokes more of an emotional reaction than a purely intellectual one, and that may very well be the author’s intent and purpose, and the strength of this qualitative piece. sarah hall recently received her ma in medical anthropology from the university of colorado, denver. she currently works in thailand. © 2015 sarah hall communication and articulating identity: a cultural approach review by rafal kleczek language and identity across modes of communication by dwi noverini djenar, ahmar mahboob, and ken cruickshank (eds) de gruyter mouton, 2015 the anthology language and identity across modes of communication is an excellent publication, both for those looking for an introduction to contemporary research focusing on its central themes, and for those attracted by a particular subject covered by one of the chapters. a broad range of subjects treated by fifteen contributors makes the publication of interest to scholars from a diverse range of fields, not only linguistic anthropology, but also the anthropology of modernity, education, and impact of modern communication techniques on social behaviour. the skillful arrangement of the anthology makes it accessible also for beginners in the field. the first three chapters, dealing respectively with communities of practice, style and quantitative research methods, provide basic information necessary to access the more intricate, research-oriented chapters. the chapter written by brian paltridge relates the theory of communities of practice to the subject matter of identity and language. the chapter by mary bucholtz analyzes style, its construction and transformation, and interprets it as a mode of social action. an account by miriam meyerhoff on the use of quantitative research methods presents an analysis of data gathered by the researcher during her recent fieldwork on a caribbean island bequia, simultaneously reflecting on the place of quantitative methods in sociolinguistic research. ken cruickshank, in his chapter, presents research on community language schools in australia, a point of departure for a reflection on the hybrid identities of transnational families. the chapter of linda tsung is concerned with the subject of second language learning in hong kong, with a particular focus on south asian immigrant children, their identity and struggle against discrimination. antonia rubino analyzes code-switching of an intergenerational conversation in a multilingual, sicilianaustralian family. chapters written by ahmar mahboob, nerida jarkey and wei wang analyze the publishing industry as a means of promoting certain ideologies, identities and lifestyles. mahboob's research is concerned with pakistani school textbooks, particularly with biographies presented therein and the limited number of models offered to students. research of jarkey is concerned with identity management by the housewife's companion, a japanese women's magazine, largely responsible for promoting the image of “professional housewife.” wang also presents an analysis of the contents of a magazine, the chinese duzhe, popular mostly among the underpriviledged. the researcher undertakes analysis of narration and of formation of narrative identity. dwi noverini djenar looks at teen literature in indonesia through the theoretical lens of style analysis. the main point of focus is authorial identity of teen literature writers. the chapter written by sue starfield is concerned with negotiating identity in academic writing in english, with particular attention to the use of the first person singular, “i”. the piece is based largely on the author's own publishing and teaching experience and explores the theme of presence and absence of academic author in text. the chapter by caroline lipovsky is focused on the subject of professional identity constructed through curriculum vitae. research, gathered in france, underlines importance and analyzes techniques of linguistic creation of identity in the process of applying for job. the following chapter, by zuocheng zhang, also analyzes the subject of professional identity. the focus here is the unfolding and creation of professional identity among business english students at a chinese university. jianxin liu presents his research on online social visibility through the case study of a chinese female blogger. the researcher analyzes the blog through the lens of performativity and indicates how the blog assists the user in creating identity beyond social class. the anthology is concludes with cynthia d. nelson's chapter, devoted to the subject of stage identity. the author states the need for linguists to explore other modes of communication, presenting the idea of “performed research.” one could expect that an anthology comprising such a broad variety of subjects is a work lacking consistency. it is true that many authors did refer to different theories, and their research was based on different varieties of data. it comes as a pleasant surprise, though, that the editors put much effort into making the anthology accessible. articles concerned with similar subjects are grouped together, in a manner which may at first appear counterintuitive. chapters are not grouped according to the geographic or cultural region they are concerned with, and so, for example, several chapters based on chinese data appear in several places of the anthology, but turns out to be well thought of, given structural or theoretical similarities. what could make the book more accessible is distinguishing thematic sections. abandoning these was a conscious decision of the editors, who wanted to maintain the conversational style of meetings and workshops in which the anthology was conceived. it should be added, that the introductory chapter explains the structure of the anthology in a very lucid manner. editors of the anthology, given the common subject of language and identity, possibly had to deal with instances of repetitive paragraphs between chapters. it would not be uncommon for more than one researcher to refer at length to the same theory. it is visible, though, that information exchange between members of the editorial team, as well as between authors themselves, was kept at a very high level. not only are there no repetitions, authors often refer to works published in the same volume, whenever a theory proposed by another author is of significance. authors contributing their chapters are, with no exception, experts in their fields, and base their contributions on very sound research. fieldwork, being the method of obtaining data for some chapters, was conducted recently, a circumstance that makes the publication of much value to anthropologists interested in respective fields. competence of authors, whose contributions are based on analysis of literary sources, is also obvious. chapters based on literary data contain valuable historical introductions. rafal kleczek is a sanskritologist pursuing his phd in indian theories of cognition at the university of hyderabad. besides sanskrit, his interests include tamil, linguistic and political anthropology, and comparative mythology. © 2015 rafal kleczek microsoft word 239-735-1-sm-2.docx 1 pirates, insurers, traders, diviners: encountering economies of somali piracy by vivian chenxue lu dua, jatin. captured at sea: piracy and protection in the indian ocean. vol. 3. university of california press, 2019. isbn: 9780520305205 pp. 264 keywords: piracy, insurance, capitalism, globalization, indian ocean in the context of the intensified global circulations of people, commodities, and capital, captured at sea examines striking moments of contemporary rupture that have seized the global imagination and international headlines-somali piracy and hostage-taking along the ample channels of the indian ocean. the rise of somali piracy in the waters off the horn of africa between 2007 and 2012 represented a peculiar form of global interruption; rather than simply the seizure of cargo, whose value is limited to the cargo itself, the hijack-and-ransom of ships and crew instead generated millions of dollars of value through ransom, demurrage, and negotiation. through dynamic and original ethnographic work, captured at sea traces a host of actors ensnared by moments of pirate encounter, ranging from sailors and somali kin networks to pirate syndicates, powerful insurance corporation brokers, traders of the stimulant khat, shipping conglomerates, militaries and state intelligence agents, nato warships, post-9/11 private security contractors, south asian dhow crewmen, negotiators, and diviners. captured at sea deftly illuminates how this multi-billion dollar economy of value emerges through a complex global web of liability that entangles transnational insurance industries, centuries-old indian ocean credit and trading systems, and globalized containerized commodity flows. 2 as anthropology experiences renewed interest in commodity circulation and theories of value in contemporary capitalism, dua skillfully centers piracy as an aperture to examine how parallel, overlapping, contemporaneous regimes of value are forced into contact and fleeting moments of commensuration through ransom-based piracy, however incomplete. central to the book is the concept of protection; in addition to contextualizing the practices of somali pirates in a long history of pastoralism along the indian ocean coasts, the concept of protection analytically illuminates how the varied actors understand and legitimize their actions. furthermore, tracing logics of protection through varied domains demonstrates how “otherwise quite distinct locations with different participants, histories, demands and infrastructures become legible to one another” and “transforms the story of piracy into an alternative form of connectivity and possibility” (21). each chapter focuses on a distinct albeit overlapping world, beginning with how somali mobility at sea emerges in relation to social systems on land. we quickly see that somali piracy is less a story of desperate ragtag handfuls of men making do with state failure, as popular media and academic accounts portray, but rather one that emerges from a long history of making livelihoods along the “pastoral commons” of the indian ocean and its coasts (44). captured at sea situates the intersection of long indian ocean trade histories and moral economies of social protection in somalia in the wake of colonial and imperial social and ecological conquest. by tracing the transformation of property regimes through the colonial and postcolonial periods, piracy is contextualized as one competing mode of value capture and redistribution by multiple forms of authority, from colonial and postcolonial states to kin-based clan and lineage claims. it is this context that strong systems of kin-based diya groups organize unpredictability, accountability, and redistribution in somali social life. a focus on somali social systems such as diya demonstrates the ways in which pirate sojourns and kidnap-and-ransom strategies actually require a relatively high degree of social stability to take shape and succeed. diya mediates minor incidents between people, which we see operating in one instance in the book like insurance in a car accident, while also facilitating immense systems of debt, credit, protection, and adjudication between individuals and large groups of people. along with diya, the book examines the adjacent east african khat trade, another significant economy of obligation that both anchors mobility while also being a space of “ephemeral opportunity and equally of ruination” (84). the buzz of chewing khat also facilitates 3 emboldening socialities between men, sparking and normalizing high risk-taking endeavors like ransom and capture on the seas. indeed, the striking image of the somali pirate that emerges in captured at sea is the figure of an indebted man, imbricated in systems of expectation and protection even before journeying out to sea, or in the words of one interlocutor, “even before a pirate leaves land he is already in debt. the supplies, the boat, the khat they chew, it is all owned by different people. becoming a pirate is about becoming indebted. that’s why all these young men can never stop going to sea” (80). as the ethnographic lens moves towards the world of counter-piracy and the shining corporate domains of maritime insurance agencies in london, the book turns its critiques towards imperial modes of controlling capitalist circulation and more recent geopolitical developments in the militarized infrastructures of the global war on terror. captured at sea strikingly highlights the historical and contemporary conjoined relationship between sovereignty and violence in staking claim to the ocean and its profits. in its most recent iteration, counterpiracy initiatives enable the partnership of global insurance corporations and state militaries to claim legitimacy in regulating oceanic space and its commercial flows. beyond simply being the interruption of global flows, somali pirates skillfully force encounter, inserting themselves into transnational circuits of capital and forging new kinds of connectivity and claims to profit of multi-billion dollar industries. of potential particular interest to contemporary anthropologists of capitalism is the book’s exploration of ransom market-making that carefully parses out the process of how intermediaries transform the practice of capture into a materialized ransom payment. strikingly, ransom-and-capture is not a strategy that necessarily guarantees profit but secures a frame through which profit may be possible by forcing encounter. in this context, insurers, negotiators, and intermediaries do not simply mediate the market for ransoms; they create the possibility of the market itself, by enabling “an encounter between worlds that are in fact mirrored and overlapping” (123). in this sense, piracy forces moments of reckoning that generates value in its ability to qualitatively shift a regime of value, opening up new political claims and vocabulary that questions the validity of existing regimes of value. interrogating piracy through the lens of “economies of protection” moves beyond narratives of somali state failure or exceptionalism, instead lifting the frame to incorporate a whole array of moving components and mobile actors – south asian crewmen, post-911 american mercenaries, khat traders, state and corporate actors in the global war on terror 4 security apparatus, shipping conglomerates, london insurance companies. the last chapter of captured at sea considers the intimate and fraught relation between somali pirates and the south asian dhow boat crew they often hijack as intermediary vehicles for accessing larger container ships. the unexpected intimacy of forced cohabitation amongst the hijackers and hijacked on the dhow creates a fragile yet dense daily sociality that involves sharing food, media, living quarters, and sea-faring skills, transforming both parties involved. these interactions, fleeting yet transformative, exemplify the acute contingency of the power of somali piracy, which at once captured the attention and profits of the contemporary world’s most powerful geopolitical actors while also being extremely precariously positioned towards the bottom end of global inequality. this sense of contingency and complexity is central to each chapter of the book, which illustratively interweaves accessible and gripping ethnographic work with long duree historical threads, genealogies of juridical categories, and anthropological theory, making captured at sea an engaging and rigorous example of contemporary ethnography of law and capitalism. vivian chenxue lu is a postdoctoral associate in african studies, yale university (until june 2020). she will be an assistant professor in anthropology at fordham university starting july 2020. © 2020 vivian chenxue lu deciphering wak’as: exploring the sacred from an andean perspective review by matthew piscitelli the archaeology of wak’as: explorations of the sacred in the pre-columbian andes by tamara l. bray (editor) university press of colorado, 2015 over the last twenty years, there has been a resurgence of interest in exploring the ideological aspects of our past. archaeologists have adopted nuanced and theoretically sophisticated approaches to religion and symbolism. most recently, many have participated in the so-called “ontological turn” (henare et al. 2007: 7-12) whereby scholars move away from cartesian dualism and instead embrace non-western ontologies. as pauketat (2012: 181) relates, “the religions of ancient america were based on relationship ontologies that lacked rigid distinctions between animate and inanimate powers or human and non-human agencies.” this “return of animism,” or new animism (pauketat 2012: 181), parallels theoretical trends in ethnography towards “ontological perspectivism” (viveiros de castro 2004). in the edited volume entitled the archaeology of wak’as, tamara l. bray brings together specialists from archaeology, art history, ethnography, linguistics, and history to conduct a unique study of precolumbian conceptions of the sacred. the authors use andean wak’as as a point of departure for insightful discussions of materiality, agency, and personhood that are firmly grounded in cutting-edge anthropological theory. the archaeology of wak’as is a product of a session at the society for american archaeology annual meetings as well as a colloquium at dumbarton oaks. however, this volume demonstrates a particular theoretical coherence not always found within edited works that emerge from conference symposia. the chapters are divided into five parts, which are presented like archaeological strata with each section delving deeper into the past. in part i, bray provides an introductory chapter that clearly orients the reader to the subject matter—andean wak’as—and contextualizes the volume within broader anthropological discussions. according to bray, wak’as can be referred to generally as “sacred things” ranging from miniature figurines to features on the landscape. while each author defines wak’as slightly differently, within andean communities wak’as are understood as non-human “persons” with communicative capabilities that served vital roles in social interactions. as bray carefully articulates, the volume seeks to identify non-human “persons” archaeologically in order to understand social dynamics in human-wak’a interactions. part ii consists of two chapters that adopt a contemporary lens for their studies of andean wak’as. in chapter 2, allen draws on her own extensive body of ethnographic fieldwork to emphasize how wak’as were animated objects with “capacities, moods, and appetites” (p. 24). she resurrects the term “animism” while arguing for a broader application of the amerindian concept. allen recognizes the temporal salience of wak’as and adopts a perspectivist approach to demonstrate their importance within inka culture. in chapter 3, mannheim and salas conduct a sophisticated linguistic analysis of the term wak’a that also engages ethnographic and historical data. they provide an exceptional explanation of the complexities of the term and emphasize close relationship with food circulation and cohabitation, which are both foundations of quechua sociality. together, these chapters serve as an excellent starting point for the archaeological studies that follow. part iii deals with the subject of wak’as in the time of the inkas. chase’s contribution (chapter 4) provides a smooth transition from the ethnographic focus of part ii by arguing that definitions of wak’a are historically and regionally contextual. in chapter 5, makowski compares two archaeological sites in the lurin valley to demonstrate how the inka used wak’as and the built environment as part of their political strategy. by constructing a new sacred geography the inka legitimized their rule and reformed the lurin valley into a “pantry” for imperial ceremonial facilities. in chapter 6, kosiba shifts focus to the inka heartland by using evidence from ollantaytambo to investigate the social practices and environmental transformations through which the inka assembled their capital in cuzco. kosiba artfully demonstrates that inka political strategy encompassed more than capturing natural resources; rather, the inka attempted to dominate nature itself. chapters 7-9 deviate from the landscape perspective and instead focus on specific types of wak’as. in chapter 7, dean provides one of the most convincing examples of non-human personhood by focusing on wank’as (or huancas), which are stone features that andean communities perceived as guardians watching over the people and land within their viewsheds. the final two chapters of part iii by meddens and mcewan incorporate archaeological and ethnohistoric data to illustrate how the inka projected imperial social order and power through ceremonial architecture and portable objects. part iv probes the “deeper histories” of the andean past as the authors take on the perilous task of identifying and interpreting pre-inka wak’as. nevertheless, both cook (chapter 10) and janusek (chapter 11) cautiously proceed through the available archaeological evidence. cook traces a long history of temple architecture that culminated in the d-shaped shrines found at several sites attributed to the wari culture. archaeologists studying the wari frequently make comparisons with the inka, particularly with regards to antecedents, but cook’s contribution is unique for her convincing argument that buildings also possess personhood and have subjectivity. in chapter 11, janusek uses recent data from the contemporary tiwanaku site of khonkho wankane to describe richly decorated stone monoliths that he suggests are “proto-wak’as.” janusek adopts a materiality approach to emphasize the importance of stone to political action and ritual practice in the andes. part v consists of a concluding chapter by john r. topic. despite the title of this section (concluding thoughts), topic’s contribution does not serve as a summary of the preceding chapters. instead, he expands the discussion with his own research focused at a wak’a known as catequil. although his analysis articulates much of the common ground among the other andeanists in the volume, a true concluding chapter would have better stimulated further thought. the archaeology of wak’as offers the most clear and insightful exploration of andean ontologies and notions of the sacred that i have read thus far. the edited volume is masterfully organized and exemplifies current theoretical trends in anthropology. although there was potential to incorporate additional examples from outside the andes (or even the ancient americas) in many of the chapters, such broad cross-cultural comparisons may not have been the intention of the authors. nevertheless, this book belongs on the shelves of any scholar interested in pre-columbian religion and symbolism. references cited henare, amiria, martin holdraad, and sari wastell (editors) 2007. thinking through things: theorising artefacts ethnographically. london: routledge. pauketat, timothy r. 2012. an archaeology of the cosmos: rethinking agency and religion in ancient america. london: routledge. viveiros de castro, eduardo 2004. exchanging perspectives: the transformation of objects into subjects in amerindian ontologies. common knowledge 10(3): 463-484. matthew piscitelli (ph.d., university of illinois at chicago) is a research associate at the field museum in chicago, illinois. his research is focused on the role of religion in the development of complex societies. matthew's current project explores early ceremonial architecture along the north central coast of peru: https://www.facebook.com/pages/caballete-archaeological-researchproject/904840589573610 © 2015 matthew piscitelli https://www.facebook.com/pages/caballete-archaeological-research-project/904840589573610 https://www.facebook.com/pages/caballete-archaeological-research-project/904840589573610 brazil’s “nation” of st. francis review by matthew meyer spiritual currency in northeast brazil by lindsey king university of new mexico press, 2014 in the backlands of northeastern brazil, where vatican catholicism has long vied with “folk” religious practices for the loyalty of the people, there is a saying that the holy trinity is not the father, the son, and the holy spirit, but instead st. francis, god, and padre cícero. if this saying defines a tenuous relationship to the catholic church, a similarly distant relationship to the brazilian state is expressed in the idea of a “nation of st. francis” that gathers together and protects those marginalized by brazilian society. faced with a distant church and a neglectful state, these people turn to st. francis to work miracles in their lives, and, when he does so, they repay him with pilgrimages and votive offerings. this situation forms the backdrop of lindsey king’s new book, spiritual currency in northeastern brazil. king’s text foregrounds the production of milagres, a category of votive offerings (ex-votos) made by pilgrims to the shrine of st. francis of wounds (são francisco das chagas) in canindé, ceará state, brazil. these milagres (“miracles”) are hugely variable in form, but they most often use wooden carvings to represent body parts, telling the story of a malady from which the pilgrim has been cured, and are deposited at the shrine as payment of a “promise” (promessa), understood as a contract between the supplicant and the saint. the many ways to pay a promise to st. francis include “women cutting off their beautiful hair, people circumambulating the basilica on their knees, purchasing and lighting candles, [and] carrying heavy crosses.” a bewildering array of votive objects are offered, too, from “x rays, sonogram pictures, biopsy results, contact lens cases, saline drip bottles, and disposable syringes” to “army uniforms, soccer balls and jerseys, body casts, false teeth, orthodontic retainers…pieces of machinery, spark plugs, roofing tiles, leg braces, orthopedic shoes” and rural products, presumably in thanks for good harvests: “bottles of oil made from castor beans and carnauba palms, dried corn stalks, jars of beans, dried gourds …manioc meal, and machetes and hoes.” the most common way, though, to generate the “spiritual currency” to make good on one’s promise to the saint “is by creating a mimetic ex-voto representative of the promise and depositing it in the receptacle in the casa dos milagres” at canindé (which, after assisi, is the largest shrine to st. francis in the world). king catalogs, in both the text and the dozens of black-and-white photographs that accompany it, the variety of subjects (animals, houses, or occupational equipment materials) and media (clay, paper, cloth, wax, styrofoam, and others) that figure in the devotional forms she observed in canindé, but she’s most interested in the carved wooden representations of the human body made by pilgrims to repay st. francis for healing their afflictions. these carvings – detached heads, hands, feet, hearts, and other body parts—are the primary focus both because they’re the most prevalent, according to king, and, especially, because they allow her to discuss what she really wants to talk about: what the making and offering of mimetic milagres “reveals about the ‘dis-ease’ of the social body from the perspective of the northeast’s rural population.” the portrait of brazil’s northeast that king develops harmonizes with familiar imagery of a drought-stricken region laden with natural suffering made worse by inhumanity. king did not, at first, appreciate the enormity of human misery in the region. in the book’s second chapter, she narrates her arrival in the field, telling of a sick cat she found in the street, and of the dismay she felt when no one could be bothered to help her care for it. it led her to a revelation: “i realized that in a situation where existence can be a daily struggle, where just getting a child to live through infancy can be an accomplishment, caring if a stray cat lived or died was a luxury these people could not afford. i got it. … shaken and humbled, i finally began to see, and i began to be an anthropologist.” the piles of arms and legs accumulating in the shrine’s offering bin began to speak to her, and she began to collect the stories of the pilgrims who came to pay st. francis. while some of the pilgrims bore obvious signs of physical trauma, king found that most of those who came to canindé sought relief from “problems that might be directly construed as socially related.” these include headaches, temporary paralysis, and “culture-bound” afflictions such as susto (enervating fright) and encostos, burdensome spirits that weigh one down. in the “folk” catholicism of many northeasterners, it is these complaints of everyday life that are the focus of ritual activity, rather than salvation in the afterlife. king puts repeated emphasis on this point throughout the text in support of the notion that the carved offerings are both markers of individual suffering and, by virtue of their collective ritual presentation, “metasocial commentary” on the inequality that produces the suffering. this quest to descry the meaning of milagre-making both energizes and confounds king’s efforts. it leads her to inspired passages, such as this one, where she waxes poetic on the connections between illness and social marginalization: “where does rage, or for that matter any emotion, have to go but to turn inward? you want to talk back, but you cannot, so the voice disappears. you cannot look at instances of injustice anymore, so your vision spontaneously disappears. when you long to raise your arms against your employer but cannot, paralysis sets in.” in this light, one can appreciate king’s likening of the milagre bin at canindé, with its ever-swelling testament to the suffering of the poor and disenfranchised, to a kind of “flag” for the “nation of st. francis” that shows them they’re not alone. but the interpretive imperative sometimes seems to go too far: repeated references to the this-worldly concerns of folk catholicism make a puzzle of their intense religious devotion – a puzzle that’s too easily solved here as veiled political speech, despite passages that demonstrate king’s understanding of the interpenetration of the everyday and the mystical in brazil. caught between her stated aim simply to tell the stories of canindé’s pilgrims, and pressures from unknown quarters to explain, king won’t satisfy all her readers, but still teaches us a lot about making milagres. matthew meyer earned his phd from the university of virginia in 2014 with a study of folk catholic use of ayahuasca in the brazilian amazon. he lives in rural northern california with his family. © 2015 matthew meyer 1 unfolding the paradoxes of a modern liberal ‘secular’ state: studying egypt review by sania ismailee religious difference in a secular age: a minority report by saba mahmood princeton university press, 2015 saba mahmood presents an interesting analysis of how secularism and modern liberal state, contrary to their claims of maintaining religious harmony, have exacerbated “interfaith inequalities” (2). moreover, she argues that their claim of “religious neutrality” (2) is false and that the modern state interferes in religious life. mahmood bases her study in egypt where coptic orthodox christians, the minorities, are treated as second-class citizens despite their contribution to egypt’s past. she points out that while some may think the reason for this is the “inherent intolerance” (1) of islam, she suggests it is in fact an effect of modern secular governance. this might seem paradoxical but the truth is that in egypt, the modern-state has polarized religious differences, rather than become the solution to religious intolerance and conflict. the book explores the modern state’s relationship to religion and how the state’s regulation of religion affects religious identities. mahmood suggests there are certain features of secularism that are common to both the west and the middle east. the bifurcation of western and non-western secularism which considers only the former as accomplished ignores “the shared history of the institutionalization of the modern state” (9) which is premised on the public-private divide. mahmood conceptualizes “political secularism” as “the modern state’s power to reorganize substantive features of religious life, stipulating what religion is or ought to be, assigning its proper content, and disseminating concomitant subjectivities, ethical frameworks, and quotidian practices” (3). the constitution of egypt acknowledges religious equality and religious freedom as virtues and the courts entertain challenges to discriminatory policies. egypt shares features with its euro-atlantic liberal counterparts and mahmood is not wrong in studying egypt through a western conceptualization of secularism. one problem exemplified by the egyptian case is that the state is not really neutral because islam does play an important role in recognizing social identities (muslim, people of the book, or others). sharia legal concepts and principles are also invoked in juridical decisions, just as euro-atlantic states have christianity at their center. mahmood quotes jurgen habermas who says that “universalistic egalitarianism is a direct legacy” (8) of judeo-christian ethics. religious difference in a secular age traces the evolution of political secularism in egypt through the institutionalization of five ideaspolitical and civil liberty, minority rights, religious liberty, public order, and the public-private divide as spelled out in egyptian legal framework. in each of the chapters, 2 mahmood highlights the inequalities faced by coptic christians and bahais. her analysis tries to show that inequalities arise out of the way the modern nation-state deals with religious differences. mahmood is clear that political secularism is not an expression of state neutrality. egypt is a secular state but the manner in which the image of a nation is constructed presupposes islamic ideals. in the first part of her book, mahmood sets up the historical framework to understand the current interreligious conflicts in egypt. in chapter 1 of part 1 “minority rights and religious liberty: itineraries of conversion”, mahmood traces the evolution of the concepts that are at the heart of political secularismreligious liberty and minority rights. she is interested in knowing how religious differences are regulated in modern secular governments. europe and the middle east had overlapping histories which have shaped their modern trajectories, be it their political concepts or institutions. this chapter’s discussion is centered on three major historical shifts. first, in the nineteenth century when europe asserted its autonomy over ottoman empire and undermined the sovereignty of the latter to protect minority rights of christians. in turn, a weak ottoman empire’s response to re-assert its sovereignty over its territory. second, the inclusion of religious liberty and minority rights in the vocabulary of civil and political rights by the end of the nineteenth century when nation-states were institutionalized. third, the conceptualization of minority rights with the setting up of the league of nations and the dominance of rights discourse in international law. by the end of this chapter it is clear that mahmood calls for viewing religious liberty and minority rights outside the framework of rights by placing it within a “broader field of secular political praxis” (32) so that the role of modern state as an arbiter of religious differences and religious identity is visible. chapter 2 “to be or not to be a minority” centers on the problem of categorizing coptic orthodox christians as a “minority” in egypt. mahmood explores the designation “minority” in the current egyptian scenario to delve deeper into the problem. generally, “minority” is conceptualized with reference to linguistic, ethnic or religious identity. however, the egyptian government doesn’t follow this logic. both the egyptian government and the coptic orthodox church do not consider copts as minorities even when evidence shows that copts are at the receiving end of “systemic discrimination” due to their religious identity (66). this chapter highlights the problem of liberal secularism in addressing equality to minority as a religious group on one hand, and being neutral to religion on the other hand. further, it analyzes the problem of assigning minority status to copts in late colonial (191123) and postcolonial (1952present) egypt with taking into account the question of ethnicity and minority representation. in the three chapters of part 2, she discusses the peculiar cases of discrimination faced by two religious minorities in egypt – the bahais and coptic orthodox christians. in chapter 3, entitled “secularism, family law, and gender inequality” mahmood states, “permitting muslims, christians and jews to have their own separate family laws is one of the primary ways the egyptian state has enshrined religious difference in its legal and political structure” (115). drawing from islamic principles, the egyptian state extends recognition, and by that virtue special privileges, to “people of the book” which include christians and jews while it denies special privileges to bahais and shi’as. since religion and family belong to the private sphere, any attempt by the state to reform family laws is perceived as an “illegitimate intervention in communal affairs” (115). however, allowing space for practice of religionbased family-law is not a symbol of “incomplete secularism” (148) of the egyptian society. the chapter explores the histories of muslim and coptic family laws and their manifestation in egypt. it also deliberates on the consequences of interfaith marriage and conversion over muslimchristian relations in egypt. 3 the controversy behind official recognition of bahai faith is the central theme in chapter 4, “religious and civil inequality”. exclusion of bahai faith from “people of the book” presented a peculiar case of religious discrimination in egypt. egyptian courts invoke religious and secular concepts to regulate the religious difference of bahais. mahmood undertakes an analysis of the rulings and judgements issued by egyptian courts (in the first part of the chapter) and european court of human rights (in the second part of the chapter) to show that regulation of religious minorities in both the western and non-western societies amount to promotion of the majority’s religious “values and sensibilities” (150) at the expense of the minorities. she analyzes the legal grammar employed by secular liberal states and the publicprivate divide of religious practice and religious belief at the background. the puzzlement with the paradox of the modern secular liberal state’s role in ensuring civil and political equality (which is indifferent to religion) to everyone and regulating religious difference in social life such that the majority’s values are preserved without discriminating the religious minorities is a broader theme addressed in this chapter. the concluding chapter “secularity, history, literature” marks a break from the previous chapters. instead of discussing secularism as a legal political concept it focuses on secularity which is “the shared set of background assumptions, attitudes, and dispositions that imbue secular society and subjectivity” (181). according to mahmood one’s sensibility regarding what religion should be in the modern world follows from secularity. the assumptions of secularity, though difficult to explore, unravel at the helm of controversies. this chapter focuses on exploring various aspects of secularity as has emerged in egypt with the publication of the arabic novel azazeel which comments on the birth of coptic orthodox christians. the novel, written by a muslim author, is critical of the church as authoritarian and thus, offended the church. mahmood tries to understand this controversy beyond the boundaries of muslim-christian strife. i think saba mahmood’s religious difference in a secular age: a minority report beautifully addresses the problem of secularism as a concept across western and non-western societies. she creatively manages to comment on the political tussles that arise in the modern liberal state of egypt as it tried to manage religious differences. she successfully highlights the paradoxes in a modern nationstate to bracket “religion” on one hand and “privilege of the majoritarian religion” on the other hand. it is a well-researched treatise for anyone who wishes to understand secularism as a universal concept. bibliography habermas, jurgen. time of transitions. polity press. cambridge. 2016. sania ismailee is a doctoral fellow in the department of humanities and social sciences at the indian institute of technology delhi. her research area is political philosophy. © 2018 sania ismailee milpa, forest, garden: maya agro-ecosystems review by alessandro questa the maya forest garden: eight millennia of sustainable cultivation of the tropical woodlands by anabel ford & ronald nigh left coast press, 2015 the maya forest garden is an impressive book on environmental and human history in the maya area. i dare say it also constitutes a much-awaited response to the contagious yet uninformed apocalyptic notion of a “maya collapse.” indeed, the contradictory perception that glorifies ancient maya culture as it ignores or even deems modern maya practices as “primitive” is bewildering. this analysis can be paired to relevant historical ecology studies in other parts of the world (flannery 2002, gammage 2011), which show how non-western societies have had a much deeper and long-lasting success in managing their landscape than, well, us. in the case at hand, this success is marked by the continued and skillful practice around the maya milpa system, an expanded mesoamerican knowledge-practice, defined as a diverse agroforestry polyculture based on maize and managed in long cycles that integrate agricultural and domestic practices to forest growth. such practice, preserved by local gardeners, stands as the key strategy for long lasting sustainability in the region. the milpa system, according to the authors, more than just disturbing local ecosystems, has worked with tropical forests becoming integral to their sustainability today. relying on a multifarious array of sources, from pollen fossil analysis, lake core samples and early spanish chronicles to ethnographic and archaeological research data, ford and nigh — a couple of renowned seasoned scholars on the maya — propose to look at the currently mega diverse tropical forests of belize, guatemala and mexico as a human managed environment via cultural practices around food production, specifically controlled fire and felling of vegetation paired to polycrop agriculture. by doing a survey of the last 8,000 years of human inhabitation in the area, the authors challenge recent assumptions about a maya civilizational collapse due to deforestation, overpopulation and environmental abuse. they instead pose that eurocentric assumptions have prevented a real understanding on maya knowledge and traditional farming practices as determinant to the conservation and expansion of tropical forests. western ideas about production (arable land, intensive agriculture) together with urbanization, centralization, population increase and social stratification as tacitly desirable features that mark somehow a “successful” civilization have judged maya farming — a careful territorial management between owner spirits, milpa gardens, forestry and controlled fire — as simply a brutish “slash-and-burn”method. furthermore, these eurocentric ideas backed by an agroindustrial economy have solidified as an “ecological imperialism,” turning detrimental in the region by forcing human concentration, and relying for food production on over exploitation of land and labor, and the expansion of pastures and plows lands. the book starts by offering a historical and ecological background of the region over the last 8,000 years, briefly discussing the relations between population, land, resources, and political factions in maya chronology. in short, against the deforestation and collapse theses, the authors point out the evident presence of a diverse and abundant ecosystem, with numerous trees and plants species directly beneficial to humans. they argue that what we imagine as a sudden “collapse” is rather a long process characterized by the abandonment of certain practices such as dense population, monumental architecture, and warfare in favor of others such as the emergence of a “galactic” form of urbanism, based on decentralized smaller farming units. this serves as a backdrop for understanding how milpa gardens operate as a high-performance agro-ecosystem that relate diverse household resources (horticulture, hunting, bee keeping) with forest growth and human-spirit relations in petén, yucatan and lacandon forest areas. milpa gardens are not only connected to different local beliefs (a spiritual landscape and a trans-species moral order), but are also highly flexible and can be intensified or varied in many ways according to the population’s needs. the maya forest is the result of dynamic and resilient historical ecology making a diversified landscape. maya farmers, the authors claim, must not be seen any longer as a destructive presence in an imagined pristine forest but as spiritual caretakers and co-creators of said forest. in the following chapter, the authors present paleo-environmental data, mainly from pollen fossil, precipitation and lake core soils, to destabilize the idea of historical environmental destruction by human population. in the last 8,000 years, the region has indeed drastically changed from arid to humid and temperate with long periods of irregular precipitation. such changes however marked the development of the milpa with controlled fire as a combined form of restoration agriculture, permitting for much carbon to be reintroduced in the local soils allowing forest regeneration. forest and milpa gardens are thus integral. in chapter 4, ford and nigh describe the life of maya people during the late classic period (around 1,500 years ago), in the archaeological site of el pilar, at the border between belize and guatemala. the authors estimate, based on archaeological evidence, a high residential density and population (180,000 people, between 137-142 persons per square kilometer) showing different levels of intensification and size in the surrounding milpa gardens. in chapter 5, the authors offer a comprehensive list of trees and plants dominant in the local forest and beneficial to humans. if milpa is integral to forest conservation, then the forest is key to both milpa and human reproduction. the authors offer a characterization of inhabited upland dry lands in contrast with uninhabited lowlands and wetlands to calculate an approximate parity between human population, milpa and forestlands. they conclude that even if in the thickly inhabited upper dry lands would have had a heavy impact on some trees in the surrounding forests, in the vast lowlands and wetlands with peripheral human population, the impact was kept light. in chapter 6, the authors pose the problem of conservation as a eurocentric practice and the dangers for the actual continuity of maya forests as long as a globalized economy based on intensive production and biodiversity reservoirs keep maya people, and their profound knowledge, out of the picture. it becomes necessary to explore further the co-creative relations between maya people and the forest in order to visualize possible routes for their continuation under the pressure of agro-industrial, mining, lodging, and oil interests. in short, the book is a timely multidisciplinary exploration of not only the rich historical ecology of the maya forest garden, but also of maya culture, history and knowledge – and the risk of loosing all of it. the value of explorations like the one offered by this study need to be — for the future of any form of sustainable humanity and in my modest opinion—continued. references cited flannery, tim 2002. the eternal frontier: an ecological history of north america and its peoples. new york: grove press. gammage, bill 2011. the biggest estate on earth: how aborigines made australia. melbourne: allen & unwin. alessandro questa is a cultural anthropologist in the making at the university of virginia. he works with otomi and nahua people in mexico, writing on issues such as spiritual kinship, ritual territoriality, masks, and shamanism. he is currently writing his dissertation on nahua dances as models to engage a threatened environment in the highlands of puebla, mexico. © 2015 alessandro questa theory can be fun, or how we learn from the past in 14 easy chapters review by thomas f. brunton archaeological theory in a nutshell by adrian praetzellis left coast press, 2015 this book is easy to read, practical and funny. this book is about archaeological theory and post-modernism. aren’t the above sentences contradictory? not necessarily, and the author of death by theory (2011) once again sets out to entertain us with the aim of demystifying archaeological theory. he does it because he thinks one of the goals of archaeology is to “democratize the past.” i think he succeeds in his aim and prepares us to attain the goal. is the book perfect? no, its brevity by its nature leaves things out. he oversimplifies and generalizes in the early chapters (he admits it) but he makes up for some of it later. in chapter 1, he discusses the problems with theory books including tldr (too long didn’t read), which doesn’t describe this book – most chapters are about ten pages long. this, the longest chapter, includes discussion of how archaeology works and the history of archaeological theory. the rest of the book is brief and organized. each of the remaining chapters starts out with a “what is _____?” and then an example. the overview often seems too brief but the examples are usually very helpful in illustrating how the theory has been applied archaeologically. there is a ‘sum up,’ ‘questions to discuss’ and ‘things to read’ at the end of each chapter. • the ‘sum up’ often has some interesting insight into the discussion. • there are too many questions to discuss at the end of several chapters for class room use and they are not numbered. in general they are more thought provoking than ‘prove you read the assignment.’ • things to read includes important stuff but there may be too many to be useful to beginners. there is a glossary, which is perhaps the most useful part of the book. and two indexes. so it seems like a text book, but doesn’t read like one. it could be used in an undergraduate course, but it can also be read by graduate students, the educated public and out-of-touch academics. chapter 2 covers neoevolutionism with a good discussion of teleology. he leaves out any discussion of darwinian archaeology – genes and memes as in shennan (2002) chapters 3 and 4 are on marxist and critical theory which i think go together. praetzellis simplifies marx in the beginning but deals better with his example of the ludlow massacre; just as marx provides a thicker description in the 18th brumaire (1852) then he does in his more theoretical works. chapter 5 postcolonialism is where the book really starts to shine – giving an intelligible voice to the ‘post …’ theorists. and archaeology is able to give a voice to the subaltern. chapters 6 and 7 give voices to other neglected groups. the chapter on feminist archaeology gives a quick overview of feminism, perhaps too quick. he leaves out some of the depth as well as the disagreement and controversy. the example for this section is what this awl means by specter (1993). praetzellis says it is great archaeology but many archaeologists don’t see it that way, like the reaction to ruth tringham’s house story (1991). the sum up is better. it includes the “add women and stir” metaphor and ends with a discussion of agency just as feminists don’t just dig up women, queer theory is not digging up homosexuals. according to praetzellis, it is a way for archaeologists to think way outside the box, making the familiar strange and the strange normal. chapters 8 and 9 cover structuralism and its descendants agency, structure and structuration. he defends structuralism despite its faults (deetz was a mentor) and provides a simplified version of the agency and structure theories. but where is bourdieu and practice theory? chapter 10 transgressive archaeologies and chapter 11 archaeological biography are both ways of communicating archaeology outside the normal academic mode. he made up these categories and they go along with queer theory and feminist story telling. it is a different way of telling the story of the past, just as science is a way of telling the most likely story (feder 1999). chapter 12 phenomenology and chapter 13 materiality discuss different ways of trying to understand what it felt like back then. praetzellis comes up with the great metaphor that phenomenology is like method acting. chapter 14 the next big thing, or where do we go from here? not the death of theory or some new paradigm shift because the creation myths of binford and then hodder are just that, myths. most archaeologists were not doing either one, partly because most in the us are crm (contract) archaeologist. he thinks to the future will be a more practical use of theory, no overt theory or pick and choose what theory or viewpoint fits. for the consumer this might mean more readable and people oriented texts. chapter 15 is what he calls a ‘postmodern phrasebook.’ it is an archeology theory glossary – potentially the most used part of the book. although a few words, like reify and praxis, were in the text but not in the glossary. conclusions. this book led me to a new understanding of some things i thought i understood and it cleared up some misconceptions. but it left out some things i think are important. i had more complaints about the sections i knew more about and was more satisfied with the sections i was unfamiliar with. i assume that readers with different interests than mine would discover the same phenomenon. praetzell is clearly sympathetic to many of the fringe or post-modern theories, but that may be why he writes so well about them. often people can’t explain theories that they don’t agree with, or understand very well. my notes had the repeating phrase – thought provoking. demystifying and democratizing? yes as in plain, easy to understand language. references cited deetz, james f. 1996. in small things forgotten: an archaeology of early american life. anchor books, new york. feder, kenneth. 1999. frauds, myths and mysteries: science and pseudoscience in archaeology, 3rd edn. mountain view, ca: mayfield. marx, karl 2008 [1852]. the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte. rockville, md: wildside press. also available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm praetzellis, adrian 2011. death by theory: a tale of mystery and archaeological theory. altamira press, lanham, massachusetts shennen, steven 2002. genes, memes and human history: darwinian archaeology and cultural evolution. thames & hudson. spector, janet 1993. what this awl means: feminist archaeology at a wahpeteton dakota village. minnesota historical society press, st. paul. tringham, ruth 1991. households with faces: the challenge of gender in prehistoric architectural remains. in joan gero and margaret (eds.) engendering archaeology: women in prehistory (pp. 93–131). basil https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm blackwell, cambridge, massachusetts. thomas f. brunton has done fieldwork in the us, england, denmark and sweden. he has been an adjunct and a shovel bum. he currently lives in sweden where he has been volunteering for the bjäre härads hembygdsförening, and also being a student again at akademi båstad. his research interests include the interactions of ethnicity and gender, the origins and maintenance of inequality, the archaeology of work and the landscape. © 2015 thomas f. brunton haunting tourism review by anne-marie d’hauteserre haunted heritage: the cultural politics of ghost tourism, populism and the past by michele hanks left coast press, 2015 this book offers a fascinating encounter with a practice that could render certain tourist destinations even more attractive by revealing their hidden historic secrets attributable not just to official heritage sites: heritagization or pseudo-history fit in well with tourism’s ability to stage fantastic simulacra. michele hanks’ text, however, dwells more profoundly with how “the ghost has a special role to play in making history” (p. 20). she demonstrates how it allows those who have felt neglected by official history and historical narratives to reconfigure and reinterpret power and knowledge. she articulates a reclaiming of public-space for the non-elite as “a class-based critique of the representations of the past.” as she underlines, visiting haunted sites and searching for ghostly presence raises important questions not just about history and heritage but also about, for example, what happens after death. the absence of proof positive does render the production of knowledge difficult for those who want to “reposition themselves as experts” and “challenge the orthodox production of historical knowledge” (p. 117), but it also opens ontological and epistemological spaces for spectrality and its believers, ignored until now. one feels drawn into and sympathetic to the cultural politics of ghost enthusiasts and their nationalist and populist roots and consequences. the book contains five chapters together with an introduction and a conclusion. it is richly filled with first person accounts by the author and by the participants. the introduction familiarizes the reader with many of the terms used as well as the practices examined in the following chapters. the author announces her aims, such as unveiling how ghosts do play a special role in making history or in refashioning the past for their own aims; how ghost tourism provides an embodied means of evidencing ghosts; what types of nationalism and modes of populism ghost hunters (etc.) engage for their politicosocial goals, even if they are only implicit. these are intertwined with discussions of ‘scholarly expertise’ of traditional historical accounts and amateur expertise performance in search of a different meaning and social acceptance. these threads run through the text, to the conclusion that the past, like other tourist destinations, “can be experientially known.” this is an excellent anthropological study of ghostly paranormal attractions but it seems its relationship to tourism as a widely shared practice is rather minute. tourism studies have taken on different epistemological turns within recent years to generate new meanings and anthropology has participated in the broadening of our understanding of the experiences and practices of tourists and of those who cater to them (xiao, jafari, cloke and tribe, 2013). the well-depicted practices of ghost tourists are of great interest to scholars of tourism but they do not qualify them as tourists. the author launches her discussion of ghost tourism with no working definition of the term, though we later learn that it is characterized by pleasure seeking (p. 64), an essentialist limited definition. leisurely travel is but one aspect of tourism. we do discover that each ghost tour “seems particularly bound to its city and country of origin” (p. 16): for a practice to qualify as touristic, it must be done sufficiently far away from one’s own area that one has to remain overnight. ghost tourism is also emerging as sustained and regular (p.45); tourism is not characterized by constancy but rather by volatility. tourism, for example, tends to be seasonal and to fluctuate according to global as well as local events. the author also claims that her work engages several significant areas of tourism and tourism research when it only superficially touches them. the study concentrates on english ghost tourism, mostly in central england, between manchester in the south and middleborough in the north. the guide books about ghosts and ghost tourism assume, according to the author, that travel is necessary to access haunted places, although there is no indication of distance travelled. there is mention of rare international travellers (and they all come from ex colonies of great britain) but most are ‘domestic’ tourists. would they not be rather ‘domestic visitors’ since “there will always be somewhere worthy of a visit” (p. 43)? it is translated by the author as an invitation to travel, but such an invitation (p.45) does not automatically translate into a tourist practice. it can also mean that one can find haunted places right around one’s own town or region. a visit to sites, haunted, ghostly or otherwise, within one’s own town or region is not considered tourism by most scholars of that topic. the traditional definition of tourism is that it involves the discretionary travel and temporary stay of persons away from their usual place of residence for one or more nights. the overnight stay distinguishes tourists from day-trippers (visitors) who exist in much larger numbers and underlines a different psychological orientation for tourists (leiper 1979). the touristic bears the relation to a ‘different’ place and to otherness as its central proposition (darbellay and stock 2015); so tourists inhabit and interpret places differently to local residents. it does involve a playful decoding of local practices, as in ghost tourism, so long as the haunted visits are far from home. tourists use discretionary time and money, another reason for the volatility of tourism but they (international or domestic) are net consumers within the areas visited, if they correspond to the definition above. tourists are welcome because they bring new money to a region, which is why tourism is considered an economic growth engine. local residents spend local money: they do not increase the amount circulating. the author does indicate that ghost walks and commercial ghost hunts are two forms of recreation, which would be the correct way of identifying the activity of most of their practitioners, as she describes it. the author then discusses how the particular kind of engagement by ghost tourists “disrupts the usual profile of tourists” (p. 122), certainly that of the 1970s (much of the tourism literature referred to dates back to the 1970s). tourists might have been passive voyeurs, concentrating their gaze as john urry (1990) had underlined, but embodied participation has been researched by many tourist scholars over the past 25 years (buda, d’hauteserre and johnston, 2014). some tourists engage in recreation while touring but not all. tourism is much more complex than a simple pleasureseeking activity, demonstrated by large participation in dark tourism, which the author sometimes mentions. much of this text does contribute to enriching our knowledge of one category, ghost tourists, as well as of more democratic forms of nostalgia. it is a great read whether you believe in ghosts and the paranormal, or not, and would be useful to scholars of heritage to broaden its present political ordering. even though it has not enriched the scholarly landscape of tourism, the text raises many issues of interest to students of anthropology. the author arouses sympathy for how a particular group of citizens seeks to manifest their presence on a national stage from which they feel marginalized, to “constitute an occult resistance to the erasure they experience” through the application of scientism (p. 168). the author enthusiastically concludes (even though she did admit just a few pages before that such critique might have limits) that heritage scholars and officials should collaborate with these ‘dangerous’ subversives of established canons. it could also engage researchers and students in tourism in a moral awakening to social change and transformation. references cited buda, m., d’hauteserre, a-m, and johnston, l. 2014. feeling and tourism studies. annals of tourism research, volume 46, issue 1, pages 102-114. darbellay, f. and stock, m. 2012. tourism as a complex interdisciplinary research. annals of tourism research, volume 39, issue 1, pages 1-114. leiper, n. 1979. the framework of tourism: towards a definition of tourism, tourist, and the tourist industry. annals of tourism research, volume 6, issue 4, pages 390-407. urry, j. 1990. the tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies. london: sage. xiao, h., jafari, j., cloke, p. and tribe, j. 2013. annals: 40:40 vision. annals of tourism research, volume 40, issue 1, pages 352-385. anne-marie d’hauteserre is the convenor of the tourism program in the school of social sciences at the university of waikato in new zealand. her main research interests are in critical issues raised by the development of tourism or by development based on tourism projects such as the indigenisation of tourism development in the french pacific or the urbanisation of the eastern paris basin by walt disney company and the french state. © 2015 anne-marie d’hauteserre 1 how to become part of anthropology review by stephanie mojica using anthropology in the world: a guide to becoming an anthropologist practitioner by riall w. nolan routledge, 2017 using anthropology in the world: a guide to becoming an anthropologist practitioner by riall w. nolan (2017) offers aspiring anthropologists a thorough look at the discipline as well as essential core competencies. unlike some career-oriented books, nolan’s work does not end with the reader having successfully finished graduate school. he walks future anthropologists not only through getting their first job, but also the nuances of building a long-term career. nolan, a professor at purdue university in indiana and author of other books such as development anthropology (routledge 2018) and anthropology in practice: building a career outside the academy (lynne rienner publishers 2013), has certainly seen many people’s success stories and pitfalls during his career. his voice throughout using anthropology in the world is authoritative yet still friendly, making every chapter a pleasure to read. this book is divided into five parts: the discipline, anthropological practice, preparation, finding employment, and career-building. part one is split into two chapters: “the discipline of anthropology” and “the world today and anthropology’s place in it.” in each chapter, nolan’s expertise is predominant without coming across as arrogant. the book’s use of tables, figures, subheadings, and bullet points are informative and give the eyes a break, and nolan also strategically utilizes informative yet succinct guest essayists. 2 the first chapter opens with a couple of questions to get the reader engaged, including how to explain anthropology to other people and how the discipline can help us understand people and perhaps even solve some of their problems. table 1.1, empirical and interpretive approaches to knowledge (p. 4), effectively helps illustrate nolan’s view that anthropology can be mostly interpretive but can still take advantage of the benefits of quantitative data. however, nolan does an outstanding job explaining why a number such as forty or even forty degrees celsius is meaningless without context. he continues the chapter with common methods to develop meaning in context. part of chapter two, “the world today and anthropology’s place in it,” is one of the few parts of the book that comes close being dull. some of the information about globalization is possibly unnecessary, though perhaps the author assumed not every reader would have a basic knowledge of it. this chapter’s primary strength is an informative and insightful narrative about how anthropologists should get more involved in policymaking. part two, anthropological practice, is comprised of three chapters. chapter three, “what is anthropological practice,” compellingly explains how anthropology is both a discipline and a profession. figure 3.1 (p. 28) and an informative narrative discuss the differences among academic, applied, and practicing anthropologists. nolan’s fourth chapter about the history of anthropology once again explains a little too much basic history — colonialism and world war ii — but gives a highquality account of nolan’s experiences in senegal in the peace corps in the 1960s (p. 45). chapter five details the many opportunities modern anthropologists have to practice their art and science, which include not-so-obvious options such as public relations and agriculture. the third part of using anthropology in the world is the literal and metaphorical center of the book with five chapters about vital topics such as preparing to become a professional anthropologist — which in nolan’s view includes but is not limited to graduate school. however, the chapter about grad school is the book’s eighth and one of the most helpful. the author goes into essential but not painfully prolonged detail about the importance of choosing the right advisor. chapter eight includes a short essay from brooke davis gibbs, who successfully completed her grad school studies online while working full-time (p. 82). while this is of course not the ideal route, this is the one part with which i really identified. because i am self-employed, i have more flexibility than perhaps the gibbs did — but studying virtually can be both all-consuming and isolating. i would recommend using anthropology in 3 the world to non-traditional students of all disciplines just because of the quality of this approximately one-page essay (p. 82). returning to a focus on all types of grad students, nolan further cements his demonstrated expertise and book organizational skills by providing a few high-quality resources on how to manage graduate school (p. 84). having more than one source of information regarding such a life-changing decision is important, especially for people early in their studies or considering entering grad school. nolan also provides an informative discussion, complete with some bullet points for tiring eyes, on the importance of creating professional development and strategic career plans sooner rather than later. chapters nine and ten both review vital core competencies, especially the importance of a good social science research methods foundation and having at least one practice-oriented work experience before completing grad school. nolan offers his expertise along with the expertise of several guest essayists about the nuances of networking and gaining applied experience in anthropology. once again, the author provides outside resources for interested readers to consult regarding networking (p. 107). part four, finding employment, again discusses the importance of career planning. nolan discusses the differences between academic and non-academic job searches. again, guest essayists give their perspectives about job hunting and once again that all-too-vital art and science of networking. however, given how important networking is to anthropology and similar disciplines, the content is not redundant. some people nowadays scoff at the idea of “finding yourself” and label it a new age philosophy, but nolan provides a list of bullet-pointed questions to help future anthropologists discover who they really are and what they want out of their lives (p. 121). again, the quality of the figures and the author’s style of writing make chapter eleven a must-read even for people currently working in the discipline. chapter thirteen, “identifying predominant capabilities,” opens with an easily understandable yet informative narrative, a figure, and a table on how to do a swot (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis in relation to an anthropological career (p. 137). the rest of the thirteenth chapter discusses all the important parts of a successful job application, including gathering key documents one has authored such as school papers, grant proposals, and articles. nolan wisely 4 recommends backing these up — basic advice, but always important to read once again. he also suggests keeping numerous versions of one’s cv and resume as well as cover letters for different types of jobs. chapter fourteen and the final chapter in part four, “securing employment,” discusses the different types of interviews. what separates this type of information from what other authors have written about is nolan’s advice that everyone should know how to explain what anthropology is. the author emphasizes the importance of not exaggerating one’s knowledge, but having ready-to-say answers about essential terms in the discipline. using anthropology in the world further advises readers to also have clear and simple examples to provide if necessary. nolan offers wisdom about combating stereotypes about “academics” (p. 157) and how to manage a job offer and salary negotiations. the fifth and final part of using anthropology in the world, career-building, discusses in three chapters what to do after accepting that first job offer. nolan acknowledges many universities do not teach students how to handle a job, and offers enriching bullet points about surviving that first year at work (p. 168). the author also covers workplace ethics, providing multiple resources from other authors as well as organizations such as the american anthropological association and the association of social anthropologists of the uk and commonwealth (p. 174 and p. 178). chapter sixteen, “navigating your career,” eloquently details how to handle early-career, mid-career, and late-career workplace stress as well as the difference between mistakes and failures. nolan sympathizes with those who have failed, noting that the longer someone is in a discipline the more likely they are to actually fail at something. he returns to his usual style of practical and helpful advice about how to recover from failure (p. 190). the last chapter is aptly titled “the future of anthropological practice.” he revisits areas of concern as well as ethics, but focuses more on the uncertain yet hopefully promising future of the discipline. nolan also rhetorically questions the impact new types of education, such as moocs (massive open online courses) and videoconferencing, could have on future anthropologists (p. 198). using anthropology in the world is a solid contribution to the discipline, especially for early-career anthropologists and people considering graduate studies. however, at least fifteen of the book’s 5 seventeen chapters could be useful for mid-career anthropologists. nolan’s varied written presentation styles, his decades of experience in multiple aspects of anthropology, and his ability to organize a book make this one a must-have for any serious anthropologist’s digital or physical bookshelf. stephanie mojica is pursuing a master’s degree in international relations and a graduate certificate in american literature and culture at harvard university extension school. during her first career as a print newspaper reporter, she interviewed former president barack obama and hillary clinton. stephanie is currently interim editor of student anthropologist. her research interests include the african diaspora (especially brazil); the anthropology, philosophy, and sociology of religion; the psychology of violence; and women’s studies. stephanie will present some of her interdisciplinary research about religious-related violence in brazil at five academic conferences this spring. © 2018 stephanie mojica re-evaluating the place of race in historical archaeology review by adam netzer zimmer the archaeology of race in the northeast by christopher n. matthews and allison manfra mcgovern, eds university press of florida, 2015 the authors in the archaeology of race in the northeast, edited by christopher n. matthews and allison manfra mcgovern, are part of the growing cohort of researchers within historical archaeology that reject a simple search for racial identity in material culture. instead, they advocate for more critical studies addressing the processes of racialization and power structures inherent to the ideas of race. what makes this volume stand out are two main points. one is that it shifts focus away from the american south, where many, if not most, previous studies have been conducted to instead focus on an area of the country where issues of race and racism have often been obscured. the other key contribution this volume offers is that it refuses to use “race” as interchangeable with ethnicity. the contributors instead use their various studies to show how ideas of race are constructed, perpetuated, and interpreted by many different groups in the northeast. they highlight how native americans, african americans, and white european americans intersected across many different spaces and how these relationships complicate our interpretation of the material past. in their introduction, matthews and mcgovern describe how, unlike the popular histories of the american west or southeast, the history of race in the northeast is rarely discussed. if it is discussed, the narrative is often framed with northerners as champions of freedom against a villainous south. the editors reject this idea and instead squarely align themselves with critical race scholars in other fields by stating that “the making of race in the northeast, like the making of history there, has always involved the use of social power to structure the material worlds of people and to symbolize the communities people claim for themselves and/or assign to others” (p. 2). therein lies one of the greatest strengths of this volume: it invites the reader to ask questions about our interpretations of archaeological sites rather than simply accept the authorial interpretation. the first section of the book focuses on archaeological investigations of african and african american presences in the northeast. this section comprises by far the largest portion of the book (nine chapters out of sixteen total), but matthews and mcgovern specifically address this imbalance as a reflection of current research agendas within the field. nor would it be accurate to portray these sections as falling into neat racial categories as their titles might suggest. in chapter 2, cantwell and dizerega wall focus on the african presence in new amsterdam through the interpretation of the contents of a barrel feature found at the broad financial center site in lower manhattan. by using the contents of this midden to ask questions about who may have made it and why, rather than offer definitive interpretations, the authors seek to expand upon the history of new amsterdam that often obscures the african presence in favor of a purely dutch versus british narrative. in chapter 6, yamin and ziesing engage in a similar study, focusing on the questions brought about by the discovery of chamber pots bearing the american eagle symbol. like cantwell and dizerega wall, yamin and ziesing use these objects to guide their research questions and gain more insight into the former residents of their site, rather than offer definitive interpretations of the objects’ utility or meaning. chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate how the careful integration of historical documents with artifact analysis in the history of upstate new york can aid in our interpretation of spaces of racialization. lindner and johnson discuss how the artifacts and documents associated with the primus martin site near hyde park, new york demonstrate the african american residents’ resistance to racialized discourses by the surrounding euro-american communities. the excavation also shows how the site may have been a hub for community-building in a region where other community spaces may have been largely absent. delle and fellows show how the rose hill site along seneca lake in upstate new york transitioned from a virginia-style plantation with enslaved africans into a capitalized farm with black tenant farmers, and finally began utilizing irish immigrant tenant farmers paid at lower rates than the previous workers. the site, therefore, demonstrates the racialized nature of space itself, showing “the material legacy of the relationship between economic change, labor demographics, and racial hierarchy” (p. 95). in chapter 8, mcquinn contributes the idea of marronage, as defined by sayers (2012, 143), to the interpretation of a site in albany, new york to better understand its place as a refuge for those seeking freedom on the underground railroad. barton and orr continue this theme of negotiated space in their chapter on the practice of yard-sweeping at a site in southern new jersey. instead of seeing sweeping as a simple cultural continuation study, barton and orr use it to analyze the negotiation of space and community building further, advocating for research into what they call “practice theory of improvisation” where marginalized people create and maintain specific responses to their marginalization that are carefully weighed against other life factors. in an especially well-crafted chapter, “the character of a woman”: womanhood and race in nineteenth-century nantucket, bulger uses the material culture associated with two women, mary boston douglass and eliza boston berry, of nantucket, massachusetts to discuss the intertwined nature of race, gender, embodiment, and performativity experienced by middle-class black women in the nineteenth century. this chapter emphasizes the archaeology of domestic space as showing how these women balanced middle-class ideals of respectability of their time with personal priorities to themselves and to their families. chapters 7 and 9, by kruczek-aaron and geismar respectively, discuss archaeological sites whose interpretation is enriched by the involvement of descendent communities in the excavation and management of the sites. kruczek-aaron emphasizes commemoration and the archaeologist’s complicated role as site steward in the adirondack’s timbucto site, while geismar highlights the importance of the preservation of the hunterfly road houses which now comprise much of the weeksville heritage center in brooklyn. the second section of the book, native american historical archaeologies, is comprised of only two chapters but is especially theoretically-rich. in the introduction to the book, matthews and mcgovern push for the idea that studies based on race cannot simply be thought of as a recoded study of culture and/or ethnicity. this is because racial analyses are explicit in the idea that people have never been “living in distinct and isolated groups but must be seen as having lived in complex and conflicted communities that were defined by competition for resources and an unequal distribution of power” (p. 5). mcgovern echoes this in chapter 11 by situating the montaukett’s resistance to detribalization in nineteenth-century east hampton, new york within the framework of a larger pattern of racialization and displacement experienced by many people of color. with a similar dialectical frame, handsman discusses how the mashpee and narragansett communities dealt with those they deemed as “coloured foreigners” (i.e. other native groups, african americans, and other people of color) and how this differed from the mashantucket pequot, who apparently never had such distinctions based on race. these two chapters are a particular highlight of this volume because they demonstrate that racialization is not the sole province of those of african descent, nor is it a process that can be described monolithically even within so-called racial groups. instead, both chapters show how race is dialectical and must constantly be negotiated by those groups in conversation with one another. the final section addresses archaeologies of whiteness in the northeast. it is perhaps framed best by gorsline’s chapter, an archaeology of accountability: recovering and interrogating the “invisible” race. gorsline addresses the reservations many may have of critical whiteness studies’ intrusion into archaeology, namely that in attempting to address white identity formation in the archaeological past, researchers may simply be re-centering white narratives at the expense of the stories of people of color. as a manner of redress, gorsline proposes an “archaeology of accountability”, which was inspired by bernbeck and pollack’s “archaeology of perpetrators” (2007). gorsline’s proposal specifically advocates that this type of archaeological research should expose how exploitation and oppression enacted by whites was key to white identity formation. however, the archaeology of accountability must explicitly connect past and present manifestations of white privilege to prevent an uncritical celebration of white history. the other two authors in this section, matthews and lewis, seem to follow this proposal with their own studies. matthews draws upon the idea of the symbologies of freedom kept within the home as key to cementing an aggregate white identity in the northeast. material culture of euro-american and european immigrant sites are therefore not free of race because the very symbology encoded within this material is built upon racial and racist structures. lewis presents a more longitudinal study, showing how the memorialization of a violent event in the history of deerfield, massachusetts must continue to be reexamined if we are to uncover “the cult of whiteness” (paynter 2001) inherent in our histories and archaeologies. the volume ends with a reflection by orser. in it, orser presents three topics brought by the authors deemed worthy of further investigation: the mutability and stubbornness of racialization, the power of research to make visible such invisible processes, and the issue of scale in archaeology. the archaeology of race in the northeast is praise-worthy for its efforts in all three of these arenas. the editors and authors have made a concentrated effort to show that processes of racialization affect every group within the history of the united states. they also show how archaeological analysis can help to shine light on how spatial and temporal peculiarities enact change on these processes of racialization. the authors contained in this volume are clearly part of a cohort of archaeologists eager to show what archaeology can offer to larger social science investigations of race in the united states. following the examples outlined in this volume, future researchers will no doubt build upon these studies and hopefully work to finally break down, as orser puts it, “the tyranny of racialization’s silence and invisibility” (p. 324). references cited bernbeck, reinhard, and susan pollock. “‘grabe, wo du stehst!’ an archaeology of perpetrators.” in archaeology and capitalism: from ethics to politics, edited by yannis hamilakis and philip duke, 217–34. walnut creek, ca: left coast press, 2007. paynter, robert. “the cult of whiteness in western new england.” in race and the archaeology of identity, edited by charles e. orser jr., 125–42. salt lake city: university of utah press, 2001. sayers, daniel o. “marronage perspective for historical archaeology in the united states.” historical archaeology 46, no. 4 (2012): 135–61.  adam netzer zimmer is a doctoral student in anthropology at the university of massachusetts amherst where he holds a graduate research fellowship through the national science foundation and the leifur eiríksson foundation fellowship. he currently lives in reykjavík, iceland where he is researching the processes of cadaver recruitment and the skeletal collections left over after anatomical research in both the u.s. and iceland © 2018 adam netzer zimmer 1 structural conditions of the mind: global contexts, concerns, and solutions for global mental health from medical anthropology review by megan b. hinrichsen global mental health: anthropological perspectives by brandon a. kohrt and emily mendenhall, eds. left coast press, 2015 global mental health: anthropological perspectives, a collection of ethnographic chapters edited by brandon a. kohrt and emily mendenhall, is well situated at the intersection of medical anthropology and global health. the discipline of global health recognizes that health issues, including those related to mental health, transcend national boundaries and require global attention. further, global health prioritizes achieving equity in health for people worldwide. although global mental health draws upon on a range of disciplines, the field of anthropology takes “pride of place” (8). although it is uncertain that anthropology has truly carved out the most prominent or important position among the other fields in global mental health, the collection of chapters contained in global mental health surely indicate that anthropology should emphasize its utility in both recognizing and alleviating suffering worldwide. global mental health is a robust and vibrant collection that expresses theoretical and ethnographic insights of current research and demonstrates important methodological approaches in practice among anthropologists in the growing field of global mental health. the volume is expertly organized and contextualized beginning with vikram patel’s astute foreword. patel’s foreword introduces the volume’s main objectives, including the anthropological pursuit of understanding mental illness in its context, implementing evidence-based and locally-relevant interventions for mental illness, and ultimately relieving suffering. this volume pays particular attention to the role of contextual factors in global mental health, especially the structural influences on mental health. recognizing the importance of the context of mental health disorders and social suffering, however, is not the end of this volume’s 2 contributions. the authors also emphasize the growing need for prevention and treatment within these contexts. global mental health is grounded in ethnography, highlighting the experiences of people around the world who suffer from various forms of mental illnesses as well as the experiences of family members and other caretakers. the volume opens with introductory chapters by editors korht, mendenhall, and peter j. brown on anthropological perspectives on mental health, historical background on medical anthropology’s role in global mental health, and anthropological methods in global mental health research. kohrt, mendenhall, and brown’s writing guides this volume as they introduce and analyze the chapters in each section and conclude with a forthright call for future directions of anthropological engagement in global mental health. the contributions of kohrt, mendehall, and brown are some of the volume’s strongest. it is specifically remarkable that the conclusion does not consist of a synthesis of the major themes covered in the preceding chapters. instead, the authors of the conclusion extend beyond the boundaries of this volume and make suggestions for future research and the future role of anthropology in global mental health in recognition that there is still much work to be done to better understand and improve mental health around the world. the three interrelated sections of this volume outline some of the key challenges in global mental health. the first section, comprised of six chapters, covers the social and structural roots of mental illness around the world. the second section speaks to differential access to care and treatment approaches across cultural and economic (high and low resource) settings in six chapters. the final section, with its five chapters, involves the global mental health workforce and the idea of task-sharing. global mental health frames all of this content calling attention to the significance of anthropology in developing more efficient methods of improving mental health across many populations and contexts. mental health is relatively understudied in anthropology and other disciplines related to global health as it is commonly considered to be part of “traditional notions about a ‘hierarchy of needs’ [that imply] that mental health should only be addressed after infectious disease, maternal and child health, and basic living standards” (27). considering mental health a luxury is one common misconception that this volume intends to overturn. others involve the cultural tropes of people being “poor but happy” and insisting that mental illness is a disease of “civilization” (27). poverty is correlated with poor mental health worldwide. stressful living situations associated with poverty, the social determinants of health, 3 are addressed in part i. the authors are careful, however, not to essentialize poverty. writing about water insecurity in highland bolivia, amber wutich et al. note the unfortunate tendency that “any study that connects resource insecurity to mental illness runs a very real risk of contributing to the ‘medicalization of poverty’” (66). focusing on treating the symptoms of poverty rather than the structural roots of the problem does not change anything. however, wutich et al. convincingly argue that all mental health policies should begin with ensuring that everyone has access to the basic necessities of life. other insights in this section involve how people experiencing distress worldwide navigate these negative experiences in their considerations of their own pasts, presents, and futures. this section includes nadia el-shaarawi’s recognition that mental health struggles from ali, an iraqi refugee, has more to do with “the disruption of life trajectory and the uncertainty of his future” than his signs and symptoms (81). daniel mains’s chapter on young men and khat chewing in ethiopia also addresses the alterity of the future and its implication for mental health. eileen anderson-fye explores the “inconceivable choices between enduring an awful present for a better imagined future” made by young women in belize (113). other chapters explore “idioms of distress” (30) like “thinking too much” in ethiopia, nicaragua, and haiti. the chapters in part ii focus on how treatment approaches and access to healthcare shape people’s experiences of mental health in both high and low-resource settings. this section, complementing the first, demonstrates that ethnographic methods can be useful in exploring how local idioms relate to standardized psychiatric categories. the authors in this section, including bonnie n. kaixer and hunter keys’ study of haitians in the dominican republic and jeffrey g. snodgrass’s exploration of hindu ways of framing mental illness and suffering contribute toward this goal. this section also explores differences in the treatment of mental illnesses and the tendency for some mental health systems to treat suffering more intensively. the ethnographic chapters highlighting this tendency include jack r. friedman’s chapter on the high prevalence of institutionalized psychiatric care in romania and emily mendenhall’s chapter on the long-term, cyclical “costs” of medicalizing suffering by prescribing pharmaceuticals instead of psychotherapeutic treatments among impoverished populations in the united states (205). sarah s. willen, with anne kohler, ends this section by calling attention to the “culture of medicine” that seeks to universalize patients and make patients backgrounds and structural inequalities irrelevant (239). the treatment approaches in this section have a wide range and underscore the importance of questioning standardized psychiatric categories in local contexts, paying attention to how forms of treatment may impact mental health and suffering, and how clinicians themselves are socialized to interpret mental health and their relationships with their patients. 4 the final section, part iii, draws attention to the “treatment gap,” the general lack of recognition of mental illness as a pressing concern, and the shortage of mental health professionals worldwide (255). availability of care is not the only issue; care must also be evidence-based, culturally appropriate, and do no harm. to address the gap in treatment and the many factors that can make mental healthcare inaccessible, inappropriate, or even detrimental, this section explores the concept of task-sharing with non-specialist providers of care. this section explains the current drive to employ local people who can help address the psychosocial origins of suffering. the narratives in this section point to the need to address structural issues like syndemics of poverty and disease in kenneth maes’ chapter. others address the socioeconomic problems of obtaining basic needs among the community and its health workers alike, as shown in the narratives of community health workers in central mozambique written by ippolytos kalofonos and neely myers’ chapter on peer helpers in the united states. non-specialists can deliver mental healthcare to more people suffering from mental illness, however, the non-specialist caregivers themselves may be vulnerable to, or otherwise unable to address, wider structural conditions that impact their communities. global mental health ends with a powerful and deeply thoughtful message to its readers on not only on the limits of the volume at present but also the limitations facing anthropologists and their research. global mental health attempts to be global in its focus and does represent a fair mix of populations. however, the vast majority of its authors are from north america, a problem facing anthropology as a whole. the editors recognize that most of the mental illnesses covered in the volume are common and more severe mental disorders, like schizophrenia, are absent. their observation is that the focus on common mental disorders is reflective of the unequal focus within the discipline and not just within this one volume. the editors and authors featured in global mental health recognize the weaknesses not only of their current work but also the weaknesses within anthropology. the messages in this volume expand the conversation on mental health within medical anthropology and global mental health but the narratives of juana, ali, habtamu, laura, mari, arminda, and many other interlocutors shared in this volume need to be amplified. the editors call on anthropologists to “overcome disciplinary practices that have impeded their productive engagement” with global mental health (341). anthropologists need not only describe the local context but venture into more applied work to alleviate suffering in those local contexts. anthropologists should design, implement, and scale local solutions for mental health delivery. 5 the stories told and insights shared in these chapters are clear and engaging though thoroughly academic. global mental health would be appropriate for academics, clinicians, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students who want to expand their knowledge and question assumptions about mental health and critically evaluate the strengths and limitations of anthropology’s engagement with global mental health. megan b. hinrichsen, assistant professor of anthropology at monmouth college, is a medical anthropologist who has researched structural conditions affecting well-being in quito, ecuador. she earned her ph.d. in medical anthropology from southern methodist university. © 2018 megan hinrichsen an inquiry into the diverse articulations of science & religion in contemporary life review by priscila santos da costa religion and science as forms of life: anthropological insights into reason and unreason by carles salazar & joan bestard (eds) berghahn books, 2015 religion and science as forms of life: anthropological insights into reason and unreason is volume edited by carlos salazar and joan bestard, and published in 2015. the main purpose of the book is to present the reader to the different ways in which science and religion relate to each as ‘forms of life’, that is, as a way of engaging with the world, instead of as a “set of propositions which is what the analysis of a theory or a doctrine involves” (p. 4). according to the editors, this perspective would allow for an understanding of how these forms articulate and affect people’s lives, instead of simply considering them in complete opposition to, or mutually exclusive of one other. the volume is comprised of eleven chapter organized into three parts, “cognition”, “beyond science”, and “meaning systems”. the first part, “cognition”, is composed of three chapters, mainly tackling the issue of why religious and, sometimes, magical beliefs persist in modern societies. the authors write from the standpoint of cognitive science in order to explain how this could be so, even with the advancement of scientific reason and of its valued moral position in the western world. in the first chapter, robert n. mccauley argues that religious thinking benefits from the fact that it dwells upon and is propelled by what he defines as “maturationally natural cognitive processing” (p. 28), which are ways of thinking that are spontaneously developed in all human beings, such as the ability to learn and understand language, to socially interact and to automatically react to dangerous situations. scientific representations, on the other hand, would go against natural cognition and its common-sense assumptions, requiring years of formal learning and training from individuals. in “scientific vs. religious ‘knowledge’ in evolutionary perspective” (chapter 2), michael blume makes use of evolutionary theory to claim that religiosity is a fundamental element to human development and should not simply be viewed as an inferior type of knowledge when compared to science. religious beliefs develop and enhance pro-social human behaviour individually, socially and institutionally, which is of special importance to setting the grounds from which rational cognition might later evolve. based on that, blume concludes by arguing that instead of treating science and religion as exclusive modes of knowing, one should understand that both are legitimate, yet different, ways of approaching reality. in chapter 3, jesper sørensen draws on malinowski’s work to ground his evolutionist claim that men resort to magic as means of offsetting danger and uncertainty. the author backs up this position by showing how our cognitive system reacts in face of ritualistic behaviour: attention to performance, redundancy and clear casual cues lead us to perceive ritual efficacy, even if there is no actual attainment of goals. sørensen then states that given the fact that modernity presents its own risks, and some of them taking “the form of evolutionary recurrent cues of danger” (p. 78), the realization that ritual and magic as means of confronting those are still found in western societies should not come as a surprise. part two, “beyond science”, is the longest section of the book, comprising of five chapters throughout which science and religion are presented as moral landscapes that participate in each other’s construction and definition. in chapter 4, “moral employments of scientific thought”, timothy jenkins focuses on how scientific knowledge has been incorporated and transformed outside its own context, such as religious movements that sprang during the 20th century and popular science bestsellers like the da vince code (brown 2004) and the god delusion (dawkins 2006). jenkins refers to these appropriations as being 'moral' because they serve the purpose of answering to questions about the human condition, such as the existence of good and evil and “explanation[s] of how the world operates and what is humanity’s place in it” (p. 101) – fictions that the author refers to as ‘theodicies’. chapter 5, “social life of concepts: public and private ‘knowledge’ of scientific creationism”, written by simon coleman, draws on his ethnographic work among christians in the uk to argue that there are different ways in which creationism is conceptualised as knowledge. coleman’s informants were not particularly interested in engaging with creationism, especially in public discussions, and they were also not pleased with the idea of it being taught in secular contexts, away from the church and family. in contrast, when discussions about creationism go to the public realm, it is usually initiated by religious detractors, who already present it as an illegitimate form of knowledge. in the process of presenting religious views as such, coleman argues, science (or rather, its advocates) is also creating a nascence of sorts, namely by not taking into consideration how believers experience creationism, and subsequent knowledge produced about it by other sciences, such as anthropology. in “the embryo, sacred and profane” (chapter 6), marit melhuss compares political debates that took place in the uk and in norway in order analyse how science, politics and religion relate to each other and position themselves while trying to grasp the moral status of the embryo. rather than being simply a biological entity, the embryo has its meaning constantly changed by its insertion in broader discussions about purpose and use. the ways in which the embryo is conceptualised – for its generative or reproductive capacities – will inform political positions taken by the state, for example. these positions, however, are not only defined by science, but will also reach and be influenced by other sources, such as religion. in this sense, melhuss argues that the embryo, while being defined by these different worldviews, is also the entity that causes them to converge and overlap. in “the religions of science and the sciences of religion in brazil” (chapter 7), roger sansi highlights the intertwined history of sciences and religion in brazil. sansi describes how scientists defined their own field by a double movement of creating a gap between their field and the so-called religions of science (such as spiritualism) and of defining “pure” religions as science’s object of study. according to the author, while forms of knowledge such as spiritualism, and its mixing of religion and science, would present a menace to the modernist and european project of purification/objectification of western (scientific) culture, african religions, such as candomblé, and their placement as a belief of “others” is perfectly suitable for it. chapter 8, “science in action, religion in thought: catholic charismatics’ notions about illness”, written by maria coma, draws on her fieldwork among catholic charismatics’ healing sessions in spain. based on her informants’ accounts, coma shows how science, and biomedicine, more specifically, features in healing testimonies. according to her, believers do not exclude biomedicine and its means of curing illnesses, but rather, they encompass and incorporate this knowledge, subjecting it to a broader moral framework in which god is ultimately responsible for the healing process. coma observes that, when considered as technology, that is, as a tool for god’s ends, science is in no opposition to religion, but rather a facilitator of religious deeds. the third part of the volume, “meaning system,” comprises the three last chapters of the book. here, the authors focus on how meaning is created and its place in people’s lives, instead of concentrating on the way science and religion are articulated in specific social contexts. in “on the resilience of superstition” (chapter 9), joão de pina-cabral explores the possibility of a different understanding of concepts such as those of ‘belief’ and ‘superstition’, by introducing the notion of “participation”, proposed by lévy-bruhl (p. 175). pina-cabral’s aim is to move from an anthropological position that considers belief as a set of propositions about the world to one that sees it as an embodied practice through which humans make sense of their everyday life. in the same vein, tom inglis, in chapter 10, argues that more important than grasping whether or not beliefs are incongruent to each other, is understanding how at each moment they are put to use. based on interviews carried out among irish catholics, inglis concludes that, for most of them, there is no problem in articulating magical, religious and scientific beliefs. rather, different kinds of knowledge were put to work according to their different needs and purposes, and the important thing was to sustain meaning and coherence in their lives. in chapter 11,” can the dead suffer trauma? religion and science after the vietnam war”, heonik kwon extends the discussion about the centrality of meaning in everyday life by analysing how the vietnam war differently impacted vietnamese and american societies. kwon describes how, during the 1990s, vietnamese communities started making sense of the traumatic experience of war by performing commemorative death rituals to those killed during it as a means of liberating their souls, trapped as they were in perpetual suffering. the author contrasts this practice to, on the one hand, earlier attempts by the vietnamese state to situate war efforts and loss within the context of nationalistic sacrifice; and, on the other, to the medicalization of traumatic personal experiences through the official recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder in the united states. religion and science as forms of life: anthropological insights into reason and unreason brings together various theoretical positions from which to consider how forms of knowledge are articulated, opposed or mingled together, and their impact in different social settings. it is of special interest for academics in the field of anthropology and sociology of religion, but it can also be of particular relevance to anyone interested in analyses that explore the categories of ‘superstition’ and ‘belief’. references cited brown, d. 2004. the da vince code. londom: random house dawkins, r. 2006. the god delusion. london: bantam. priscila santos da costa is a phd student in social anthropology at the university of st.andrews, scotland. she has done fieldwork in the parliament of papua new guinea and is currently writing her dissertation. © 2016 priscila santos da costa a model for involving local communities in global health interventions review by margaret a. graham community participatory involvement: a sustainable model for global public health by linda m whiteford & cecilia vindrola-padros left coast press, 2015 anthropologists who collaborate with communities and organizations to bring about positive social change and improve public health will be very interested in this concise, but detailed, case study of an international effort to control a cholera epidemic in the ecuadorian highlands in 1994-1995. so will faculty, researchers, ngos and others engaged in global efforts to enhance health and well-being. cholera, an acute bacterial infection of the intestine, is spread through contaminated food or water, or contact with contaminated feces, thus it disproportionately affects the poor and the marginalized who lack access to clean water and sanitation systems. after disappearing from latin america for almost 100 years, cholera reappeared in peru in january 1991 and spread rapidly. it reached ecuador a few weeks later on 20 february 1991 when a peruvian fisherman from tumbez traveled across the border to the south coastal region of ecuador to collect shrimp larvae (p. 79-80) and spread quickly. the epidemic was controlled relatively quickly in the urban areas with classic public health educational campaigns that encouraged handwashing, the avoidance of street foods and raw and undercooked fish, and sanitary feces removal. the campaigns were not as successful in the highland communities where cholera continued to be transmitted. the community participatory involvement (hereafter cpi) model —the subject of this book – was employed to address the transmission of cholera in four communities in the ecuadorian andes. the first four chapters of the book provide the conceptual background of the model (chapters 1-3), and background on the epidemiology of cholera in south america (chapter 4). chapter 1 introduces the key theoretical and methodological bases of the cpi model, especially its emphasis on leadership development and capacity building at the community level, and describes how the model can be employed to address a wide range of global health issues. chapter 2 locates the cpi model within the scholarship of behavior change and compares cpi to other health intervention models (e.g., the health belief model, theory of planned behavior model, and the transtheoretical model), most of which focus on the role of the individual and motivation to predict behavior change. in contrast, the medical ecology theory that underlies the cpi model employs a broader view that highlights the complexity of a person’s social contexts as well as the multiple, interconnected factors (biological, physical, and political economic) that influence a person’s health. the authors also discuss in chapter 2 how the cpi model differs from other community-based participatory (cbp) models in that “its focus lies in the relationships community members are able to establish with different sectors of the state and civil society. in this model, even though the engagement of community members is seen as intrinsic in the generation of changes, these changes are seen as requiring input and support from a wide range of stakeholders. local community needs are seen as the responsibility of community members, different levels of political and civil authority, and non-governmental organizations” (p. 43). local engagement with these other levels requires the active involvement of multiple stakeholders and builds leadership and capacity building at the local level. chapter 3 describes the cpi model—its theoretical model, key concepts, and methodology – in depth. the authors trace the evolution of the cpi model, developed and funded by usaid, from earlier versions (community involvement in the management of environmental pollution (cimep) and the community participatory intervention (cpi) models) that recognized that any sustained change “must include the community into its design and implementation” (p. 53). the five key elements of the cpi model include (p. 53): <ol> <li>the role of effective community engagement</li> <li>the elicitation and validation of local beliefs</li> <li>the generation of base-line and follow-up epidemiological data</li> <li>a scale up with local, region, and national authorities</li> <li>sustained capacity building</li> </ol> in chapter 5 the authors provide a case study of the cpi cholera project in ecuador and descriptions of the four selected rural communities. the goals of the project were to identify the beliefs and behaviors related to the spread of cholera, namely water treatment, especially water storage and re-use practices, hand washing, and food treatment, and to make recommendations for community-based involvement to change those beliefs and behaviors in culturally appropriate ways. the long-term goals were to facilitate the development of leadership at the local levels that could help sustain the changes. whiteford and vindrola-padros discuss in detail the steps involved in the project planning and development stage, and then proceed to describe the activities used in the implementation of the field project. the project was carried out by three interlocking cpi teams: the technical team (tt) composed of national and international advisors from ecuadorian ministry of health and usaid; the regional teams (rt) of ecuadorians from regional or municipal govern departments and ngos; and community teams (ct) made up of members of the four affected communities. the project was careful to expand the leadership roles in the cts and to include those—women, younger adults—who would normally not be considered for leadership roles in these communities based on their gender and/or age. at the community level, several innovative methods were used to collect and disseminate information during the twelve-month project. these methods and tools—community assemblies, ethnographic interviews and visual monitoring of water-handling practices including water storage and re-use, perception mapping, and workshops—were all critical to the success of the project. based on the findings and workshop discussions, each community designed a specific cholera control project that the community itself would implement, sustain, and monitor. the community members were not just respondents but were themselves trained in ethnographic techniques that included structured interviews, observational techniques, and surveys. the technical team also provided funds for household water containers (<em>bidones</em>), inexpensive water disinfectants, public garbage containers, and local health fairs to support the community projects. the appendices include copies of the workshop materials and tools. chapter 6 discusses with rich ethnographic detail the outcomes of the intervention and its evaluation by the community and technical teams. comparing baseline with the follow-up survey shows that people changed the way they understood disease transmission and changed their behaviors. three of the four communities showed marked changes in beliefs and behaviors that were targeted for change and in the spread of cholera. for example, people had a better understanding of how diseases like cholera are transmitted in contaminated water and the percentage of households that washed dishes with clean water and soap increased by 42%. one of the most successful interventions was the provision of new, five-gallon water containers that have spigots and tight-fitting lids that kept water clean, which were lovingly covered with special clothes to keep the exterior of the container clean. most of the communities also experienced an increased closeness and improved sense of community. the most isolated community did not show the same degree of improvement, but did respond in a less expected but nonetheless very interesting way by coming together and identifying the need for a community childcare center where mothers can take turns caring for young children while the other women worked 10-hour days in the fields. to meet the high demand, the mothers got together and requested another water container and disinfectant so children would have access to clean water. the authors state, “the development of the pompeya community childcare center exemplified the very skills that we hoped to see emerge from the project: initiative and partnership combined with local leadership to treat a locally identified need” (p. 126). it also underscores a central premise of the cpi model: that small rural communities are not carbon copies and that local needs and voices must be considered when attempting interventions of any kind. chapter 7 is organized around take-away messages and lessons learned. there are many important lessons learned but the focus on expanding local leadership and capacity building is one of the most critical and exciting aspects of the cpi model. too often the community voices heard in participatory research are those already in the power structure, those who hold the traditional authority for making decisions on the part of the whole. this model explicitly rejects that model of leadership and includes the voices and perspectives of people who are often excluded from decision-making and leadership roles. as this case study shows, opening up leadership and building individual skills is key to developing true community and regional leaders who are an integral part of and truly committed to creating sustainable social change. applied medical anthropologists and those working in non-governmental and governmental organizations concerned with global health issues will be very interested in this case study. the book would make an excellent addition to upper-division or graduate classes in medical anthropology, global health, and community-based participatory research methods. each chapter concludes with a brief summary and in-class exercises related to the concepts and themes addressed in the preceding chapter. the appendices include workshop materials, research instruments, list of resources and health related databases, and a link to a ten-minute video from the research site. i recommend complementing the book with wellin’s classic study of water use in a peruvian town published in 1955 for a critical discussion of public health interventions, historical racism, structural violence, persistent economic and health inequalities, and why poor, marginalized andean communities still lack access to clean water and sanitation systems 60 years later. references cited wellin, e. (1955). water boiling in a peruvian town. in paul, b. d. (ed.), health, culture and community (pp. 71-106). new york, ny: russell sage. margaret a. graham is an associate professor of anthropology at the university of texas rio grande valley (formerly the university of texas-pan american) and adjunct associate professor at the texas a&amp;m school of public health. dr. graham’s research focuses on health and nutrition issues impacting low-income populations, especially those living on the texas-mexico border. with expertise in applied medical anthropology, she is involved currently in a community-based participatory research project that is working collaboratively on the design of information resources to communicate the health hazards associated with the consumption of pcb-contaminated fish from a local superfund site to residents in neighboring colonias. she also conducted fieldwork on household food consumption patterns in farming communities in the southern peruvian andes. her research has been published in public health nursing, social science and medicine, journal of immigrant and minority health, journal of tropical pediatrics, field methods, and ecology of food and nutrition among others. © 2016 margaret a. graham engaging with the expansive and eclectic work and legacy of franz boas review by joseph weiss the franz boas papers, volume 1: franz boas as public intellectual—theory, ethnography, activism by regna darnell, joshua smith, michelle hamilton, and robert l. a. hancock (eds) university of nebraska press, 2015 early in her preface to this first volume of the franz boas papers, regna darnell suggests that franz boas is an “elephant in the middle of the room” for contemporary anthropology, in relation to which “all practicing anthropologists have struggled to position themselves.” “indisputably the founder and dominant figure,” darnell writes, in the emergence of anthropology as a “professionalized academic discipline in north america,” boas has been “eulogized and reviled, claimed as an ancestor and repudiated as having led anthropology astray” (darnell: xi). franz boas as public intellectual – theory, ethnography, activism is intended in one sense as response in and of itself to this ambivalent and conflicted legacy. at the same time, it inaugurates a broader reassessment of boas’ corpus as the introductory volume of the franz boas papers documentary edition, “an ambitious project to digitize and critically edit the franz boas papers” housed at the american philosophical society (hamilton: 345). it is in this introductory spirit that we can perhaps best understand darnell’s repeated emphasis on boas’ defiance of “simple definition” and the ways in which the volume as whole repeatedly emphasizes the diversity of his own engagements within the academy, with the first nations and native american communities in which he conducted the vast majority of his most well-known research, and with publics in the united states, canada, and germany. boas as a scholar, as a fieldworker, as an activist and as a public intellectual cannot be encompassed within any “single perspective,” and franz boas as public intellectual seems meant both to demonstrate the wide variety of ways in which boas’ legacy can be approached and to act as an invitation for a broadly diverse set of engagements with the boas papers as they continue to be published (darnell: xi-xii). considered in this light, the volume is a tremendous success, bringing together the contributions of anthropologists, historians, journalists, museum specialists, literary theorists, and linguists, among others, and focusing on a myriad of different dimensions of boas’ career and ongoing impact within the academy and outside of it. though so integral to the mission statement of the larger boas papers project, the very diverse character of this volume also makes it a challenging text to engage with on its own terms. the text deliberately resists presenting any single, unifying position on boas or offering general overviews of his career or basic theoretical positions outside of the specific foci of individual chapters. this volume, in other words, is not for the uninitiated, and those without some familiarity with boas’ major writings or the substantive details of his ethnographic work in canada may find themselves unable to gain purchase on the often highly compelling interventions made within the book’s individual chapters. though an introduction to the boas papers project, it is clearly not meant as a broader introduction to boas’ scholarship, and potential readers who are not already well-versed in “boasiana” will benefit from consulting boas’ own race, language and culture (boas 1982a), the franz boas reader edited by the late george stocking (boas 1982b), and perhaps some of darnell or stocking’s own writings about boas (e.g. darnell 1998; stocking 1996) before engaging with the present volume. though it risks a certain measure of inaccessibility, the eclectic and non-didactic approach that this volume takes enables its authors to explore a number of different areas of boas’ scholarship and scholarly legacy that merit contemporary reassessment. the volume is organized into four parts, the first three of which target separate (if interrelated) dimensions of the boasian project. the first part, “theory and interdisciplinary scope,” is the most conceptually coherent section of the volume, with its chapters all conforming to two broad objectives: first, to rehabilitate boas’ reputation as a theorist contra the charge that his work was merely descriptive or atheoretical (e.g. darnell: xvii, 3); and second, to demonstrate that boas was a “master bricoleur,” drawing on whatever scientific and analytical tools he had “at hand” in order to advance his own intellectual and political pursuits (darnell: xviii). most of the section’s chapters pursue this second objective, exploring boas’ intersections with evolutionary science and american pragmatism (lewis), literary theory (bracken, chamberlin), linguistics and philology (silverstein), and ethnomusicology (o’neill). the first objective is left mostly in the hands of lewis and, especially, darnell, whose chapter advances a critical reassessment of boas’ manifesto the mind of primitive man (boas 1911). the fact, in particular, that “relational or abstract thought as a universal human capacity has come to be recognized as common sense in public as well as anthropological discourses” has made it far too easy to ignore or dismiss that this was ever a “theoretical position in need of articulation and defense” (darnell: 3). darnell’s chapter aims to reassess this position, demonstrating that boas’ “cultural relativism,” as it is commonly glossed, was a well-elaborated theoretical position that wove together boas’ ethnographic, linguistic, archaeological and biological research in order to articulate a “robust stand-point based epistemology that underwrote later culture and personality, ethnoscience, social interactionalist, and interpretivist approaches constructed on boasian foundations” (darnell: 5). this epistemology cannot be disentangled from boas’ sustained critiques of scientific racism and unilineal evolution. rather, darnell repeatedly reminds us that boas viewed culture and biology as co-constituted, and that he positioned anatomical study alongside the study of language and material and immaterial cultural elements as equally necessary in understanding human diversity (pp. 6-7). boas’ dual emphasis on the physical and the epistemological had profound consequences on his fieldwork practices, which form the broad topic of part 2, “ethnography.” unlike the six chapters of part 1, part 2 contains only two chapters, focusing respectively on boas’ relationships with his longterm tlingit-kwakw k ’wakw collaborator and “informant” george hunt (wilner) and nlaka’pamuxaa aa ethnographer james tait (laforet). wilner’s chapter contains the most direct engagement with boas’ own fieldwork practices, drawing on boas and hunt’s correspondences to trace how boas and hunt’s kwakw k ’wakw ethnographies where shaped and the conditions under which they were produced.aa aa the boas that emerges in this account is complex, at once a staunch ally of hunt and his defender against canadian attempts to prosecute hunt for violating the ban on “indian dancing and potlatching” and a self-serving scholar with a ravenous appetite for indigenous artifacts and physical remains who repeatedly pushed hunt to violate his own community’s protocols to acquire new material (wilner:169172). wilner also highlights the extent to which boas’ kwakw k ’wakw research and writing was co-aa aa authored with hunt, a fact which boas sometimes did and sometimes did not acknowledge. in this sense wilner’s chapter alongside laforet’s exploration of boas and tait demonstrates the fallacy of the “lone ethnographer” even at american anthropology’s professional genesis. ethnographic work is and always has been co-authored, the product of multiple voices and multiple standpoints, and this section of the volume demonstrates that boas was well aware of this fact and made some effort, at least, to acknowledge it even as he also took advantage of his collaborators. part 2 is disappointing in its brevity, however. dedicating only two chapters to something as significant as “ethnography” for boas and the boasian legacy in canada – particularly absent any writing focused on his earlier work on baffin island – feels partial. this may in part be an organizational issue. given the diversity of contributors to the collection and the complex political and colonial histories of the northwest coast, it may be that relatively few contributors were positioned to discuss boas’ fieldwork beyond his relationships with two admittedly central interlocutors. but the section and the volume as a whole would be considerably strengthened by more chapters and more approaches to something as vastly significant as “fieldwork” for boas and his descendants. it seems somewhat odd in this regard that bracken’s deconstructive analysis of boas’ early fieldwork in alert bay is found in part 1 of the volume when its concerns seem just as much ethnographic as theoretical. this said, the relative paucity of material in part 2 is at least somewhat addressed in part 3, “activism,” which begins with two chapters that directly address the significance of boas’ ethnography in historical and contemporary aboriginal legal and political struggles on the northwest coast (dinwoodie; hancock). the chapters that follow range more widely over boas’ various engagements with u.s. indian policy (smith), germany during the rise of nazism (langenkämper), and the united states during the world wars (liss). while these chapters lack part 1’s organizing focus, they effectively demonstrate the significance of consistent public engagement for boas, offering ample evidence of his efforts to speak to a non-academic public and to directly intervene in american and german policy in ways that resonated with his scientific concerns and convictions. it is this section that works most directly to demonstrate that boas was a “public intellectual.” boas clearly understood his work – and the work of anthropology more generally – as being of central significance to the general public, correcting prejudices about racial inferiority and evolutionary perspectives of culture. and he positioned himself as an expert able to advise on these issues at the highest political level, writing letters to multiple american presidents and an open letter to reichs president von hindenburg decrying the suppression “in the most brutal fashion” of “free expression of opinion” and “even the most modest opposition, i.e. half the population” in germany in the early 1930s (boas, quoted in langenkämper:283). the fourth and final section of this volume, “part 4: the archival project,” is something of a postscript to the direct engagements with boas that make up the first three parts of the volume. instead, the two chapters of part 4 outline the archival project represented by the franz boas papers documentary edition, detailing the acquisition of the american philosophical society’s boas collection and the conditions under which the volume to come are being produced. particularly significant, given the volume’s own earlier engagements with the extractive dimensions of boas’ own ethnographic practices, is the fact that the boas papers are being digitized in consultation with an “indigenous advisory council” who have the final veto as to “which documents are presented and who has access to them” the recognition that “boas’s fieldwork, like that of many other anthropologists in the past, included matters now considered culturally sensitive, under indigenous intellectual property copyright, and potentially inappropriate to share with non-native communities or among different groups of a native community” is vital for archives that contain material collected (and appropriated) from indigenous communities, and the collaborative nature of the boas papers project appears laudable in its attempts to avoid reiterating colonial forms of epistemological and representational violence (hamilton:356). references cited boas, franz 1911 the mind of primitive man: a course of lectures delivered before the lowell institute, boston, mass., and the national university of mexico, 1910-1911. london: macmillan. 1982a race, language, and culture. chicago: university of chicago press. 1982b a franz boas reader: the shaping of american anthropology, 1883-1911. george w stocking, ed. university of chicago press ed. chicago: university of chicago press. darnell, regna, michelle hamilton, robert l.a. hancock and joshua smith, eds. 2015 the franz boas papers, volume 1. franz boas as public intellectual—theory, ethnography, activism. lincoln: university of nebraska press. darnell, regna 1998 and along came boas: continuity and revolution in americanist anthropology. philadelphia: john benjamins publishing company. stocking, george w. 1996 volksgeist as method and ethic: essays on boasian ethnography and the german anthropological tradition, vol. 8, history of anthropology. madison: university of wisconsin press. joseph weiss recently received his phd in anthropology from the university of chicago. his research focuses broadly on indigenous political possibility in the context of settler colonialism. his dissertation explored how the residents of a haida first nations community on canada’s northwest coast challenge colonial control over time through imagining and attempting to construct social and political futures for themselves and their settler neighbours. current projects include an ethnohistorical study of the relationships between the haida community and military personnel and an ongoing examination of the ways in which natural history museums represent indigenous peoples. © 2016 joseph weiss 1 perceptions of “intra-disciplinary” unity and division review by anthony r. tricarico these “thin partitions:” bridging the growing divide between cultural anthropology and archaeology by joshua d englehardt and ivy a. rieger eds. university press of colorado, 2017 these “thin partitions:” bridging the growing divide between cultural anthropology and archaeology co-edited by joshua d. englehardt and ivy a. rieger seeks to reexamine if and to what extent the sub-disciplines of anthropology have become disjunctured. specifically, englehardt and rieger sought to evaluate the historical, contemporary, and future relationship between cultural anthropologists and archaeologists. the edited volume contained twelve single or co-authored chapters, which sought to engage with the idea of “intradisciplinary” theories as a viable tool for unifying theoretical divisions. the editors offered a new and welcome perspective on a debate now spanning decades and across multiple journal articles, books, and special issues (i.e. ortner 1984; watson 1995; gillespie et al. 2003). all of these works have focused on one central question: are anthropology’s four sub-fields unified in their goal of understanding the full breadth of humanity? conflicting answers to this question arise every few years as if to demonstrate the continuing ontological reflectivity woven into the fabric of anthropology. ideally the “…roles, goals, and foci of anthropology’s four primary subfields [should] complement and weave back into each other, forming a complex disciplinary whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts” (4). the editors both argue that the commonalities within each subfield’s history, theories, and methods define anthropology as a unified discipline seeking to understand the human cultural experience from different modes of inquiry. this sentiment has been expressed similarly in other works as well. most notably, watson (1995) argued that an archaeological anthropology is the only way of maintaining fruitful collaborations between the disciplines, ensuring that anthropological research remains of “…global importance and great intrinsic interest” (690). however, englehardt and rieger, as well as many of the authors across the volume, argue that a critical reevaluation of anthropological theory is needed to ensuring greater collaboration between the discipline's subfields. both englehardt and rieger cite increased specialization of anthropological conferences as the primary concern behind the inspiration for the volume. specifically, they point out the contradiction between specialization at a time when many are calling for a more holistic and interdisciplinary anthropology. englehardt and rieger question whether the subfields share a similar language, calling for an increase in shared terminology (similar to an argument made by ortner 1984). each chapter in the volume is centered on one central question: “how can a renewed emphasis on sub-disciplinary dialogue [i.e. 2 shared theories and methods] and collaboration benefit anthropology as a whole as it is currently practiced in the twenty-first century?” (4) each author sought to demonstrate the value of continued collaboration between cultural anthropologists and archaeologists in addressing shared research interests. paul shakman addresses how intra-disciplinary theoretical applications may serve as both unifying and dividing forces in chapter two, titled “‘it seemed like a good idea at the time:’ the fate of cultural evolution in cultural anthropology.” specifically, shankman addresses the question: “how did cultural evolution move from mainstream acceptance to marginal status in just a few short decades?” (46) his intent was to examine the history of cultural evolution, a once more prominent theoretical paradigm in anthropology applied by both cultural anthropologists and archaeologists. shankman argues that cultural anthropologists and archaeologists have shared research interests, highlighting that the “disciplinary divide” is a misrepresentation of the historical and contemporary relationship between the two subfields. the theoretical application of cultural evolution rests on the main premise that culture is adaptive. this notion helps contribute to the integration of cultural and archaeological modes of knowledge construction through the examination of interactions between multiple external and internal causal variables contributing to cultural change through time. “cultural evolution” was widely accepted and utilized in both cultural anthropology and archaeology throughout the late-1950s and 1960s, during a period of continued calls of a more archaeological anthropology (i.e. philip phillips 1955; binford 1962). shankman argued that the theory of cultural evolution helped bridge distinct theoretical traditions in both subfields until the rise of later geertzian interpretative approaches in anthropology. interpretative approaches emphasized understanding over explanation, positing “cultural evolution” as an “armchair pursuit.” however, shankman argues that archaeological and socio-cultural theories (utilized together) help create a more complete picture than either discipline creates alone. shankman’s argument echoed that of ortner (1984) who commented decades earlier on similar perceptions of sub-field divisions. ortner (ibid) lamented on the growing theoretical divide between each sub-field, though argued that the development of “practice” was reunifying the field under a new guise. practice theory afforded researchers the freedom to apply a host of theoretical perspectives directly suited for different modes of power embedded across the globe. this principle did not unify the field under one single theoretical paradigm, but under the shared goal of understanding changes across systems (ibid). however, understanding which theory would suit a particular research project necessitates the adequate knowledge of a wide range of anthropological theories. a varied “toolbox” of theories mandates the training of new anthropologists utilizing a four-field approach. however, ivy a. rieger (ch 4) argues that four-field theoretical training is becoming rare at the graduate-level. rieger’s chapter, titled “ethnographic stratigraphies: mapping practical exchanges between cultural anthropology and archaeology” argued that graduate training (at least theoretically) has become increasingly specialized contributing to further intra-disciplinary division. rieger asks, "if we have four subdisciplines housed (typically) within the same university department under the term anthropology, but we do not train our students in the four-field model, then does the utility of said model of disciplinary organization even exist?" (87) as a solution, she argues for greater incorporation of multiple stakeholders in research as a means of developing effective communication between cultural anthropologists and archaeologists. both cultural anthropologists and archaeologists need to work with local communities to effectively conduct research. therefore, rieger argues that fieldwork is the optimal arena for promoting collaboration. however, effective collaboration begins with graduate training. the promotion of a four-field theoretical background provides researchers with the tools to effectively determine which theory is appropriate for the research project. ultimately, rieger argues that both cultural anthropology and archaeology inform one another. "…the ways in which 3 ethnographies and ethnographic field projects are realized, as well as the ways in which archaeological sites and artifacts are interpreted…are all based on the structures of power that resonate with theoretical issues surrounding the dissemination and localization of academic knowledge" (96). throughout the edited volume, each author continually reexamines the state of anthropological theory and advocates for theory as an effective tool for bridging the sub-disciplinary divide. david b. small in chapter 9, titled “the interface between anthropology and archaeology: a view from ancient greece” continues this theme, though disagrees with the intra-disciplinary application of theories. small instead argues for the development of new theories that cross the sub-field divide. as a classical archaeologist, he offers a different perspective than that of other authors included in the volume. small notes that most classical archaeologists (housed in classics departments) turn more to theories from fields such as history. he further demonstrated that cross-cultural perspective may serve as the best model of bridging sub-field divisions through the incorporation of his work in ancient greece. small argued that certain research foci (i.e. the investigation of small polities) may be informed best by combining archaeological and cultural anthropological perspectives. however, he rejects the application of sociocultural theory to analyze archaeological questions, calling for the development of new intra-disciplinary theoretical paradigms. small is quick to note though that there is sparse literature on this subject and few are taking up this call as of yet. the final chapter of “these thin partitions” served as a mini-commentary on the chapters presented previously. chapter ten is comprised of three entries in which each author provided their own analysis of how effectively the work achieved its central goal: to demonstrate the value of continued collaboration between cultural anthropologists and archaeologists in addressing shared research interests. donna m. goldstein in her commentary, titled “anthropological pasts and futures” argued that a degree of specialization, condemned by most of the entries, may not be entirely bad for the discipline as a whole. goldstein (2017) noted that sub-field specialization is not a sign of disunity, but actually a sign of disciplinary maturity. instead of focusing on the “reunification” of the sub-fields, goldstein calls on the further development of interdisciplinary collaboration. she notes that interdisciplinary collaboration is a “…productive direction rather than something to lament” (258). these “thin partitions:” bridging the growing divide between cultural anthropology and archaeology co-edited by joshua d. englehardt and ivy r. rieger offered a lively debate on the future of intraand inter-disciplinary collaboration in a twenty-first century anthropology. each author was unified in their opinion that new theoretical applications, whether borrowed from a different subdiscipline or newly established will strengthen the cooperation of cultural anthropologists and archaeologists in new research questions exploring the breadth of human cultural diversity. references binford, lewis r. 1962. “archaeology as anthropology”. american antiquity 28(2):217-225. englehardt, joshua d. and ivy a. rieger. 2017. these "thin partitions:" bridging the growing divide between cultural anthropology and archaeology. university press of colorado, boulder, colorado. ortner, sherry b. 1984. “theory in anthropology since the sixties”. comparative studies in society and history 26(1):126-166. 4 phillips, philip. 1955. “american archaeology and general anthropological theory”. southwestern journal of anthropology 11(3):246-250. watson, patty jo. 1995. “archaeology, anthropology, and the culture concept”. american anthropologist 97(4):683-694. anthony r. tricarico is a ph.d. student in applied anthropology at the university of south florida © 2018 anthony r. tricarico kinship as continuity and transformative process in pacific island societies review by kathleen barlow living kinship in the pacific by christina toren & simonne pauwels (eds) berghahn books, 2015 toren and pauwels frame the essays in living kinship in the pacific as demonstrations of how thoroughly kinship continues to produce social relations and community for pacific islanders, and does so as an historical process that draws on meanings enacted through daily life and ritual. drawing on sahlins (2011) and kuper (2013), they affirm that each acting subject lives in a culturally constituted reality in which kinship is articulated with and through other domains, including exchange, gender, cosmology, and political economy. for the societies included here emphasis is on political economy as community, leadership, land and place, as mediated through marriage and siblingship. while the authors argue that kinship is historically constituted through biology and culture, the definitions of history, biology (as genetics?) and intersubjectivity that are asserted as the process through which kinship is ‘lived,’ are not made clear, nor are they articulated comparatively in the essays that follow. nevertheless, there are excellent accounts of culturally specific renderings of biological relatedness across the cultures described here. the volume begins with three chapters that provide striking examples of contemporary kinship sustained in and adapted to contexts heavily influenced by nation-state politics and global economy. nabobo-baba (ch. 1) shows how in fiji kinship is expressed as chiefly compassion through gifts of land (i solisoli) and material goods, a practice that runs directly counter to the competitive and accumulative strategies of capitalism. she gives three examples in which land was gifted from one chief to another to provide a social safety net for a community in need or to benefit the larger good. these contemporary examples reveal lines of fracture between contractual relationships modeled on western institutions and the spirit of kinship obligation and exchange based on traditional practices. jara hulkenberg’s essay (ch. 3) demonstrates the strength of fijian ideas of community, place and kin ties in contexts of urban-rural migration, inter-island inequalities in access to resources, and outmigration to transnational contexts. fijians away from home go to great lengths to provide remittances to home villages and to provide barkcloth mats and valuables, and appropriate kin to perform life-cycle rituals for those living in town, city or another country. identity and membership continue to be based in vanua, one’s home place (including land, people, ancestors). ching-hsiu lin’s essay (ch. 2) examines the impact of monetized economic relations on exchange practices related to marriage among the truku of taiwan. in order to purchase pigs for bridewealth and for sacrifices to redress wrongdoings or alleviate misfortune, families and households enter into debt relationships in contrast to the formerly egalitarian nature of inter-household exchange. chapters 4 through 10 concern complementary and hierarchical relationships established through the maternal line and based in cross-sex siblingship. in each society activities and meanings involving gender, procreation, membership, life-cycle transitions and material exchange stem from the crucial brother-sister relationship. the authors highlight the power of maternal relatedness (often the superiority of a man’s elder sister), as a complement to formal emphasis on relations through the father in lineage, residence patterns and authority. in tokelau (hoëm ch. 4), ritualized behavior takes two forms—ritual based in kinship emphasizes offspring through brothers and sisters as complementary groups, and festive community rituals that comment on the leadership, legitimacy, moral quality, etc. of cognatic ties organized through cross-sex siblings. völkel (ch. 5) analyzes terminology expressing stratification and possession in tongan. the ‘eiki/tu’a distinction (superior/inferior) maps onto sister/brother, cousin, patrilateral/matrilateral kin terms. linguistic features discriminate with possessives who controls the relationship and who is subordinate, privileging ties through the eldest sister. the ankave-anga of papua new guinea (bonnemère ch. 6) emphasize the sister’s role in establishing her brother’s full adult status as a maternal uncle. because ankave-anga limit blood relatedness to the mother only, a man and his sister share blood, but he does not pass it on to his children. his sister must ritually enable each phase of his life-cycle transitions and his own child’s birth. his sister’s children are his only “blood relatives” and as a maternal uncle he maintains connection to the next generation. the importance of cross-sex siblingship informs an extensive set of classificatory relationships in lau, fiji (and other polynesian societies). pauwels (ch. 7) describes the vasu status or relationship in terms of the superiority of the elder sister to her brother, and hence her children’s ability to ask for (or take) from him and her obligation to care for and protect her brother’s children. this prerogative applies to whole kin groups and chiefdoms in relation to the sibling set through which they are linked, and organizes relationships with respect to relative status, respect and avoidance, gifting, land/sea prerogatives, and alliance in case of conflict. tcherkézoff (ch. 8) traces a widespread consensus in samoan communities that it is unseemly for villagers to marry each other to a conceptual basis in cross-sex siblingship that requires avoidance, especially with respect to sexuality. in terms of the component groups and symbolic construction of the village as a “family,” chiefs are fathers, suggesting that all other males and females are brothers and sisters. in practical terms, if one villager marries another, the man retains his status, but the woman becomes an in-marrying wife, thus losing her valuable status as a “daughter” of the village. douaire-marsaudon’s essay (ch. 9) takes up the tongan parallel to the fijian vasu relationship, showing how the brother-sister pair and their offspring are the crux of intergenerational kinship, mediating between domestic and political spheres. because of the sister’s superiority, being most closely related to their founding ancestor/god, her son is fahu to his mother’s brother. in this patrilineal society, the father has secular title, land and authority, but the father’s sister wields sacred power over the reproductive success of her brother’s wife. extended fahu relationships designate hierarchy among groups whose chiefs are related through the maternal line, informing inter-island military and political alliances. (nabobo-baba shows how these positions remain functional in contemporary life.) cayrol (ch. 10) analyzes relationships through women in nasau, fiji. whereas men are more rooted in land, locality and house/household, women are mobile. they move at marriage to their husband’s house where they must be welcomed by their husband’s father’s sister or her representative. paths of exchange among lineages are established by women through marriage. crucial in these configurations is the paternal grandmother, who is empowered to give names drawn from her own lineage. this naming prerogative is emblematic of women’s contributions as they establish paths of wealth and exchange by marrying in. the volume concludes with an essay by toren (ch. 11) inviting us to consider kinship as intersubjectively developed through life experience in culturally constructed contexts. the relationship among ritualized behavior, ritual meaning, developmental trajectories and structural features of kin terms and relations is addressed in a necessarily abbreviated way. that these are dynamic and changing dimensions of cultural life that nevertheless often hew closely to core cultural values over long stretches of time is well-demonstrated in the articles that precede this discussion. overall, we are offered ethnographically rich insights into contemporary kinship as grounded in longstanding traditions and persisting in the face of tremendous forces of change. references cited kuper, adam 2013 ‘review of marshall sahlins what kinship is—and is not,’ times literary supplement, 12 july, pp. 12-13. sahlins, marshall 2011. ‘what kinship is, parts i and ii,’ journal of the royal anthropological institute 17:2-19, 22742. kathleen barlow has conducted local village-based and comparative regional research in the lower sepik river and north coastal region of papua new guinea beginning in the 1980’s. her main research interests are gender women, cultural learning, material culture and ritual among murik and their trading partners. © 2015 kathleen barlow between animatism and pantheism: religion and the supernatural in ancient oaxaca review by hilary m. leathem ancient zapotec religion: an ethnohistorical and archaeological perspective by michael lind university press of colorado, 2015 in ancient zapotec religion: an ethnohistorical and archaeological perspective, anthropological archaeologist michael lind offers an interdisciplinary approach to defining and understanding ancient zapotec religion. by focusing on sixteenth and seventeenth century spanish colonial documents, the archaeological record, and brilliant murals, his project encompasses expertise from a variety of fields and methodologies (ethnohistory, archaeology, and art history). the book is truly integrative, and instead of being divided into sections according to methodology, the individual chapters end up flowing rather seamlessly into each other. chapters 1-4 are where lind imparts to the reader a general knowledge of oaxaca and the zapotec, surveys the different ways that anthropologists and archaeologists have approached the study of religion, and then analyzes spanish colonial documents, slowly painting a picture of zapotec religion and its caretakers. these chapters are primarily ethnohistorical and document-based. it is also in this section that lind makes one of the major interventions of his research project. according to lind, and as he demonstrates rather effectively throughout the book, ancient zapotec religion includes both a pantheon of deities (whether these be gods or deified ancestors), animatistic beliefs, and a hierarchal priesthood. on one hand, his argument contests the view joyce marcus put forth—that the zapotec had no pantheon of gods, and were animatistic, imbuing objects with supernatural force—in the now classic edited volume the cloud people: divergent evolution of the zapotec and mixtec civilizations (flannery &amp; marcus 2003 [1983]). his point is not that she is “incorrect,” but rather partially correct in that there is a certain degree of animatism in ancient zapotec religion; however, lind maintains that scholars who argued that zapotec religion included a pantheon and shared some similarities with other mesoamerican religions are also correct (8-10). in essence, lind asks and argues: why not both? in doing so, he shows us how ancient zapotec religion defies neatly packed categories. the next section, chapters 5 and 6, are the most archaeologically-intensive. lind takes an old problem to task—that is, the problem of the temple. not only does lind seek to understand the place of temples in zapotec religious life, but he also aims to parse out the distinction between zapotec palaces and temples (116). “nothing is ever easy in archaeology, and this is especially true when trying to distinguish zapotec palaces from temples,” he writes (115). and so he focuses on two instances of zapotec temples: one in mitla, the second in yagul. his juxtaposition of mitla against yagul is colored by typological dualities. for instance, he argues that there are two types of temples among the postclassic zapotec — a classic-style called a tpa (temple-plaza-altar) and trpa (temple-residenceplaza-altar), which is postclassic. lind’s assemblage of data eventually leads him to conclude that the mitla temple was a far more “special place” and most likely unrivaled in the valley of oaxaca (349). in chapters 7, 8, and 9, lind returns to the archives, although this section focuses on very different aspects of what he perceives to be integral to zapotec religion. in this section, lind attempts to reconstruct the lives and roles of the colaní, a class of zapotec priests in prehispanic times that dedicated themselves to the community; he also interrogates timekeeping among the zapotec, providing his view on what their sacred calendar was like, and then turns his careful and well-trained eye to an illuminating examination of the mitla murals. finally, chapter 10 synthesizes the evidence that lind procured and demonstrated to the reader, yielding exactly what lind set out to do: a comprehensive overview and description of ancient zapotec religion at the time of the spanish conquest. herein he also makes his second major intervention. the archaeologist arthur a. joyce argued once “that religion served to legitimate the elite.” lind states that this is compelling but asserts: “however, religion encompassed more than legitimating the elite. it also served to create a unifying force within any given zapotec city-state” (349). thus, in a way, lind’s vision of religion is a less menacing and oppressive one. indeed, it is generous, and bolstered by his increasing evidence (and data emerging elsewhere from other archaeologists in the valley of oaxaca), that the most integrative force was the cultural center of mitla. overall, lind’s book provides substantial evidence that mitla was and is the most important place in zapotec religion. even in the twentieth-century “zapotecs in the sierra juárez believed the souls of their dead resided in mitla” and people from all over pilgrimed there to acquire pieces of the ruins to take home due to their extraordinary sacredness (350). his conclusion is, in essence, of three parts: 1) zapotec religion features a pantheon of gods, a hierarchy of priests, and animatistic beliefs; 2) zapotec religion unified city-states into a cohesive identity and, perhaps, formed a specific ancient zapotec imaginary; and 3) mitla’s significance cannot be overstated. as many scholars of oaxaca and of ancient mesoamerican religion in general know, there is a paucity of literature on zapotec religion when compared to what is known about the maya and nahua belief systems. lind’s project is thus timely and offers new insights into this little known area of ancient zapotec society. until now, most of what was known about the zapotec was inferred from archaeological excavations or from mixtec codices. in recent years, rediscoveries of lienzos (in this case, painted zapotec genealogies) and a burgeoning interest in the postclassic period has enabled scholars to shed new light in this area. moreover, research in oaxaca on the zapotec has overwhelmingly focused on the formative and classic periods, on craft economies, and on agricultural and ecological practices and knowledge. recently, though, this has begun to change and should continue, a trend well represented by lind’s text. in short, i highly recommend this book for scholars of mesoamerican religion, oaxacanists, and those interested in conducting interdisciplinary research in challenging historical subjects. references cited flannery, kent v. and joyce marcus, eds. 2003 [1983]. the cloud people: divergent evolution of the zapotec and mixtec civilizations. new york: eliot werner publications, inc. hilary m. leathem is a phd student at the university of chicago in the department of anthropology. her research focuses on the intersections of authenticity, materiality, and conceptions of time and history in urban oaxaca, with ongoing interests in ethnohistory, museums, and the history of archaeology. she recently completed her ma in anthropology at uchicago. © 2015 hilary m. leathem from production to distribution: the politics of dependence and the emerging welfare state in southern africa review by vito laterza give a man a fish: reflections on the new politics of distribution by james ferguson duke university press, 2015 james ferguson’s latest book focuses on the rise of social welfare programmes in southern africa, in the form of grants to low income and vulnerable groups, primarily the elderly, women and their children, and the disabled. post-apartheid south africa has led the way. it has an extensive system which administers grants to 30 percent of the population. other countries like botswana, namibia, lesotho, swaziland, and mozambique have also implemented nationwide programs, while pilot programmes are being tried elsewhere in the region. ferguson’s goal is not to provide an extensive ethnographic treatment of these developments, but rather to analyse their implications and the field of political possibilities they might open up. half comparative ethnography, half political pamphlet, ferguson’s impressive narrative is a tour de force questioning, deconstructing and reconstructing classic and contemporary notions of poverty, development and the welfare state in the region and beyond. through a focus on direct cash transfers, the author brings together the anthropology of southern africa, with the latest debates in development practice and anti-poverty activism. written in a highly readable style, the book is structured around a series of self-contained chapters, originally given as the lewis henry morgan lectures in 2009 at the university of rochester. one can easily read the chapters independently or as part of a larger whole. ferguson’s starting point is the contradiction between dominant narratives on the relentless expansion of the neoliberal state, and the substantial extension of state social provisions through grants. the modest size of these social payments sets them apart from more comprehensive welfare measures in nordic countries, yet the author believes that this phenomenon marks the rise of what can be legitimately called “welfare states” in southern africa. while their impact might be limited in the present form, the systems in place lay the foundations for more radical possibilities. breaking away from conventional welfare and poverty interventions, grants are not delivered with the final goal of reproducing a healthy and productive workforce in the cities, or creating a class of productive farmers in the rural areas. the eligibility criteria are simple – mostly age for pensions and child care grants – and do not include conditions like searching for employment or investing in productive activities. this hints at economic structures that affect the vast majority of southern africans: the rural areas are witnessing a constant decline in agricultural production, while the formal sector in urban areas, even when experiencing high growth, simply fails to absorb most people who are in need of employment. far from being a temporary situation that can be rectified through economic policies, this is a chronic feature of contemporary capitalism in southern africa and increasingly in other parts of the world, including northern economies like the us and europe. the author points out that production remains the dominant paradigm in economic anthropology, development discourse and practice, and radical left thinking. he calls for a radical shift away from “productionist” tenets towards distribution. his wide-ranging critique builds on a reelaboration of key themes in classic and contemporary southern african ethnography, from kinshipbased reciprocity across the rural-urban spectrum to a mix of moral and economic concerns at play in sex, love and intimacy in times of precarious livelihoods. the “distributive political economy” mapped by ferguson is characterised by a myriad of acts of wealth distribution, entangled in multiple and complex relations of dependence influenced by configurations of gender, kinship, labour, community, ethnicity, society and the state. rather than producing more wealth, this “distributive labour” is primarily directed at dividing sources of wealth into “smaller and smaller slivers as they work their way across social relations of kinship, clientage, allegiance, and solidarity” (p.97). it is this kind of activity that sustains and reproduces society, more than engagement in production as defined by macro-economic frameworks centred on the labour of able-bodied men in the formal sector and the reproductive work of women as wives and mothers. one powerful example of this reversal in south africa is the shift from dependence of women, children and rural relatives on remittances from men working in the mines in the heyday of the apartheid economy, to the central distributive role played today by women and elderly people. the latter are the main beneficiaries of state grants, and disenfranchised men at the margin of the productive economy have increasingly come to rely on them. establishing and maintaining dependence on others who have access to wealth becomes a fulltime job for those who are excluded from the benefits of middle class life. dependence, in ferguson’s treatment, has more to do with sharing than either gift or market exchange. sharing and dependence cannot be easily subsumed under the conventional opposition between equality and inequality. these relations hint at a “new politics of distribution” beyond these two poles. within this framework, ferguson convincingly reinterprets varied political movements calling for redistribution in the region, from the populist socialism of new radical movements in south africa to the region-wide basic income grant campaign, and debates around land reform and resource nationalism. calls for redistribution go beyond narrow views of african patrimonialism. people demand what ferguson labels their “rightful share” in wealth that is owned collectively. legitimate participation in this process can be framed along citizenship lines at the state level, but there are other levels of belonging too when local communities and traditional leaders are involved. these claims are not exercised from a position of inferiority or supplication. people own collectively all the resources of their community of belonging, hence they have a claim to a share of the wealth produced from these resources. by inserting the normative and political dimensions of these movements into a long history of local idioms and practices, ferguson provides a different angle on activist discussions around radical measures like the basic income grant (big). big is argued from a variety of perspectives, ranging from radical marxism to left-leaning libertarianism and technocratic social democracy. the distinctive feature of a basic income is that it should not be tied to any condition and everybody should be entitled to it. the ideal world imagined by big activists is one where all human beings receive a basic income that would afford them a decent livelihood, with no compulsion to work for a wage or generate income through other activities. this is a radical break from existing welfare measures that tie unemployment benefits to the reintegration of beneficiaries in the labour market. in line with other activist scholars, ferguson notes that these emerging state systems of cash distribution provide an essential infrastructure for the possible establishment of big. at the same time, his anthropological analysis develops moral and political arguments in favour of big that are grounded in local discourses and aspirations, a dimension often missed by global activist groups and regional campaigners. ferguson joins a growing number of anthropologists who subvert the conventional boundaries between analysis and engagement. with his creative and flexible analysis, he provokes thinking for action beyond narrow ideological boundaries. one could imagine enthusiastic endorsements of his work by marxist campaigners, world bank technocrats and traditional leaders alike. this highly original book is likely to leave a lasting mark not only on contemporary anthropological debates around poverty and development, but also policy and activist thinking in southern africa and beyond. vito laterza is an anthropologist working on labour, development and environment in southern and central africa. he is a research fellow in the centre for african studies, university of cape town, and a research associate of the human economy programme, university of pretoria. he received his phd from the university of cambridge. twitter account: @vitolaterza09 website: www.thehumaneconomy.blogspot.com © 2015 vito laterza 1 the postcolonial politics of post-national citizenship in portugal review by david kerr verde, let's go: creole rappers and citizenship in portugal by derek pardue university of illinois press, 2015 cape verde, let's go addresses the postcolonial politics of citizenship in portugal through the lens of creole rap. it examines how creole challenges what it means to be portuguese and shapes notions of identity and belonging. the unique historical interactions between portugal and cape verdeans, as well as the subsequent creation of creole identities, provides the central empirical framework for this book. pardue argues for a creole identity distinct from one-dimensional notions of hybridity and mixing. instead, for pardue, creole identity encompasses history, alterity and power. drawing on a range of theories from a variety of academic disciplines the book is ambitious in scope. speaking to issues of both “theoretical conclusions and policy deliverables” (37) it examines the materiality of labour and housing as well as the poetics of creative expression. crucial to the books multiple arguments is the conception that citizenship emerges from a set of practices and social relationships and not solely from a set of legal rights administered by the state. to address these issues pardue engages with a diverse range of texts from the lyrics of kriolu rap, the text of novels and the work of african intellectuals. engaging critical debates about contemporary forms of citizenship, pardue’s book raises important questions about how citizenship is conceptualised and how creative expression can be used to examine wider ideas of european intercultural citizenship. it addresses the vital issue of whether creole citizenship offers a viable model for a contemporary mode of post-national citizenship. a major argument in the book is that the creative use of cape verdean creole, a language that emerged through the encounter between west africans and the portuguese colonial powers, interrupts grand 2 state narratives of luso inclusion and conviviality. this notion of a unique luso relationship between metropolitan centre and colonial periphery has historically been employed by the portuguese state to address colonialism and its legacy. lusotropicalism a concept coined by brazilian sociologist gilberto freyre and adopted by the colonial state of portuguese dictator salazar, posited a distinctive empathetic portuguese imperialism based upon racial mixing as a key component of portuguese national character. after the fall of the dictatorship, lusofonia, a term that seeks to incorporate the heterogeneity of populations that constitute contemporary portugal based on a common language and the creole mixing of european modernity and african culture, has been invoked by the portuguese state. state immigration, housing and labour policies directed towards migrants of african origin in portugal contrast with these inclusive luso narratives have been, as this book shows, rather more exclusionary. pardue argues that creole rap disrupts these narratives through its evocation of histories of migration, labour and race. in so doing, kriolu rap constructs “alternative subject positions and linguistic-cultural communities in relation to tuga and, thus, dislodge conventional notions of what it is to be portuguese at phenomenological and narrative levels” (92). the use of kriolu is a means for asserting claims to both space and place. it acts as a mode through which to attribute meaning to place and to manage the migratory experience and what pardue terms dis(em)placement, that is, managing the significance of multiple places. the kriolu language has, he suggests, become a medium which carries cape verdian history. articulations of place and time, of migration, of lisbon’s poorer neighbourhoods and of cape verde form an important unit for analysing the meaning of creole citizenship. the poetics, linguistic ingenuity and narrative of kriolu rap do identity work, organising experience and giving meaning to place. engaging with the linguistics of expression, the book argues that patterns of repetition create sedimentation establishing structures within linguistic expression. as such these kriolu linguistic structures are articulations of the cape verdian migrant experience. the relationship between space such as the impoverished neighbourhoods in which kriolu rappers live and the multiple temporalities of colonialism, migration and the future are interrogated through the bakhtinian concept of the creole chronotope. using the concept of the chronotope the book explores how kriolu shapes not only language but space, it is through kriolu rap that the space of lisbon occupied by kriolu rappers is made and takes on flesh. state discourses and policies shape legal entitlements to citizenship and the material space of the city itself. kriolu is a mean through which both citizenship and space are challenged and rearticulated by cape verdian migrants. language and expressive culture are important elements of the participation and belonging in society, a 3 key facet of the conception of citizenship employed in this book. creole rap is a medium through which the question of citizenship is performed. with migration, citizenship and belonging central questions in europe, pardue makes a bold argument for creole citizenship as a contemporary mode of post-national citizenship, participation and belonging. central to the argument of this book is the conception of cape verdian creole experience of migrancy as an “episteme, a paradigm of being that is central to identity formation in the contemporary world” (27). speaking to both scholars and policy makers, the book proposes creole citizenship as a model for the history of encounters and the politics of difference. arguing for the encounter as a new mode of viewing citizenship, in which kriolu is not portuguese nor cape verdian, but created through the encounter. a creole citizenship situated at the intersection, in portugal rather than of portugal. the book engages with a diverse range of sources, theoretical debates and policy questions. central to the book are arguments about citizenship rather than detailed ethnographic exploration of the means of production and circulation of popular music. ethnographic vignettes of kriolu rap production and performance serve to illustrate the overarching arguments of the book rather than providing an ethnographically deep and detailed account of kriolu raps production. the debates to which this book contributes are largely those on migration, contemporary modes of belonging and citizenship, rather than debates in hip-hop or popular music studies. david kerr is a post-doctoral researcher at the university of johannesburg currently working on street life, urban performance and masculinity in dar es salaam. he completed his thesis entitled ‘performing the self: rappers, urban space and identity in dar es salaam’ under the supervision of professor karin barber at the university of birmingham in 2014 and has published in the journal of african media studies, journal of african cultural studies and has an article forthcoming in suomen antropologi – journal of the finish anthropological society.. © 2017 david kerr casting things as actors in the peruvian landscapes of mining conflict review by kristina baines unearthing conflict: corporate mining, activism, and expertise in peru by fabiana li duke university press, 2015 in unearthing conflict, fabiana li presents a purposeful and careful opening up of the concept of “conflict” to include “people, places and things,” and the complex relationships between them, in the context of mining conflict in peru. as expected from quality ethnography, she “goes deeper” than a dichotomous pro/con arguments of resource extraction, explicitly tackling how non-human elements in the landscape, what she refers to as “things,” have taken on a critical role in the politics of extraction in peru. using multiple historical analyses and two notable case studies, the discussion of lead pollution in la oroya and the conflict surrounding the mining of cerro quilish in cajamarca, li proposes equivalences as a tool for understanding how mining negotiations occur and how conflicts are generated. her discussion of equivalence is subtle in terms of whom this process serves. she demonstrates through a skillful weaving of history, ethnography and theory that it enables both the conflict, and the space in which comparisons can be made and different forms of value understood and negotiated. showing that the technical language, devices and measurement associated with the scientific monitoring and explanation of environmental impacts compare to other ways of knowing and inhabiting the landscape, she proposes that this “ontological multiplicity” can somehow be reconciled for mining conflicts, opening up the potential of grassroots movements to work within this flexible space to make real changes in national politics. part i, “mining past and present,” begins this journey into the making of a dichotomous discussion of mining conflicts into a consideration of multiple “things.” it offers a history of mining that goes beyond a discussion of “human agency” to include structural factors, process, actors, and their roles in defining the landscape. it traces the history of pollution and what it means to be polluted, “scientifically and in the socio-political imagination,” both from an external, or environmental, perspective and an internal, or bodily, perspective. part ii, “water and life,” confronts one of the most ubiquitous features of the peruvian landscape, the movement of water, and describes irrigation canals as “entangled social and natural histories.” li uses classic features of culture and describes how they amount to more than cultural identity: the intersection of human and non-human phenomena, the reconfiguring of place, the mobilization of kinship, the articulation of habits or costumbre, and different classificatory systems. this discussion shows how place was and is “made” through a complex convergence of practices and ideas and is not simply distillable. part iii, “activism and expertise,” consists of a chapter of focused attention on the environmental impact assessment (eia), both as an artifact, or “thing,” and a way of demonstrating the “competing ways of making equivalences” essential to li’s problematizing of the conflict dichotomy. it provides a much needed and continued “critique of the participatory process” in which corporations elicit the participation of mining communities while actually disempowering them through a shift in perspective from “corporate accountability to shared responsibility.” one particularly valuable point, which li’s focused critique of conflict as simply a dichotomous tension brings to light, is that specific indigenous articulations of the natural world are neither “invented” or pre-existing but are expressed in specific ways when it becomes politically necessary. these articulations, the idea of apu as an example, are part of everyday practice. “indigenous knowledge” is not fixed but responsive and pragmatic, and its use in these global discourses is not some kind of strategy but the nature of how knowledge and practice exist and become salient. this, again, is an important contribution to this conversation and might have been emphasized even more, pushing against the characterization of static and inflexible indigenous communities by corporate and government forces in many parts of the world. delving into the literature on traditional ecological knowledge might have sent li into a rabbit hole, however, this responsiveness, and how science is similarly flexible, is supported in this literature and may have contributed to further examination of the “belief” versus “fact” divide. while unearthing conflict is clearly based on skilled and rich ethnographic work, i found myself sometimes wishing it felt more ethnographically reflexive. some of the most evocative moments in the book are ethnographic: the one in which li visits a daycare center and is invited to watch how “normal” a child with an extreme lead content in his blood is behaving, or another in which she recounts how a woman loses her job preparing meals for mining workers after a surprise visit from a mining company representative and an honest admission of using water from the creek, stand out as powerful examples of the convergence of bodies and landscapes and the other “things” that exemplify the nuances of the conflicts the book tackles. these moments are well-done and illustrative, and i cannot help but want more of them. li delves into much foundational literature to ground her analyses and argument, for example using latour to frame her thoughts about science and technology expertise. it was notable to read ideas about discipline and surveillance, recording of public questions and concerns at the eia meeting, and bodies without a mention of the ways in which foucault has put these ideas together, or read a discussion of pollution and the body without a reference to douglas. to be fair, though, li tackles weighty theoretical histories and topics in neoliberalism, environmentalism, science and technology studies, ngos, corporations, activism, and indigeneity, so perhaps suggesting that she start down the road of critical medical anthropology is asking way too much. this book does a lot and it does it well. it will be helpful not only in providing a rich foundation for studies of mining conflict in peru, but also for students and scholars really looking for a way to illuminate the complexities of the common reality of community/government/corporate conflict over resource extraction in the name of “development” throughout latin america and beyond. kristina baines is an applied social anthropologist and co-founder of www.coolanthropology.com. her primary research focuses on the relationship between health and ecological heritage practices in belize and new york city. she is assistant professor of anthropology and faculty for academic technology at the city university of new york (cuny), guttman community college. © 2015 kristina baines outside the benefit zone, inside the impact zone: jerry jacka on mining and social change in porgera, papua new guinea review by alex golub alchemy in the rain forest: politics, ecology, and resilience in a new guinea mining area by jerry k. jacka duke university press, 2015 the porgera valley in papua new guinea is well-known as the home of one of the largest gold mines in the world, and this book documents the lives of people in the eastern part of the valley, who live just outside of the main area affected by mining. these are people whose lives have been changed not by the direct impact of mining but by its present absence in their lives. the eastern porgerans jacka discusses receive little of the money and benefits that have gone to people whose lands have been taken by the mine, but they must still struggle with the massive negative social change that the mine has engendered. in particular, it is the road which supplies the mine, rather than the mine itself, which runs through their territory and which deeply alters their lives. although much of the material in this monograph has been published before in articles and book chapters, alchemy in the rain forest is a valuable, readable ethnography that greatly enriches our understanding of porgera and contemporary melanesia more generally. jacka is an environmental anthropologist and the organization of his book reflects this fact. the book is divided into three sections. the first section sets the stage for the rest of the book, with a chapter reviewing the literature on political economy and introducing the valley's main features, and a second chapter on the history of the valley from the 1930s, when australians first reached it, to the creation of the mine in the late 1980s. the second section of the book describes main themes in ipili culture. there are chapters on land, gardening and kinship, and spirits. the final section of the book looks at ecological and social change in the valley since the coming of the gold mine. this section includes a chapter on deforestation in the valley and fluctuations in rainfall, and another on the impact of money, warfare, and the highway on eastern ipili people. this book's analytic model revolves around three terms: ontology, resilience, and alchemy. first, ontology. throughout the book jacka cites the ontological turn in anthropology, and particularly the work of phillipe descola. jacka's engagement with this literature is relatively brief – for jacka, ontology really just is another word for culture and 'ontology' is a way to focus on local meanings. this is a lucky turn for the reader, because the ethnography in this book is infinitely more readable than monographs such as truth in motion (holbraad 2012). indeed, the ethnography in this book is its strongest feature. the central three sections on ipili culture and relation to land are a superb blend of ethnographic example and generalizing statement. jacka often appears as a character in his book, but never in a way that is distracting or narcissistic. best of all, the book is written in a clear, lean style which will make it very accessible to students and nonspecialists – something that might not have happened if jacka had used a more 'ontological' prose style. jacka's description of ipili culture is not new or original – in addition to his previous publications, much of this material repeats the work done by jacka's dissertation supervisor, aletta biersack. indeed, since biersack was a major influence on marilyn strathern's influential gender of the gift (1988), jacka's work is, in a sense, pre-ontological! but biersack's writings are often at a very high level of academic abstraction, and her classic papers of the early 1980s are not as much in the public eye as they should be. this volume is valuable because it is the first easily-accessible, comprehensive overview of general themes in ipili culture which a non-specialist can read. at this, it excels. that said, jacka's book does more than simply repeat biersack's work. his account is an up-to-date portrayal of contemporary porgera, complete with consumerism, tribal fighting, and changing gender relations that simply did not exist during biersack's initial fieldwork. what's more, while there have been specialist accounts of the mine from geographical and social impact perspectives, and my own political anthropological case study, leviathans at the gold mine (2014), jacka fills a needed gap in the literature in porgera by providing this readable overview of the valley's culture. contemporary, accessible, and informed, this volume is at its best when it describes the lives of everyday people living life in porgera today. resilience is another major theme of jacka's book, but as a porgera specialist and not an ecological anthropologist i have less to say about this theme. although jacka does attempt to map social change in porgera onto the model used by gunderson and holling, he does not seem to advance the use of the concept, nor does he suggest ways in which porgera could become more resilient – something the valley badly needs. at the same time, no-one so far as been able to come up with answers for the valley’s many woes, so perhaps it is hoping for too much to expect to find a solution here. throughout the book, jacka seems to use the term 'resilient' to mean that ipili culture is not disappearing underneath the impact of resource colonialism, or to say that it shapes the way ipili people respond to new events. but jacka seems to misunderstand the implications of this argument when he argues that "porgeran ontological systems serve to inhibit social transformation by providing templates with which to understand novel events. in essence they channel disruptive events into recognizable frameworks of experience (cf. sahlins 1981)" (p. 235). simply because change is culturally mediated does not mean that it is culturally inhibited. indeed, in the piece that jacka cites, sahlins argues that the cultural mediation of novelty can both amplify and inhibit change, depending on the cultural structures which mediate. roy wagner, alan rumsey, and many of the other authors that jacka cites argue that melanesian cultures – and especially highland cultures such as the ipili – value novelty and change for its own sake. and indeed, jacka's own material supports the idea that ipili culture mediates and amplifies – rather than just inhibiting – change. he emphasizes the long tradition of migration in this area, and then discusses the way that in-migration into the valley put stress on social order. he points out that ipili want 'development', but also contend with changing gender roles, consumption patterns, and the influence of money. might it not make more sense to argue that ipili want change, but got more of it than they could handle, and too quickly? although jacka is careful not to paint ipili as primitive conservationists, one does feel at times there is one ecologically noble savage in this text – jacka himself – who seems to value the good old days of myths, rituals, and subsistence agriculture more than some ipili do. as for the final of jacka's three concepts, 'alchemy', this is the one about which there is the least to discuss. it's a cunning, rich notion which connects ipili culture to premodern understandings of nature and to the tragic, greedy quest for wealth. but after the introductory chapters the idea drops out from the book and is never developed again, except as the star concept of jacka's brilliantly written conclusion. i do have some other minor quibbles about the book – christianity perhaps deserved more time than it got, and the mine is offstage for most of the book despite being its ostensible subject. and at times, jacka's views seem less that of an independent analyst and more a conveyor of the views of eastern porgerans who look with indignant disdain at the landowners of the goldmine, believing that they are rolling in money rather than in mine waste. but while there is much for porgera specialists to debate in these pages, these are not issues that detract from the book for a general reader. in his review of my book about porgera, jacka (2014) said that it was full of jargon and lacked an indigenous voice (i plead guilty to the first count, but not the second). it's probably not surprising, then, that i wished his volume had more follow-through on its theoretical claims and less romantic populism. i do agree with jacka, however, that our differing perspectives result in an increasingly rich body of literature about the valley. in sum, this book is a valuable addition to the specialist literature on mining and social change in melanesia, but also written in a clear style that will be of great use in the classroom. i recommend jacka’s accessible, straight-forward ethnography to all readers. references cited golub, alex 2014. leviathans at the gold mine: creating indigenous and corporate actors in papua new guinea. durham, nc: duke university press. holbraad, martin 2012. truth in motion: the recursive anthropology of cuban divination. chicago: university of chicago press. jacka, j.k. 2014. review of leviathan at the gold mine: creating corporate and indigenous actors in papua new guinea. alex golub. duke university press. id: international dialogue 4:33-36. sahlins, marshall 1981. historical metaphors and mythical realities: structure in the early history of the sandwich islands. ann arbor: university of michigan press. strathern, marilyn 1988. the gender of the gift: problems with women and problems with society in melanesia . berkeley: university of california press. alex golub is an associate professor of anthropology at the university of hawai‘i at mānoa. his research focuses on the political anthropology of mining. his book leviathans at the gold mine about the porgera gold mine in papua new guinea was published by duke university press in 2014. he is also one of the founders of the well-known anthropology blog savage minds. © 2015 alex golub teaching the holocaust in an uncertain world review by naomi calnitsky anxious histories: narrating the holocaust in jewish communities at the beginning of the twentyfirst century by jordana silverstein berghahn books, 2015 anxious histories is a sensitive work, which sets out to relate how the differing migration stories and urban settings of jewish communities in new york and melbourne led to the establishment of jewish communities that teach the holocaust in divergent ways. it does so, not by seeking to offer a “totalizing” study of holocaust education, but rather offering a glimpse into twelve schools, fifteen teachers, and a variety of denominations in melbourne and new york (from orthodox to secular) (p. 5). a somewhat daunting project upon first glance, the book reveals teachers of the holocaust as “anxious” about the ways in which “jews” might “fit into the australian, u.s. and jewish worlds in which they live,” and often adopting overtly zionist orientations (p. 3-4) it locates diasporic jewish communities within broader social worlds and points to challenges of holocaust narration to suggest “there are many impossibilities involved in such pedagogical pursuits” (p. 5). holocaust education here takes place in what are termed “settler colonial” conditions. the author proposes to open conversations, formerly “foreclosed, about anxiety and the holocaust” (p. 8). while this literary gap is recognized at the outset, there is little thorough examination of the problem of anxiety as a specifically psychological state applicable to jewish communities in the diaspora world. the book focuses on ways that “anxious jewishness(es)” has had “protracted effects” (p. 9) on holocaust education and in this sense the book succeeds. education is under scrutiny as it commingles with definitions of collective identity and the reproduction of ethno-religious culture among young jews of the diaspora. jewish communities’ past historical engagement with european modernity is considered, as are shifting characterizations of jewish belonging in the modern non-jewish west. the book incorporates postcolonial thought, offering interpretive flourishes that in most cases succeed, but on occasion, concepts like mimicry are taken out of context and can risk detracting attention from the central research problem. the extent to which an analysis of what the author terms settler-colonial societies in which modern jewish diaspora communities live is pertinent remains somewhat ambiguous, influenced perhaps more by modern discursive trends than jewish realities. while national contexts are critical, jewish pasts and histories of migration into these societies may be even more so, yet those stories are often eclipsed by the structure and intention of the work. chapter one introduces post-holocaust migrations to the “non-jewish west” (p. 37) and proposes a discussion of racialized national pasts in australia and america. it moves into a discussion of holocaust memorializing in the united states, changing conceptions of “whiteness” in post-war america, and the de-marginalization of jewish identity gained through inclusion in an american culture often defined more by class than by religious indicators. marginality as it relates to judaism in diaspora communities, whether imagined or real, is considered in a fruitful way. the author situates jewish migration to australia in its formerly racialized immigration climate in which quotas defined jewish migration before and after the war, to probe connections between whiteness and jewishness in australia. she refers to “strands of anxiety” (p. 55) experienced by jews in their ability to integrate into australian society, and considers diaspora and israel in gendered terms, with diaspora understood as a state of “disempowered exile” (p. 54) and israel a realization of masculinity and strength. the dichotomy is useful but does not open room for interpreting perforations between the two. the book goes on to look at how “chronological fact-based narrations” (p. 63) served as a primary way to represent “truths” of the holocaust. putting pedagogy under scrutiny, it considers diasporic ways of knowing the holocaust. it also refers to patterns prevalent in holocaust pedagogy, including modernist narratives that position the creation of the state of israel as an uplifting jewish progression from the nazi period. in relation to the problem of teaching trauma or unknowable pasts, “coherence and knowability” were ultimate aims when narrating traumatic pasts (p. 65). knowledge of the holocaust was often “unquenchable” terrain (p. 70). while holocaust curricula were described as totalizing or segmented from other histories, narrating the holocaust offered solidity or a “bedrock” upon which “uncertain identities” could sit (p. 71), and survivor testimonies could serve as “truthtelling” devices or “primary evidence” (p. 77). anxious histories also considers liberation’s ambivalence for many survivors, due to their perpetual suffering, pointing to a “lack of closure” associated with the holocaust and its positioning as an often “unresolvable” moment in history and history education (p. 87). anxious histories makes for a nuanced study of the intricacies of holocaust education, its omissions and points of emphasis. the study fits into a category of post-holocaust inquiry, not dissimilar to carolyn dean’s recent work on post-holocaust discourses of victimhood and empathy. modern jewish culture is also considered alongside zionist culture wherein a jewish diaspora often operates in dialogue with the postwar establishment of israel. australian zionism and other incarnations of diasporic zionism are explored. a view into patterns of teaching about postwar concerns, including the problem of implementing the rule of law vis-à-vis nazi war crimes, locates israel as a center for post-holocaust justice making and education, and problematizes framings of israel as a culmination or “happy ending” of wartime trauma. viewing patterns in holocaust pedagogy with a critical eye, silverstein charts out how teachers position israel as a “redemptive national end,” following a “zionist narratorial path” (p. 110). her discussion of israeli masculinity vis-à-vis diasporic feminity risks essentializing israeli culture but is also reflective of certain realities. the book suggests that “settler-colonial” societies often pursue acts of “forgetting” to establish a sense of belonging. the discussion locates jewish diasporic identities in their broader national settings. specifically in the discussion of america, the “americanization” of holocaust memory is manifested overtly through museum culture, (149) but settler-colonialism’s relationship with jewish culture in the diasporic world is not considered in any meaningful way. u.s. holocaust memorialization is critiqued as a “brand” of memorializing, yet the context of american museum culture is not discussed. america’s positioning as a secondary (after israel), or even foundational headquarters for the public display of holocaust memory is to some extent taken for granted, and there is a misplaced emphasis on the historical injustices performed by “settler-colonial” societies of which modern jews are a part, and the lack of jewish institutional attention to those pasts. holocaust education’s potential connection with histories of conquest or slavery in america, or its role in “obscuring” those histories, is claimed; while this might seem a matter of pedagogical emphasis, the author fails to probe why the often-insular institutions of the diaspora emphasized their own histories at the expense of others. stories of jewish migration to the “settler-colonial” societies under study are given little attention. similarly, the freedom of jews to practice their faith in host societies, or their relative comfort in doing so, is not considered. due to the narrow emphasis of the central research question, that of how holocaust pedagogies operate in two diasporic contexts, the broader political problems and cultural questions raised by the study, which are interwoven into it – the potentially precarious location of jews in western societies, the controversial place of israel in the world, and how diasporic jews relate to zionism – are considered as they relate to holocaust education but not more broadly. the mosaic of outcomes uncovered through fieldwork, however, reveals a multiplicity of positions and intersections with these larger narratives and themes. the final chapter departs from earlier themes to consider how jewish women’s experiences of the holocaust are narrated. the author applies university level feminist discourse to secondary level teaching, to reveal complexity in the ways in which women’s roles in and experiences of the holocaust are taught at jewish institutions. the book ends, somewhat ambivalently, with said’s observation about a lack of neutrality in the study of history. while the book’s findings effectively prove this to be the case, readers are left with somewhat ambiguous conclusions. holocaust educators outside of israel indeed do more than teach histories of the holocaust; their curricula extend to fundamental questions relating to jewish diasporic identity, “how to be” in a non-jewish world, how to study and “know” past trauma, how to contend with jewish anxiety in a post-holocaust world (p. 208). a disclaimer, stating an emphasis on pedagogy, positions the book as fundamentally anthropological, rather than historical, and it serves ultimately as a study more so of discourse than of culture, serving as a transplantation of postsecondary thought upon the more primary (and oftentimes foundational) levels of jewish educational life, to reveal their strengths and weaknesses, gaps, fissures and omissions, and enduring victories. references cited carolyn dean 2010. aversion and erasure: the fate of the victim after the holocaust. ithaca: cornell university press. carolyn dean 2004. the fragility of empathy after the holocaust. ithaca: cornell university press. naomi calnitsky is a phd candidate in canadian and latin american history at carleton university. she was a commonwealth scholar at the university of otago, new zealand where she received a master of arts in history. she specializes in research on labour migration from peripheral to first world economies, including mexico-canada migration routes and postwar pacific island seasonal migration to new zealand. © 2015 naomi calnitsky 1 native faith movements in europe: intersections, collisions, and transformations of religious sensibilities review by stephen d. glazier contemporary pagan and native faith movements in europe: colonialist and nationalist impulses by kathryn rountree, ed. berghahn, 2015 in recent decades pagan and native faith movements have proliferated across europe, but there has been little research addressing the social and political impact of these movements. contributors to this volume explore the complex interplay of nationalistic impulses in contemporary paganism, illustrating how nationalistic impulses play out, intersect, collide, and transform european religious sensibilities as evidenced by the establishment of the european congress of ethnic religions (ecer) in 1998. contributors to this volume also make it clear that european paganism differs from paganism in north america largely because european pagans are strongly rooted in their local communities and focus more on issues of ethnic identity. pagan and native faith movements are notable for valorizing nature and for embracing polytheistic cosmologies, and for their diverse beliefs, practices, goals, and agendas. some pagan groups attempt to recreate ancient religious forms, while other groups import elements from newer, foreign traditions like wicca, druidry, goddess spirituality, and core shamanism. this volume consists of 13 chapters covering an array of european nations and local contexts (e. g. sami neoshamanism in norway, danish asatro, swedish heathenism, the brotherhood of wolves in the czech republic, sakha shamanism, estonian maausulised, hungarian paganism, witchcraft in berlin, irish paganism, flemish wicca, goddess spirituality in the iberian peninsula, italian paganism, 2 and maltese paganism). most contributors are anthropologists, but other disciplines -notably history, religious studies, folklore, and psychology-are represented. all european pagan and native faith movements are not represented. as editor kathryn rountree points out, chapters in this volume “should not be regarded as ‘country studies’ but rather as studies of particular groups in particular countries” (p. 9). rountree’s introduction, “context is everything: plurality and paradox in contemporary european paganisms,” assesses paganisms and native faith movements as products of “glocalization” – an interplay of global and local concerns. she suggests that native faith and pagan movements in europe are steeped in what she classifies as “colonialist and nationalist impulses.” these movements, she asserts, are very much products of local histories and european politics. some movements -like wicca -have readily adopted anglo-american pagan traditions, while other movements have adopted a “reconstructionist approach” and have sought to revitalize selected pre-christian religious traditions tied to particular regions. some native faith movements advocate a return to an “authentic” prechristian religion, while others do not. contemporary pagan and native faith movements have been shaped by historical relationships within particular regions as in, for example, estonia and/or the degree to which secularism has taken hold as in, for example, sweden. contributors point out that while native faith movements seem nationalistic in tone, most groups are accepting and inclusive of outsiders. the first six chapters – dealing with norway, denmark, sweden, and the czech republic – constitute the centerpiece of the book. chapter 1, “sami neo-shamanism in norway: colonial grounds, ethnic revival and pagan pathways.” by siv ellen kraft documents a revival of sami shamanism in norway. sami shamanism, she asserts, has multiple influences; for example, the founder of sami neoshamanism made trips to california in order to study under anthropologist michael j harner. kraft cogently argues for a distinctive sami shamanism in which sami indigenous identity becomes increasingly important. she convincingly demonstrates how environmental protest and the changing status of indigenous peoples have shaped sami cultural and religious traditions. chapter 2, “it's not easy being apolitical: reconstruction and eclecticism in danish asatro,” by matthew h. amster highlights the danish cultural aversion to mixing religion and politics. chapter 3, “modern heathenism in sweden: a case study in the creation of a traditional religion,” by fredrik gregorius explores a 3 curious paradox. swedish pagans present their religion as a “re-discovery” of authentic nordic culture, while at the same time incorporating decidedly non-nordic religions like wicca (p. 12). swedish pagans draw inspiration from migrant religions like hinduism and haitian voodoo and seek to position themselves among other swedish “minority religions.” chapter 4 “the brotherhood of wolves, czech republic: from asatru to primitivism.” by kamila velkoborska emphasizes diversity in the czech pagan scene. velkoborska documents numerous disagreements, splits, and power struggles within the movement that revolves around czech wolfdogs (bred by members) and members who purport to live as modern hunter-gatherers. chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 address political discourses surrounding paganism and native faiths. chapter 5, “soviet-era discourse and siberian shamanic revivalism: how area spirits speak through academia” by eleanor peers shows how a revival of shamanism in sakha (yakutia) republic, northeast siberia, relates to a wider post-soviet nationalist revival. chapter 6, “in search of genuine religion: the contemporary estonian maausulised movement and nationalist discourse” by ergo-hart vastrik traces continuity between estonian native faith movements and the followers of maausk (maausk = “the faith of the earth”) -a religion that was banned by the soviets in 1940. chapter 7, “emerging identity markets of contemporary pagan ideologies in hungary” by tamas szilagyi provides an account of pagan “meta-culture” in hungary. szilagyi deftly charts the fate of hungarian christian churches that collapsed because they were unable to rebuild their sociopolitical base. chapter 8, “hot, strange, folkish, cosmopolitan: native faith and neo-pagan witchcraft in berlin's changing urban context” by victoria hegner examines the relationship between native faith and nationalism in germany. what happens when an american pagan visits berlin? chapter 9, “paganism in ireland: syncretic processes, identity and a sense of place” by jenny butler explores other ways of conceiving the relationship between paganism and nationalism. she convincingly argues that irish nationalism and paganism are drawn from land, monuments, myths, and irish folk culture. chapter 10, “on the sticks and stones of the greencraft temple in flanders: balancing global and local heritage in wicca.” by leon van gulik looks at tensions between eclecticism and traditionalism among flemish followers of greencraft wicca. two aspects of the greencraft tradition 1) the celtic tree calendar, and 2) stone circles combine elements that are allegedly celtic, but are no longer considered to be “authentic.” chapters 11-13 address issues of authenticity. chapter 11, “iberian paganism: goddess spirituality in spain and portugal and the quest for authenticity” by anna fedele reports on the 2010 transplantation 4 of the goddess conference in spain. she emphasizes the close affinities of iberian paganism and local catholics. chapter 12, “bellisama and aradia: paganism re-emerges in italy” by francesca ciancimino howell points out that the italian pagan community has indigenized and re-appropriated multiple religious traditions. howell skillfully delineates diverse local and global strands. finally, chapter 13, “authenticity and invention in the quest for a modern maltese paganism” by kathryn rountree looks at maltese paganism and the colonizing aspects of modern paganism. rountree points out that while the united states plays a major role in spreading the gospel of the goddess in europe, american ideas have been met with a variety of local responses ranging from enthusiasm to disapproval. contributors to this volume do an excellent job of presenting descriptive and ethnographic materials to highlight the complex inter-workings of traditionalism and eclecticism. above all, contributors highlight the importance of local sociocultural, historical, political, religious and environmental contexts in determining the diverse shapes that paganisms and native faith movements have taken in the current sociopolitical space of europe. moreover, these studies illustrate how particular local contexts can inspire vastly “different responses” (p. 19). contributors provide considerable ethnographic detail, but i come away from this volume wanting to know more about the rituals and belief systems of these religions and wanting to know what it would be like to be a participant in these movements. what is it about these religions that has made them so compelling to so many in such diverse social and political settings? stephen d. glazier is a research anthropologist at the human relations area files at yale university. in 2017, he retired from the university of nebraska as professor of anthropology and graduate faculty fellow. glazier is author of marchin’ the pilgrims home: a study of the spiritual baptists of trinidad, editor of anthropology of religion: a handbook; editor of perspectives on pentecostalism: case studies from the caribbean and latin america; general editor of the encyclopedia of african and african american religions, and co-editor (with andrew s. buckser) of the anthropology of religious conversion. © 2017 stephen d. glazier enduring aymara cosmovision in the context of development in chile review by nell haynes aymara indian perspectives on development in the andes by amy eisenberg university of alabama press, 2013 in aymara indian perspectives on development in the andes, amy eisenberg demonstrates how certain kinds of development—specifically those related to mining, highway construction, and the diversion of water sources—have impinged on the “social fabric” of aymara communities in northern chile. rather than ethnography analyzed through the lens of anthropological theory, this book is part field guide, part historical account, and part policy recommendation. this is especially important because work about northern chile is limited, and english-language scholarship about indigenous people in the region is particularly sparse. eisenberg aligns her work as a form of public anthropology focused on social justice by detailing the sorts of injustice experienced by aymara communities, brought about by the “modernization” of northern chile, primarily in the 1990s. in a sense these are injustices experienced by the most marginal population of an already marginalized region. framing her project as an attempt to contribute to understandings of development impacts on the environment rooted in the aymara cosmovision, she echoes what many anthropologists take for granted: the importance of autonomy, sovereignty over ancestral lands and the resources therein, and a voice for indigenous groups in contexts of environmental resources and development. she describes consequences of development as “dehumanizing situations” in which aymara individuals are denied rights to land, water, work, education, and healthcare (p 32). careful to include positive effects of development projects as well, eisenberg demonstrates the complexity of development projects’ impacts, while remaining clear that most aymara understand the impacts as overwhelmingly negative. eisenberg provides careful documentation of her methods, including more than 100 interviews in 16 different communities using an 23 question interview instrument; “visual ethnoecology” using an associated photographer to document geographical, biological, and cultural phenomena; and topographical maps and global positioning system information. eisenberg also emphasizes the collaborative nature of the research, working with manuel mamani m., an aymara linguist, folklorist, and ethnomusicologist; roberto jara miranda, president of the neighborhood organization of putre; and juana crespo cancino, director of the women’s school in putre. beyond these collaborators, the project included “community participation, respectful dialogue, empirical fieldwork, and accurate documentation of social and environmental impacts through systematic analysis of community and household needs, constraints, and aymara concerns and strategies for survival” (p. 3). in keeping with this collaborative method, eisenberg and her colleagues provided a preliminary report to aymara experts, participants, and collaborators for technical review. for individuals interested in conducting this type of collaborative and multivalent research aimed at policy recommendations, the methods detailed here are instructive. as a result of this research strategy, the book primarily takes a macro approach, quickly rehearsing individual examples of how these may affect daily life for certain individuals, in order to devote more time to the ways in which the changes brought by development impact an “aymara cosmovision,” writ large. based on interviews with aymara-identified residents of altiplano pueblos in northern chile, the overall result concentrates on individuals’ declarations of their problems rather than providing descriptions of the ways their daily lives have changed as more participant observation may have yielded. eisenberg focuses on connecting the aymara worldview to the impacts of development on local communities. though this approach sidesteps recent debates in indigenous studies, mapuche issues, aymara issues in other countries, the current government of chile, and regional dynamics, it provides detailed documentation of aymara history (chapters 1 and 2), current political subjectivity (chapter 2), livelihood strategies (chapter 2), cosmovision (chapter 3), and their cultural landscape including geography, demographics, topography, geology, weather patterns, flora, fauna, and other natural resources (chapter 4). only after intricate explanation of such contextual data, does eisenberg move on to discuss the ways that development has impacted each of these factors, usually disrupting aymara ways of life and views of their place within local environmental systems (chapters 5 and 6). we come away with a sense of cultural landscape as a symbolic environment “where livelihoods are sustained, where present and future generations live, and where spirits reside” (p. 150). indeed, the landscape is described as a part of local definitions of self and culture. this book left me with many questions, perhaps the most important being concerned with the ways “traditional” aymara beliefs and lifeways become integrated into everyday modern life within contexts of development, as well as the ways chilean aymara have organized, protested, or advocated in defense of their rights. further, this book misses an opportunity to relate the environmental changes caused by development in this particular context to broader discussions of climate change. yet, in other ways the book is an important resource for anyone interested in the aymara, in chile, or beyond. it provides detailed descriptions of methodology, collaborative research, and a vast amount of aymara cultural knowledge. the detail with which eisenberg discusses the continuities between the long history of the aymara and their current views and practices is essential for any understanding of present day aymara environmental relations. in fact, within these pages, a number of possible research questions are hinted at, but left unexplored, implicitly providing indications of possible directions for future research. above all, it is clear that this book would be most valuable in the hands chilean government land managers and developers (p. 6). unfortunately, the national government is generally considered unresponsive and oblivious to the north of chile (see frazier 2007), meaning that this resource may not be as effective as social justice oriented readers might hope. nonetheless, aymara indian perspectives on development in the andes provides strong encouragement for integrating aymara voices into development projects, giving hope that the gulf between tradition and progress might not be impossible to overcome. references cited frazier, lessie jo 2007. salt in the sand: memory, violence, and the nation-state in chile, 1890 to the present. durham: duke university press. nell haynes is a postdoctoral researcher in the interdisciplinary center for intercultural and indigenous studies at pontificia universidad católica de chile. her research is on the changing meanings of indigeneity in altiplano bolivia and northern chile. she received her ph.d. in anthropology from american university and is also part of the global social media impact study based at university college london. © 2015 nell haynes humans and their households: ideals of self-sufficiency in changing economies review by adam s. green oikos and market: explorations in self-sufficiency after socialism by stephen gudeman & chris hann (eds) berghahn books, 2015 how are anthropologists to understand households when markets and states are so deeply entwined within the human economy? oikos and market addresses this question with case studies drawn from long-term ethnography from six postsocialist field sites. it is the second volume in the max planck studies in anthropology and economy series. the book’s organizing theme is the blurring boundaries between households, ever-present and irreducible units of economic life (p. 13), and markets that can span international borders. keeping households at the center of their analyses allows the authors to frame local transformations in terms of self-sufficiency, a varying ideal that appears in contrasting forms throughout the case studies. differing values, norms, and languages shape self-sufficiency, which in turn supports household activities. expanding the concept of self-sufficiency sharpens our understanding of human economy, as households nurture reciprocity and mutuality in their efforts to seize upon or insulate themselves from markets. these studies make a timely contribution to postsocialist studies, wherein anthropologists grapple with the transformative effects of collectivization and subsequent privatization of productive resources. they also offer enduring insights into the way people sharpen or blur boundaries between household and market, especially with regard to particular lives. these understandings resonate throughout anthropology. oikos and economy contributes to a growing discourse on human economy, the holistic nexus of concerns that shape material transactions among humans (see overviews in hart, laville, cattani 2010; hann and hart 2011). in their introductory chapter, gudeman and hann develop a conception of the human economy that incorporates households. house economies provide anthropologists with a basic economic unit. they build on the foundational boundary between house and market described by aristotle, laying the groundwork for examining a key paradox in economic anthropology: aristotle’s oikonomia serves as the foundation of many modern understandings of economy, but oikonomia stands apart from the money-getting activities that underlay markets. in fact, aristotle found the pursuit of money for its own sake abhorrent. oikonomia refers instead to the proper management of a “selfsufficient” household (p. 3). household and community self-sufficiency are aristotelean ideals, curiously contrasting with market aims. these ideas underlay anthropological approaches to economies. the household supports our efforts to take care of ourselves by providing for the health, happiness, and well-being of those with whom we share “practical material realities” (p. 2). incorporating the work of chayanov, polanyi, and many other contributors to the study of human economies, gudeman and hann offer a synthetic discussion of the processes that characterize house economies. they write that the house is “an incomplete irreducible unit of economy” that monitors, receives and contributes to foundational material flows, fosters mutuality and jointness, engages in activities that trend toward selfsufficiency rather than profit, and provides sites for innovation, entrepreneurship and thrift (pp. 13–14). mutuality, joint endeavor that fosters a closeness we often associate with kinship and orients us toward commonality or connection with others, creates a meaningful separation between the kinds of transactions in which households engage and those of other kinds of economic entities, such as late capitalist corporations. this framework integrates the studies in the book and provides comparative definitions that serve future work in ethnography and archaeology. self-sufficiency separates the activities of households from those of other kinds of economic entities, such as corporations or collective farms, that operate at larger scales. the concept underscores the activities of all of the households in the study. it is most often an ideal rather than a reality. in vidac’s study on the hungarian village of szentpéterszeg (chapter 1), cash’s investigation of rural moldove (chapter 2), and light’s discussion of the kyrgyz village of beshbulak (chapter 4), self-sufficiency prompts households’ efforts to sustain themselves despite growing participation in markets. in szentpéterszeg, self-sufficiency is an idealized remnant from the presocialist past, something that was never a reality but provided an integrative logic for the people of the village. vidac demonstrates that the collectivization of agriculture undermined processes of reciprocity that were served by the selfsufficiency ideal. the subsequent privatization of land prompted szentpéterszeg’s households to participate in markets that brought migrants whose efforts were necessary to support the local economy, despite a persisting ideal of self-sufficiency. light adopts a harsher line of argument, writing that the material transactions that make up the economic lives of the villagers at beshbulak are too thick with ritual meaning to reduce to market or commodity processes. these transactions, which supported social ritual, were damaged in centralized economic conditions. social integration suffered at beshbulak just as it did with the collectivization of farmland at szentpéterszeg. rural moldove has also suffered in the postsocialist era. cash demonstrates that few households are able to produce what they consume. instead, they conceptualize selfsufficiency in terms of being cu lume, regardless of the resources a household actually possesses. cu lume manifests in households’ abilities to give to others, rather than their ability to provision themselves. even if a household has enough money to provision itself through the market, the inability to produce for giving within the house denotes a lack of self-sufficiency. cash demonstrates that selfsufficiency is an ideal in motion. it can be integrative even if the transactions it enables are superficially atomizing. these studies show that household efforts to foster self-sufficiency are locally constituted. food offers particular insights into house economies and self-sufficiency. foods can integrate households and distinguish the kinds of goods they can produce from those obtainable through market transactions. many of the authors write that the ability to produce and distribute food is an important component of the self-sufficiency ideal. in fact, producing certain foods comes to be emblematic of household activities. in tocheva’s chapter (5) homemade food that is clean and free of additives provides a draw for tourists to the rodope mountains in bulgaria. food is a key element of household’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency through “work in a closed circle” (p. 138). by making a full range of finished goods and employing all of their members, households close the circle, engendering intrahousehold entrepreneurship and increasing their own material resilience. closing the circle helps us understand how households bring about a different ideal of self-sufficiency. while strengthening the household, closing the circle can damage status in the village and sharpen hierarchical roles. also using food to frame a discussion of self-sufficiency, monova’s study of ajvar cooking in postsocialist macedonia (chapter 4) highlights key interconnections between states, markets, and households. ajvar is a preserved pepper dish that forms the basis of household integration. joint preparation activities link communities through household provisioning. while village self-sufficiency was undermined by socialist land tenure regimes, ajvar survived these transformations because of its role in social integration. postsocialist states’ efforts to tamp down village level ajvar production only served to strengthen its role as a distinctive status and cultural marker (p. 91). householding thereby serves as a form of state resistance as well as a mechanism for delineating social boundaries. here we move quite far from an aristotelean ideal of self-sufficiency, finding instead an animated social process whereby a household dish serves to distinguish, integrate, and resist irrespective of the fact that its ingredients are provisioned by the market. the volume ends with vasile’s study of transylvanian forest dwellers (chapter 6), who balance autonomy and sociality in an example of economic prosperity. just as ajvar persisted through the socialist era, vasile argues that romanians retained a commitment to self-direction that shielded them from the everyday uncertainty resulting from the state’s attempts to wean the country off foreign debt. a surviving “love of work” (p. 178) was complemented by social sanctions against saving too much money, bringing self direction and the circulation of wealth together in a way that inculcated the romanian drive to “keep going” and “be one’s own master.” householding processes again surround the production of a particular good, lumber, though unlike ajvar, lumber’s value lies in its marketability as a commodity. to participate in lumber production, households maintain control of technology. selfdirection survived the food acquisition period, and entrepreneurial seizure of the means of logging freed people from the preceding social configurations. an ethos of circulation and technological control foster the economic growth in the region today. oikos and economy reveals many trends in the way large scale political and economic transformations impact efforts to sustain everyday life. the synthetic household concept, presented in the introduction (pp. 13-14) with its distinct characteristics, provides a lens for investigating the human economy. though all of the households in this study engaged in activities we also associate with other kinds of economic entities, such as entrepreneurship and seizure of land and other productive resources, all moderate their activities in an effort to sustain themselves. while they tend to favor self-sufficiency over profit-seeking, self-sufficiency is not a uniform ideal. to the informants who made these studies possible, self-sufficiency can be about giving all household members meaningful work, engaging in feasts and social rituals, providing assistance to other households, distinguishing themselves from other households, or drawing in tourists to sustain the local community. these insights transcend the particular theoretical and topical problems with which the authors engage, carrying with them lessons about the general nature of material transactions among humans. though an archaeologist and outsider to postsocialist studies, i look forward to employing the authors’ findings in my own research to foster a comparative and holistic understanding of economic life. references cited hann, chris, and keith hart 2011. economic anthropology. cambridge: polity press. hart, keith, jean-louis laville, and antonio david cattani 2010. the human economy. cambridge: polity press. adam s. green is an archaeological anthropologist who specializes in the comparative study of early states through the lenses of technology and political economy. he is interested in the roles of visual, information, and administrative technologies in economic transactions and conceptions of property. his focus is south asia, and he has worked extensively in india. he has also engaged in fieldwork in turkey and the united states. he earned his phd in anthropology from new york university in 2015, and is currently teaching in the department of anthropology at georgia state university. © 2015 adam s. green island in the storm: iceland and the financial crisis of 2008 review by alix johnson gambling debt: iceland’s rise and fall in the global economy e. paul durrenberger and gísli pálsson, eds. university press of colorado, 2015 gambling debt, the product of an interdisciplinary workshop on what the authors term iceland’s “financial meltdown,” is an arresting place-based portrait of the financial crisis of 2008. editors e. paul durrenberger and gísli pálsson, both eminent anthropologists of iceland in their own right, bring together a diverse collection that ranges from economics to anthropology; education to sociology, and even a “poetic interlude.” in doing so they offer a broad view of the crisis, a corrective to narrowly economistic accounts. it is this wide range that makes gambling debt so lively, while also knotting (not unproductive) tensions throughout. as was well-documented by the international media, iceland was hit hard by the 2008 crash. between 2002 and 2007, the market value of icelandic stocks increased 700%, the current account deficit soared, and the total value of its three major banks reached eight times the nation’s gdp: in short, the island was ripe for a crisis (aliber 2011). that crisis came in october of 2008, so total that the government had to shut down the stock market, accept an imf loan, and nationalize the banks. that same government was forced into resignation by mass protests that erupted the same year. again, this much of the story has been told (sometimes sensationally) in the press. what is less widely documented – and remains undertheorized – are the social, cultural, and political factors that fed into the icelandic crisis and its aftermath. durrenberger and pálsson’s volume deftly traces some of these threads. the editors’ introduction tracks the roots of the crisis back to the origins of neoliberal policy in iceland, which focused first on privatizing fish. in the 1980s, the authors argue, fishing stock were transformed from a shared resource to private property, then to a source of speculative capital that would entrench income inequality and later seed the growing banks. in this brief history they capture the crux of the book’s thesis: the 2008 crisis was both global and local; at once an outside import, and utterly homegrown. the volume’s title evokes the same observation, referring both to specific risks taken by icelandic bankers, and the more general tendency toward over-extension promoted in a liberalized economy. the volume is comprised of four thematic sections. “before the beginning,” situates the crisis in the context of recurring and long-brewing concerns. loftsdóttir, an anthropologist, and jóhannesson, a historian, both take aim at the mobilization (and manipulation) of iceland’s viking history in the boom years, arguing that this masculinist, nationalist narrative obscured and sanctioned economic risks. next, jónsson, saemundsson and mixa offer incisive analyses of financial institutions, the former focusing on conditions for entrepreneurship and the latter on the corporate culture of investment banks. finally, árnason, a member of iceland’s post-crisis special investigation commission, recounts a thorough ethical investigation that found no sector of society without blame. together, these chapters establish iceland’s crisis as a cultural phenomenon: not only a matter of economic policy, but an issue of national identity, corporate practice, and individual subjectivity. the second section, “after the crash,” explores events that unfolded in the wake of the crisis. bernburg, a sociologist, analyzes the popular protests that ultimately forced the government to resign. proppé charts the rise of the “best party,” an anarcho-surrealist political collective that achieved unexpected success after the crash. gréttarsdóttir, ásmundsson, and lárusson’s chapter, however, cautions against self-congratulation: they argue that neoliberal logics continue to operate in iceland, now enrolling artists in nationalist narratives not so different from those loftsdóttir and jóhannesson found circulating before the crash. “the magic of ‘virtual fish’” is a compelling detour, taking up the privatization of fishing stock as “individual transferable quotas” or itqs. while previously icelandic fish had been considered common property, and fishermen bought licenses to try their luck, itqs set a limit instead on the “total annual catch,” and sell rights instead to what is essentially a guaranteed yield. the authors in this section draw (causal and figurative) connections between this policy and the financial crisis. pinkerton and einarsson offer an overview of the itq system, and argue that it consolidates capital, giving vested interests disproportionate power. maguire follows the creation of “virtual fish” by the quotas: a figure of future fish that can be bought, sold, and speculated on, but are no less real or impactful than their fleshy counterparts. finally, wilson and gunnlaugsdóttir consider the 2008 crisis from the vantage point of grundarfjör∂ur, a fishing village already made precarious by itqs. here, they find many who see the crash as a city problem, having benefitted less from the preceding boom. this section could have been better integrated into the volume – its role is less straightforward than the other three – but it is nevertheless a welcome contribution that speaks with illuminating specificity to the local context of the crash. the volume’s final section, “the crash and communities,” offers nuanced analyses of the aftermath of crisis on specific sectors of society: gu∂björnsdóttir and davidsdóttir take up the response of the school system; skaptadóttir considers the impact on immigrants; innes examines governmentsponsored language education, and rice tracks changes in material aid charity. while these pieces largely read as expository or documentary, rice’s chapter marks a compelling end: noting continuities between preand post-crisis structural poverty, he points to the limits of the term “crisis” itself. crises of capital, he argues, in fact happen often; in our analyses as much as our political actions, we must work to shift rather than normalize this status quo. rice’s critical opening comes back to the questions at the heart of this book: how can we understand iceland’s crisis as a moment both specific and shared? what can be generalized from the icelandic example, and which pieces remain intractably unique? writing against the exceptionalist narratives that flourished during the boom years – the story that iceland is unlike anywhere else – i find the text sometimes veers too far toward the general. neoliberalism, for example, is told as one cohesive story, acting in iceland “as it had done around the world” (xiii). the introduction and conclusion frame iceland as prototypical, the “canary in the global coalmine” of liberalization run amok (xiv). and yet, the chapters’ rich contradictions actually work against such broad strokes. wilson and gunnlaugsdóttir’s attention to rurality, for example, unsettles the assumed affective scope of the crisis; gréttarsdóttir et. al.’s analysis of co-optation undermines the notion of neoliberalism as false consciousness or, as it is sometimes represented, mere greed. the volume’s efforts could have been strengthened by further developing these points of discord. as it is, however, gambling debt is an important contribution: a multi-faceted analysis of iceland’s recent financial crash, and a toolkit for social scientists considering crisis writ large. its wide range of topics and perspectives make it accessible and applicable across scholarly fields. but the authors’ shared commitments to the icelandic context make this volume an effective and convincing political statement of a kind not often achieved in a volume of such breadth. references: aliber, robert. 2011. introduction in r. aliber and g. zoega, eds. preludes to the icelandic financial crisis. london: palgrave macmillian. alix johnson is a phd candidate in anthropology at the university of california, santa cruz and a current mellon foundation / acls fellow. her research examines information infrastructures in iceland as a lens on national practices, postcolonial politics, and ideals of remoteness and connectivity. © 2017 alix johnson clarifying heritage review by uzi baram heritage keywords: rhetoric and redescription in cultural heritage by kathyrn lafrenz samuels & trinidad rico (eds) university press of colorado, 2015 late in the 20th century, david lowenthal (1996) famously wrote that heritage was everywhere. americans who had watched the 1964 broadway musical and popular film fiddler on the roof and read the 1976 book roots and the follow-up television mini-series were part of that expanding social phenomenon. the intersecting interests in genealogical research and felt connections to the past foster as well as misrepresent history; preoccupation with the past continues to expand as a social and political concern. there is even a tourism focused on heritage. as academics have accelerated their research and publications, the vocabulary has become convoluted, with popular discourse and academic characterizations being intertwined in nonsystematic ways. heritage keywords addresses the need for consideration of keywords and enlivens that agenda by approaching heritage as rhetoric. heritage, as the editors remind us, is about change and requires persuasion. their concern for rhetoric opens up the terminology and the volume describes fifteen terms in anthropological perspective. the influence of raymond williams’1976 keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society is made explicit by co-editor kathyrn lafrenz samuels in a thoughtful introduction explaining the goal of the project. samuels critiques attempts at codifying terminology, instead advocating for theorizing heritage by playing attention to rhetoric. the introduction offers intellectual pillars for navigating the nuances of the arguments describing complex, and often contested, phenomena, concluding with an optimistic view of the creative capabilities of heritage. throughout the volume, the keywords are described through descriptive examples. chapter 2 offers an ethnographic view from vientiane, laos; anna karlström explains buddhist approaches to open up the most contested of heritage terms: authenticity. sadly relevant right now, sigrid van der auwera, in chapter 3, reflects on experiences across multiple locations to connect the rhetoric of heritage preservation and armed conflicts to a consideration of civil society. chapter 4 has an ethnographic presentation of the african and maya history project in belize; alicia ebbitt mcgill provides a thoughtful consideration of the negotiations between citizens and their national government with the discussion of nationalism, education, and tourism illuminating the tensions between national identity and cultural diversity. national and internationalism are the basis for the unesco world list, so chapter 5 explores the limitations of cultural property; alexander bauer offers the french regional and american museum exchange as a model for collaborations among museums. chapter 6 calls for self-reflection for projects seeking more just heritage representations; informed by democratization, cecilia rodéhn analyzes 140 articles and books to explore the divide between publications and practices for museums. reading through the chapters, the achievement of the volume is exemplified by the discussion of terms with multiplicity of meaning and assumptions. for chapter 7, heritage is not only about pride in the past; joshua samuels provides a case study for sicily where the ethnographic research, surprisingly, found appreciation for the legacies of a difficult heritage, that of the fascist period. the lessons on such material legacies are worth further exploration. recently anthropologists, particularly archaeologists, engaged with communities have advocated for social justice. chapter 8 recognizes the goals for equity but asks if heritage management is the avenue; jeffrey adams reminds us that what people need in least developed countries are cameras and computers, what he calls the basics, rather than promises of equity. the rhetoric of heritage includes, maybe is even dominated by, the concept of heritage at risk; trinidad rico examines risk as a driving force is critiqued as a modernist discourse. much of heritage scholarship focuses on britain and malcolm cooper provides the case study for heritage discourse in relation to cultural resource management; in this chapter, authorized heritage discourse is presented as dynamic, requiring more investigations. even more challenging for heritage studies is intangible heritage; klaus zehbe offers an interesting discussion comparing intangible heritage and brain death. chapter 12 is a self-conscious polemic on memory, with gabriel moshenska calling for fixing the damage from memory studies. nature is part of heritage but the environmental movements rarely include material heritage; melissa f. baird stresses the import efforts by several anthropologists as a corrective, or in the terminology of the volume’s subtitle, a redescription to integrate the major divide for heritage. robert preucel and regis pecos express the complex intersections among place, heritage, and cultural resources in an illuminating discussion for a case study in the united states; a detailed description for the cochiti pueblo of new mexico opens up the place-making possible for a people even in a colonial situation. chapter 15 focuses on the political and historical context for the roman period site of uthina/oudhna in tunisia; the ethnographic insights by kathryn lafrenz samuels explains the intersections of neoliberalism and human rights, with suggestions for the imaginative possibilities enabled by heritage. the increasing complexities for heritage rhetoric concludes with sustainability; paul j. lane explores the websites of travel organizations and non-government organizations encouraging an image of the maasai as ecological stewards, creating a double bind and pitfalls for their future. as these concluding studies show, the keywords are entangled with each other. the conclusion, cleverly titled “after words,” explicates how each keyword illuminates the dynamics and complexities of heritage. co-editor trinidad rico centers on the way forward and encourages “in all directions and at once.” heritage keywords offers case studies and textured descriptions for heritage studies, as suggestions for further research and for debate. the studies are limited to the anglophone world but that is complicated enough. as with any edited volume, the chapters vary in tone and approach; some authors chose to argue their keyword via in-depth descriptive accounts of their case study while others explored the term and its wide-spread implications. there are more terms in heritage studies than are covered, with the volume encouraging several productive approaches to thinking carefully about the words we use for heritage studies and preservation of the past. the editors hold the volume together by stressing heritage as discourse and exploring its rhetoric. their goals for redescribing the keywords aim toward participatory approaches to communities and mechanisms for positive social change is especially relevant as popular interest and academic study of heritage expand and overlap. heritage keywords will prove useful for students grappling with anthropological heritage studies and should encourage even more productive investigations of the continuing expanding heritage phenomenon. references cited lowenthal, david 1996. possessed by the past: the heritage crusade and the spoils of history. new york: the free press. williams, raymond 1976. keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. new york: oxford university press. uzi baram is a professor at new college of florida and founding director of the new college public archaeology lab, whose mission focuses on preserving regional heritage in southwest florida. coeditor of the 2004 marketing heritage: archaeology and the consumption of the past, his research interests include the ottoman empire, the archaeology of florida, race and ethnicity, public archaeology, and heritage. © 2015 uzi baram the interconnectedness of objects and imagination review by lin bentley keeling objects and imagination: perspectives on materialization and meaning by øivind fuglerud & leon wainwright (eds) berghahn books, 2015 physical objects have tremendous associative power embodying more than remembrance and mental connections. they connect with us individually, affecting us bodily through all of our senses creating strong feelings through their use and presence and collectively as they create and re-create our social relations. this is the premise of øivind fuglerud and leon wainwright’s edited volume, objects and imagination: perspectives on materialization and meaning, which proposes a new integrative approach to the study of the social aspects of art and material culture. each of the contributors focuses on the relationships between the physical and ideational realms, examining the ways individual imaginations combine into shared imaginaries in which objects are created and, in turn, how objects create and maintain social relations. objects and imagination grew out of a series of meetings and conversations spanning 2010 to 2013 and is the third in a series of volumes edited by birgit meyer (who contributes chapter 8 to this volume) and marušcka svašek (who is a coauthor of chapter 10) titled, material mediations: people and the things in a world of movement. in this series, theoretical debates grounded in ethnographic studies, look at the “dynamics of material production and cultural mediation in an era of intensifying globalization and transnational connectivity” (p. ii)." the contributors and editors of objects and imagination come from a variety of backgrounds including social anthropology, cultural history, the anthropology of religion, and contemporary art history and bring their diverse perspectives to focus on specific contexts which illustrate the ongoing relationships created and perpetuated by the objects we make and use. in their “introduction,” fuglerud and wainwright outline their theoretical perspectives pointing in particular to the work of birgit meyer who invokes aristotle’s concept of aesthesis, the use of all our senses in perceiving the world, in her emphasis on the importance of the mediation of our perceptions through material objects. other theoretical perspectives cited by fuglerud and wainwright include alfred gell’s theories of art and agency, ideas of embodiment, practice theory, actor-network theory, as well as perspectives from art history, particularly the study of evolving contexts for ethnographic objects as well as artworks in the globalized world. for fuglerud and wainwright, “what is at stake in this volume is the specificity of the social imagination as it produces human relationships and comes to have a distinctive impact on them” (p. 20). to illustrate their approach to objects and imagination, they conclude with a diagram (p. 21) of a set of concentric circles: the central circle is the “object,” surrounded by “situated production, creativity, individual imagination,” surrounded by the “institutional field,” surrounded by the “field of the socially imagined.” this diagram points to the privileged place they see for objects in the creation and perpetuation of our social worlds. as fuglerud and wainwright note, until recently linguistic approaches were privileged in social science research, particularly in the study of the semiotics of material culture. but the imagination is not necessarily language based and, as this volume asserts, understanding the imagination, particularly as it relates to social formation and perpetuation, must include ideas and values as expressed in non-verbal forms. in looking at ethnographic collections, for instance, fuglerud and wainwright argue that a semiotic approach to these artifacts is inadequate. however, the turn to aesthetics in more recent research should not turn away from ethnography. they argue that the need for ethnography and anthropology has never been greater, particularly now when ethnographic objects, contemporary art and the global art market combine into a “network of sites” working in new ways outside the defined settings for art, ethnography and commerce of the past” (p. 9). birgit meyer’s work, as illustrated by her chapter in the volume, is very relevant to research into these new relationships between humans and objects as well as to how materials work in the creation and perpetuation of meaning and values. meyer’s concept of “aesthetic formation” is a constructive approach linking individual imagination into shared “social imaginaries” which both represent and create the world. the complex interconnectedness of the imagined and the material manifests for her in “the materiality of the imagination and the imaginary dimension of matter” (p. 179). building on tim ingold’s formative view of imagination, meyers argues that the imagination requires mediation and media and advocates for research which synthesizes an ideational approach relating to abstract meanings and values while taking into account the anchoring material forms of objects and practices with objects in the world (p. 179; 163). she joins these ideas and provides guidance which, whether explicitly cited or not, connects the work of the other contributors in this volume: “from the perspective of mediation, all pictures and objects act as media that are materially present and point beyond themselves; they are both immanent and transcendent, tangible and elusive. …these material items are not just there, in their sheer materiality, but reach out to something else” (p. 179, italics original). in this volume, fuglerud and wainwright have collected the chapters into three parts under the headings “museums,” the representation of objects and art, often of the ‘other’; “presence,” the active use of objects and the ways objects act upon their users; and “art,” the creation and use of objects with heightened aesthetic value. the headings “museums” and “art” imply traditional concepts of divisions between artifact and art, while “presence” implies the ethnographic view of objects within fixed cultural contexts. each of the chapters, however, moves well beyond these constraints and looks at contemporary instances of the tensions, conflicting drives and competing needs of individuals and the ways the objects in their lives affect them. focusing on contemporary contexts for diverse objects within the framework of the volume’s theoretical discussion, these chapters provide nuanced and rich explorations of the relationships between objects, individual imaginations and social imaginaries. objects act as a prism within each of these studies to focus attention on the interrelatedness of objects and human actions, beliefs and meanings. several themes cross-cut the three headings including the continued struggles of “native” artists who work in continual dialogue between their personal experience as individuals and allegiance to their heritage (chapters 1, 9 and 10); the ritual use of objects which facilitate and renew connections to homelands for diasporic populations (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 and 9); the transformation of art and value in the global art market (chapters 1, 9, 10, 11); and the agency of objects for their makers (chapters 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10); and for their active users (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11). while i have focused here primarily on the theoretical underpinnings of this volume and the new ground it covers in the study of art, objects and the human imagination, i would be remiss if i failed to note that each of these chapters is an individual and important contribution to this discussion and deserves in-depth examination not possible within the scope of this review. in this volume, fuglerud and wainwright and their contributors break new theoretical ground in the study of human-object relationships in a synthesis of ideational and material studies. the new material perspective of objects and imagination succeeds in synthesizing physical and ideational perspectives with a collection of ethnographic studies grounded in social imaginaries which lays new foundations for the study of human-object relations. lin bentley keeling is an artist and independent researcher focusing on the non-verbal communicative value of art. she exhibits her work nationally and teaches courses, workshops and lectures on art and culture; native american fiber technologies; creativity and spirituality and the practice of contemporary art. keeling received her ma in anthropology from new mexico state university in 2008.. © 2016 lin bentley keeling post-foucauldian governmentality and african healthcare review by mary-anne decatur para-states and medical science: making african global health by paul wenzel geissler duke university press, 2015 the thought-provoking book para-states and medical science draws on anthropology and history to fruitfully engage with the concept of the ‘para-state’ in its analyses of transfigurations in the production, management and social relations of scientific research and public health in various subsaharan african countries. the para-statal organizations discussed in the book adopt some of the work of the nation-state and form when portions of it have been parceled out and segmented off. justifications for and the perceived validity of para-statal organizations are based on and affirmed by their connection to the nation-state, which persists as their point of reference even where these organizations challenge the institutions of the nation-state. the para-state, shaped by market forces, evolves next to and around the nation-state rather than being part of or equivalent to it (pp.9-10). african statehood is not discussed in the book as weak or disappearing, but rather as present in the state’s workforce, its buildings, infrastructure, and bureaucracy. the state is palpable in foreign donors’ emphasis on working through state “partners” as well as in people’s claims for care, memories of past government services, and imaginings of future improvements. the para prefix helps reveal, the book’s editor p. wenzel geissler explains, conflations between original and copy while highlighting the sense of things changing but not losing their form (p.1,4). the book’s focus on the para-state provides fascinating and productive insights into ways of thinking about governmentality. the para prefix in para-state is further used in the book to allude to the relationship between the state and new biopolitical forms, where “the state’s place in biopolitical order has changed, not diminished” (p.9). this emergence of new biopolitical forms through para-statal organizations arises in a variety of ways and contexts analyzed by the book’s contributors. guillaume lachenal, for example, discusses the 1994 discovery of the hiv-1 o strain in cameroon, which led to the privatization but also revitalization of cameroonian medical research when the university of yaoundé and the underfunded governmental centre pasteur du cameroun agreed to give patient blood samples to commercial german and french laboratories in exchange for hiv testing kits. rene gerrets explores a malaria research and control partnership formed between the tanzanian ifkara health research and development centre and us centers for disease control that shifts in perception from clearly distinct to barely distinguishable from the state. another contributor, branwyn poleykett, examines a senegalese state clinic that registers female sex workers, placing them into a pool of potential hiv research subjects in a collaborative project between the université cheikh anta diop in dakar, harvard university, and the universities of tours and limoges in france. each of the book’s chapters unearths compelling insights into african healthcare and/or medical research. the chapter structure of para-states and medical science emphasizes points of rupture, pasts and possible futures, the persistence and struggles of the nation-state, and the ways in which para-states impact and are impacted by relations between people as members of the public. the book begins with a chapter by vinh-kim nguyen considering how para-states produce a kind of “experimental society” with the clinical trial as a technology of rule. the following chapter by john manton questions the newness of para-statal configurations by drawing on early post-colonial leprosy research in nigeria. guillaume lachenal and p. wenzel geissler’s chapters explore the relationships between para-states, neoliberalization and biopolitics. rene gerrets and reynolds whyte’s chapters reveal the persistent experienced presence of the state in people’s lives. branwyn poleykett and lotte meinert engage with the role of emotion and personal connection in hiv research conducted by para-statal organizations. finally, ulrike beisel, ann h. kelly and didier fassin deal with issues of territory between nationstates, para-statal organizations and scientific research, with fassin’s chapter highlighting points of disjuncture between scientific knowledge and policy positions of the south african government. all but one of the book’s eleven chapters handle para-statal organizations heavily centered in some way on hiv/aids or malaria. this reflects a strong focus on these diseases within african medical science and healthcare. other diverse health and health-related issues, however, such as cancer, diabetes, disability, female genital cutting, maternal mortality, or mental health may be associated with very different biopolitical regimes. geissler et al. steer away from simplified discussions of neoliberalism and 1980s style medical anthropology critiques that position biomedicine as a tool of domination or discipline, the state as the agent of biomedical technologies in opposition to the public, or biomedicine as one form of knowledge among many. the book’s contributors instead consider the possibilities and responsibilities of biomedical science and the state to public health, while paying close attention to space, place and historical trajectories as well as the unequal scientific partnerships that emerge in para-statal organizations. as geissler notes, this shift stems from a theoretical move to post-foucauldian and postmarxist analyses and the contributors problematize the idea of biopower as an increasing and expanding disciplinary mechanism (p.24,35). the book points to ways in which national citizens can be understood as assemblages of illnesses and bodies with rights and claims, holding mercurial identities that position them in roles such as peer group member or community representative in relation to the para-state. out of this, temporary multiple publics are formed and governed under often short-term projects, mirroring the fetishization of randomized controlled trials in public health research. through this, the book points to innovative ways of thinking about african biological citizenship. several chapters critically engage with african scientists’ work-lives and visions of public health, but it would be interesting to read more specifically about african scientists’ perspectives on the logic, value and outcomes of research they participate in. nguyen notes that randomized controlled trials can only reliably measure relatively simple interventions across brief periods of time and do not measure what might happen outside of trial conditions. interventions such as the social and economic empowerment of women do not fit easily into this randomized controlled trial framework and would require researchers to engage with complex issues of human behavior, gender identity and social constraint (p.52,57). what discourses do african scientists use to frame, highlight or obscure the shortcomings of randomized controlled trials and the social consequences of the interventions these trials? it would be valuable to also hear more about how discourses produced by local and national media interact with broader international discourses that include transnational scientists and organizations, as fassin does in his chapter on nevirapine. para-states and medical science is an exceptional and engaging book that will be of interest to anthropologists, africanists and historians as well as those interested in science and technology, postcolonial and development studies. mary-anne decatur is a phd candidate in anthropology at soas, university of london. her research examines maasai and chagga people’s conceptualizations of female genital cutting on social, cultural, historical and medical grounds in the kilimanjaro region of tanzania. she explores how these differing understandings of the practice shape predominantly chagga ngo and healthcare employees’ strategies and messages for ending female genital cutting in comparatively less affluent maasai communities, and in turn influence maasai interpretations of these strategies and messages. maryanne is also the fgm country of origin expert for tanzania for the rights in exile programme and the editor of popular anthropology magazine. © 2015 mary-anne decatur in the gilded realm of ideas review by george mentore cannibal metaphysics by eduardo viveiros de castro univocal publishing, 2014 we live in the normative realm of ideas. for those who have mastered the specialized craft of gilding ordinary thoughts, the luster of the regime thinly empowers. it perhaps even additionally offers some form of pleasure from the aesthetics of the high status it confers. but to those for whom its vermeil or ormolu provides no promise of power or granted joy, such mastered ideas either do not exist or they press down hard with constrictive tyranny. in our gilded realm of the anthropological, cannibal metaphysics exemplifies the glittering mastery of modernist thought. but, if i might be permitted to add, it also presents to those who live, in the now, beneath the gold-leafed forests of indigenous amazonia, yet another example of a completely unrecognizable dominion of thought. i have long been gratified by the contributions of eduardo viveiros de castro to our small parish of amazonian scholarship. his intellectual successes beyond our select community have truly brought us great joy. yet because they initially hail from our own municipality of specialists, his works tend to be read by us with a somewhat different appreciation. informed by our shared ethnographic experiences, we read with far more preemptive suppositions. we have traveled the same lévistraussian pathways from boas and durkheim. we have depended upon the legacy of the spilt between self and other which calls into play the moral base of society and its dominate principle of exchange. and we too, in our own interpretations of amerindian socialities, have similarly encountered the ubiquity of the predatory feline. hence many of us have not been surprised by the content of cannibal metaphysics, not because it repeats earlier works in a more expansive rendering, but rather because it familiarly advocates the disputed primacy of at least one side of amerindian thought long considered foundational to an understanding of indigenous sociality. in this work, affinity as predation stands triumphant over all metaphors of uterine conviviality. nonetheless, the clear success of the theory of amerindian perspectivism has been its broad appeal to the wider non-amazonian anthropological community. of course cannibal metaphysics contains many other worthy ideas and intriguing interrogations beyond that of indigenous perspectivism, each deserving of equal mention. in so brief a commentary as mine, it would be impossible to do them any justice. the depth and breathe of the scholarship simply defeats any frail attempt at review. i would, however, like to draw your attention to one obvious consistent theme which i consider to be the principle explanation for the broader appeal of the work. throughout the entire argument there is an overall – and for us trained intellectuals – satisfying privileging of thought itself: a lavished gilding of ideas into concepts. a rigor of rationalist thought moves elegantly throughout cannibal metaphysics. it deploys its own intellectual operators as it describes those of amerindian thought. it uses its own algorithms of thinking to break the intellectual codes of the other. the rigor of procedure depends completely upon binary units, the use of relationality, the process of comparison, and the feature of transformation. the added ingenuity to this familiar (and thus unthreatening thoroughness of) thought appears to be the creative use of inversion whenever the predictability of thinking leads one in a particular direction. this strategy of inversion can only logically function and be seemingly innovative within the confines of our legacy of dualistic thinking. the binary forces we modernists invent for ourselves serve not only to make the world meaningful, but also to provide us with our sense of superiority within it. our ontological existence appears predicated upon the warring oppositions we create for ourselves and, it seems, carryover to indigenous alterity through our comparisons. there is no negative judgment here on my part to these skillful moves. indeed they exhibit the artistry of the euro-american deployment of modernist thinking. for as cannibal metaphysics constantly reminds us, we too have culture. in this regard, one could argue, we scholars make claim not so much to the pomposity of being divine, but quite simply to being human as well. but, of course, there are all kinds of humans, even in our modern rationalist domain. there are those who have to fit into the objectified categories prescribed for them, and there are those who conjure up the categories for others to fit into. there are those whose thoughts manifest in the magnificent products shaping our current world and, as such, function as recognizable achievements of empowerment, even as pleasing aesthetics furthering ideas about self superiority. yet there are those who must learn to live under the tyranny of these others’ materialized thoughts, in other words, within an alien aesthetic. in all such epistemological effects – so reminiscent of the modern power of govermentality which not only reflects the sensibilities of the elite, but also the positive exercise of power by subordinates – the tradition of anthropology follows suit. in the training and practice of our specialist thoughts and the epistemological foundations we have inherited, we are as much the handmaidens of political power as any other agents and institutions of the modern state. like other forms of euro-american modernity, anthropology appears to be just as equally driven by desires for a world where unpredictable contingencies must be anticipated and where our knowledge serves to protect us, if not from the anxieties of being exposed to the unknown or unknowable, then at least from the presumed chaos that will descend upon us if our ordered intellectual procedures do not triumph. the individual humans for whom anthropological thought continues to construct social categories have little if any access to its scholarly regimes. the algorithms of thinking we invent for them and into which we place them (even when sympathetically compared to our own and given the new status of a “reverse anthropology”), remain to them a foreign land. with perspectivism (as with structuralism and all the other theories we have invented for ourselves, even in the act of problematizing thought as an experiment of the anti-narcissus), the effort to reach amerindian worlds by way of their thoughts remains an attempt to discover an absence we alone perceive: to presence, if you like, presumed hidden worlds. this very attempt to deploy the metaphors of discovery seems to be but yet another anxious move of a discipline seeking to protect the vulnerable subjectivities of its own practitioners. knowing as it does that it has no way to traverse the interval between self and other but by that of thought itself, anthropology shields its practicing subjectivities both from the impossibility of ever obtaining the means to being the reality of the lives lived by those it seeks to represent, as well as from any of the consequences of exposure to those lives. the very questions such thinking raises for itself and for which it seeks to address secrete within the folds of its own thought. its binary procedures encode then decode that which it encrypted in the first place merely to claim discovery of the answers produced by its very own definitive questions. provocatively, one question stands out most prominently in cannibal metaphysics. beguiled by its own luster, cannibal metaphysics addresses many questions crafted by us and for us, already knowing beforehand the possible range of answers available. poignant, therefore, that it should interrogate the one issue most haunting academic anthropology in current times – the very fact of its own relevance. but through the intellectual move of an inversion, it places the burden of response not upon western rational knowledge but on amerindian epistemology. the same question cannibal metaphysics raises about amerindian epistemology it does also of anthropology: how to take indigenous thought seriously. yet despite the best of intentions, this privileged glittering of thought that is about thought, has the unfortunate effect of subordinating indigenous thinking to its own. however unintentionally, in the gilded realm of ideas, the master thinker reigns supreme. it is, nonetheless, a virtual sovereignty. it is after all mostly about thinking about thought and not about lived experiences. clearly it is not indigenous thought which we should be seeking to take seriously but rather that which makes the indigenous obviously human. the manifest humanity of indigenous others has less to do with how and what they think and more to do with how and what they experience. even without having to betray its treasured rationalist legacies and its warlike metaphors of opposition, conflict, and conquest, an anthropology that opens its thinking to the embodied lived realities of others still can and should regain its very own relevance. george mentore teaches anthropology at the university of virginia. he has published variously on topics ranging from aesthetics, abandonment, compassion, madness, silence, and shamanic breath. he specializes in the ethnography of indigenous amazonia and is currently working on theories of amerindian subjectivity, empathy, and the anthropology of cruelty. © 2015 george mentore analyzing the performance of youth identities in french cités review by anton vegel transcultural teens: performing youth identities in french cités by chantal tetreault wiley-blackwell, 2015 in transnational teens, tetreault’s most powerful claim is that in french politics and media “‘french’ and ‘arab muslim’ are constructed as mutually exclusive” and are in many ways seen as incompatible (p. 2). this is shown in the ways that north african descendant teens communicate and how their discursive practices differ internally and externally in the community of chemin del l’ile, a government regulated zone and one of many of les cités (state-subsidized housing projects). the main support for this claim is evidence of transculturality that shows how teens do not aim (nor are there avenues available) to construct social identities as exclusively le français ordinaire (ordinary french) or community oriented le bled (home country), le respect (respect), and la recaille (street toughs) but are rather forced to critically negotiate group membership and balance acceptance and rejection of traditional cultural norms. tetreault describes this transculturality as “how french teens of north african descent experience and express migration and diaspora in ways that are related to the experiences of their parents, but that are also innovative, bifurcated, and differential” (p. 4). through ethnographic research, tetreault analyzes such points of communication and negotiation as “self and other, here and there, feminine and masculine, french and immigrant, as well as teen and parent.” internally, these subjects are ideologically constructed and expressed differently by north african descendant teens from older generations because of conflicting ideas about “home,” traditional ideas of how females are expected to interact with men, dress, and use public space, and how a hybrid of le français ordinaire and le respect is created with “parental name-calling.” externally, these subjects are ideologically constructed and expressed by north african descendant teens from le français ordinaire in how teens negotiate membership to different groups (stigmatized la recaille and/or français ordinaire) and express “others” through the performative discourse of french social personas and the revoicing of stereotypes about les cités and les arabes (the arabs). in short, what tetrault’s analysis shows by presenting this ethnographic data is a vivid picture of how minorities in post-colonial contexts must critically negotiate membership and ownership. and, because it is found that “racialized and stigmatizing narratives that highlight la racaille and criminality have come to dominate public french discourse regarding les cites,” strong support for the thesis is found (p. 195). transcultural teens begins by meticulously detailing the spatiotemporal context where the ethnographic data had been collected. the spatial setting, chemin del l’ile, is a city slapped with stigmatizing labels such as zep (priority education zone), hlm (rent-subsidized apartment complexes), and zup (precarious urban zone) that covertly and overtly effect it and other les cités. these labels overtly mark les cités as low-income immigrant communities in-need of social aid while covertly maintaining stigmatized status of immigrant members within les cités and more broadly north african descendant french citizens (as well as reiterating l’insécurité, “insecurity,” often mistakenly associated with les cités). within this community, tetreault collected ethnographic data from students and tutors in the state-supported educational association, cerise, where she regularly taught and maintained rapport. the data included audio recordings and notes of students’ and tutors’ discursive practices in school, on field-trips, at parks, festivals, and in private one-on-one interviews. not existing in a vacuum, the temporal reality of chemin del l’ile and les cités and the many consequences of colonialization and short-sighted labor initiatives are made clear to further develop the research context. these case studies are further framed in social theory. a theoretical context is built with concepts such as imagined communities (anderson 1991), discursive racism (van dijk 2009), transpolitics (sliverstein 2004), reflexive sociology and theories of capital (bourdieu et al. 1999), and research on youth practices of social identity creation (bucholtz 2002). each chapter presents a specific subject for analysis. these points begin broadly by analyzing the style of speech in les cités and chemin del l’ile that are distinct from le français ordinaire and how external stereotypes of les cités are revoiced internally by youth. however, the analyses quickly become much more specifically relevant to chemin del l’ile by focusing on how discourse regarding le bled, le respect, and la racaille and how north african descendant and modern french gender expectations are negotiated and expressed, how parental name-calling shows evidence of hybridity in social identity creation, and how youth performative discourse of french social personas to revoice stereotypes about les arabes provides evidence of youth’s critical reflection of dominant racism and stigma. ultimately, each chapter successfully analyzes how youth’s perceived membership and ownership of le bled, le respect, la racaille, and le français ordinaire is actively and critically negotiated and expressed through discourse. overall, the relevance and deep theoretical underpinnings of transcultural teens offers social researchers robust case studies and strong practical examples of discourse analysis at work. as this review is being written, donald trump is gaining social backing for his republican political standing through anti-muslim (and anti-immigration) rhetoric in the u.s. while native social problems are being scapegoated to stigmatized minorities, and in france jean-marie le pen’s daughter, marine le pen, is actively gaining social support for the national front based on the same short-sighted rhetoric. the discourse that these individuals rely on focuses on a romantic idea of a nation while violently ignoring the reality of the population, a very common pathology of perceived threat which tetreault often points to (raijman, davidov, schmidt, and hochman). because transcultural teens has been so painstakingly framed in the theoretical field of social research and because the research context has been so well defined, it offers researchers reliable case studies for future comparison especially due to the broad range of subjects covered in the analyses. furthermore, researchers involved or interested in discourse analysis will find practical examples of its use. readers will also find the discourse analyses organized, easy to reference, and very well in-line with the field’s goals making this text both a reliable reference and practical case study (van dijk 2009; fairclough 1995). with this said the limitations of any research project must be transparent. because this text is part of a book series of topic focused case studies, the focus here is potentially more limited than it would be otherwise. also, in the ethnographic tradition, transcultural teens pulls case studies from a small sample of the population, youth within chemin del l’ile. although the research sample is transparent and well detailed in the text (as the title remains representative), it does provide a spatial limitation. how the conclusions found in transcultural teens are representative of other french cities, les cités, and similarly stigmatized populations is not memorably highlighted and rather left open. however, because what is presented within these case studies is robust and relevant, a very necessary foundation for future research is provided among a number of the subject points highlighted earlier. furthermore, although a very strong background is provided, a deeper description of any other relevant policy at the time of data collection could have been provided (if it existed). however, that is not to say that there is a gap in successfully building a spatiotemporal context. rather, an additional section was likely impossible to include while a focus on youth in chemin del l’ile is very successfully accomplished. lastly, if the reader is looking for a specific case study, they may be initially careful to preview the text to find relevant subjects. although the range of topics analyzed are extremely relevant, not all researchers may find them immediately useful for their own work as they are cases from very a specific population. overall, transcultural teens is a very relevant book that has been very well developed and organized. tetreault’s well-constructed ethnographic research collection methods and discourse analyses provide not only a very clear picture but further frame this active and increasingly important context in deep social theory. anton vegel holds and ma and ba in foreign language education from kent state university. anton is currently an independent researcher and language educator focusing on active and engaged learning methods as well as more critical and socially inclusive systems of education. anton has also published projects investigating nation-building/maintenance, literacy, discourse, and language policy while currently investigating the importance of family in foreign language education. © 2016 anton vegel secret sex, anonymous desire review by victor cova love stories: language, private love, and public romance in georgia by paul manning university of toronto press, 2015 love stories is a historical and linguistic ethnography of desire among khevsurs in georgia at the beginning of the 20th century, and the desire they continue to inspire at the end of the same century. it is based on ethnography written at the time by both indigenous khevsurs as well as the georgian intelligentsia. more specifically it focuses on a type of relationship, called sts’orproba or “casual lovers,” between young men and women that stood apart from kinship and materialized in sexual acts of ts’ola-dogma, or “lying down and getting up.” manning focuses on the social and linguistic codification of this relation, as well as the continuing fascination it has exercised over georgian intellectual life and popular culture ever since. as part of a collection of ethnographies written “with the undergraduate in mind,” it provides a great introduction both to linguistic anthropology and to the anthropology of sexuality. the language is clear throughout and most of the analytical concepts are well explained, without over-burdening the text with references to academic debates. moreover, the material is presented in such a way as to grasp the reader’s attention first with descriptions of the encounter itself, before introducing historical and geographical contextualisation much later. yet the book should also find readers beyond the undergraduate classroom because of the extraordinary material it presents and its subtle analysis by the author. the first four chapters focus on the different stages that lead to young khevsur men and women lying down together. first, an elchi, or “ambassador,” chooses two people suitable to be a couple. the first chapter focuses on analyses and explanations of the rhetorics she would use to persuade a girl to follow her to a young man’s house, and a boy to accept lying down with a girl. for a pair to be elligible, they must not be able to marry each other. because khevsur kinship is exogamous, this means they are primarily chosen among people from the same village. “lying down and getting up” is itself highly codified, as chapter 2 explains. the lovers must lie next to each other, on their backs or, if they are more familiar with each other, on their side, the girl’s head on the boy’s arm. they might touch the arms and head but not the neck or chest, and especially not each other’s genitals. they may also kiss, but on a first encounter, would most likely talk with each other through the night. because the encounter takes place with other people sleeping nearby, any disagreement would quickly lead to the pair being discovered and shamed. if all goes well, however, the pair would meet again regularly and become “sworn brothers.” this longer-term engagement would take the form of gifts, notably of bottles of vodka stolen by the girl from her own family and kept hidden away to be consumed with her sworn brother. the fourth chapter considers another durable outcome of such relationships: love poetry. poems of praise or blame for a lover would circulate like the other gifts, and eventually become immortalized. it is also through these poems that the contents of such secretive encounters could be made public and codified. the last three chapters and the conclusion describe events that changed the form of these encounters and led to their eventual disappearance, whilst simultaneously becoming an object of curiosity and fantasy for the georgian intelligentsia. first, a new “style” of lying down appeared in the early 20th century. young people wanted to touch each other more, going so far as lying on top of each other rather than side by side. they also increasingly wanted to marry their sworn brothers, instead of marrying out. these two moves were probably encouraged by increased interferences from the state and the russian orthodox church, which made divorce much more difficult than before. marrying a known and trusted partner would have become more appealing than an arranged marriage. second, the development of the press led to the constitution of a national intelligentsia and the production of knowledge about “the people.” it is in that context that distorted accounts of the practice of “lying down” became part of national discourse as simultaneously an object of desire and repulsion. two khevsur ethnographers, one of them a woman, also wrote elaborate accounts of khevsur social life, including the practice of lying down, which form the basis of the analysis in the first three chapters. finally, these accounts in turn formed the basis for films and novels in the second half of the 20th century, and allusions to lying down circulate even now in advertisements for beer and on internet chatrooms. the book revolves around various forms of anonymous desire that question lyrical understandings of desire that focus on the subject and its object. khevsur personhood for both men and women valorises self-restraint in the expression of desire. this self-restraint is justified by a belief in the all-consuming power of desire. originally, men and women would be so consumed by their desire for each other that they would whither away. god dispersed desire among other objects and invented the rules of lying down in order to control the power of desire. lying down, as a “free” domain for the expression of desire, both takes it to its highest intensity but also prohibits it from ever bearing fruits. although having “laid down” with many people makes one more desirable, modesty prohibits the naming of one's partner(s). it is crucial to show that one has many partners without ever mentioning who these partners are. manning is particularly good at showing the forms taken by these anonymous demonstrations. in particular, he shows that both vodka and poetry are singularly adequate forms of expression and concealment of anonymous desire because of their material properties, their abilities to circulate without being marked by their origin or altered by time. he also contrasts these to other forms of anonymity that appear in the 20th century in georgia thanks to the printing press and the development of the internet. to conclude, love stories is a highly readable and interesting ethnography that will captivate the imagination of its readers as it has georgian intellectuals. accessible to undergraduates as an introduction to ethnography, it will also stimulate those interested in kinship, love poetry, socialism and post-socialism, queer anthropology and the history of anthropology. victor cova was recently awarded a phd in social anthropology at the university of st andrews, scotland. he works in the ecuadorian amazon with shuar people, north american evangelical missionaries, and indigenous travestis sex workers. © 2015 victor cova 1 meaning upon meaning, mediating space and place review by david fazzino understanding graffiti: multidisciplinary studies from prehistory to present troy lovata and elizabeth olton, editors left coast press, 2015 understanding graffiti: multidisciplinary studies from prehistory to present utilizes a variety of case studies to explore the various techniques and meanings behind graffiti and opens up spaces to further explore this phenomenon, in essence building a theoretical case against glazer’s “broken windows” theory. understanding graffiti resonates with my own work on development and dispossession of property and place in the context of towns taken through government action in the ukraine (chernobyl, pripyat) and the united states (pennsylvania: centralia, and delaware water gap national recreation area (dwgnra)). in each of these sites, graffiti is ubiquitous although the way i interpret its impacts and meanings varies depending upon the context. figure 1 reviewer's photo of abandoned highway centralia, pennsylvania while i read graffiti in dwgnra in a manner akin to glazer’s 1979 “broken window” theory of decay (discussed in understanding graffiti on pp.124, 174, 197, 219-220). in contrast, i view graffiti in 2 pripyat as a space of play and social commentary. in the space between is the graffiti in centralia (see figure 1). the contributors and editors to understanding graffiti seek to highlight the agency and artistry of those who produce graffiti highlighting the importance of studying the phenomena of graffiti production, interpretation, and commodification from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives. graffiti serves as a sometimes preserved, oft fleeting visual and visceral record of contesting claims. as the editors maintain, graffiti is produced for a variety of reasons with the intent that it will be viewed and hence communicate specific messages to a particular audience or all of society. the volume provides a solid review of the reasons, uses, and interpretations of graffiti in a variety of multicultural and temporal contexts. the editors begin with an overview and provide subsequent introductions to the four sections of understanding graffiti: section i understanding the function of graffiti, section ii understanding the form & context of graffiti, section iii understanding graffiti as a witness to history, and section iv understanding the politics of graffiti. below, i briefly highlight the contents of these four sections and fifteen chapters before concluding with some specific questions and my overall impression of understanding graffiti. section i considers the various functions of graffiti as an exchange of ideas, historical record, and site of resistance. rodriguez (chapter 1) and meade (chapter 2) note that, “inscriptions from bathroom walls transform a private and anonymous environment into a meeting place mediated by a wall, where often-serious concerns are honestly expressed” (p. 18). while graffiti on contemporary bathroom walls is relatively short lived, those appearing on the frescoes of an italian church have endured over generations and serve as a source of historical information about every day happenings, as well as events of greater consequence (plesch, chapter 3). lennon (chapter 4) considers the reach of ‘conflict graffiti’ appearing during the arab spring, engaging not only those passing by on the street, but also a global audience through images of the graffiti circulating over the internet which reflected the passion, humor, and determination of the egyptian protesters.” (p.63). section ii delves into the importance of the form (style) and context (how and where it was created) of graffiti (p.73). these are important elements in ascertaining the graffiti artist’s intention in their attempts to appeal to the aesthetics of a particular audience. these elements were utilized in a comparative analysis of art styles to decipher the intended message of a horseman carved in carpathian 3 rock at cetăţeni (măndescu, chapter 5) and through a phenomenological approach to rocky mountain arborglyphs (lovata, chapter 6). beaton and todd (chapter 7) highlight their contributions to the heritage work at evergreen brick works that is “…inspired by the industrial, natural, and geographical landscape of a former brick works” (p.105) including the graffiti, which is “…the only surviving artifact of the site from 1989 to 2008” (p.106). this is a part of city of toronto’s work to distinguish between “graffiti vandalism” which must be removed and “graffiti art” which must remain (commissioned and sanctioned, or approved by toronto’s graffiti panel). the political climate for graffiti in new york city during the 1980s was less than welcoming as nyc authorities worked to eliminate graffiti production; despite this, artists produced 'wildstyle' on subway cars that further defied efforts by rendering a public text as unreadable by those in mainstream society (gopinath, chapter 8). figure 2 detail of wildstyle burner by kase 2 (from chapter 8) figure 3 details of wildstyle graffiti (from chapter 8) the centrality of context is highlighted in considering the various locations where “zevs’” work 4 appears; on the street, its appropriation of corporate logos to critique marketing is lost once it is displayed in manhattan galleries (duncan, chapter 9). figure 4 zevs’s liquidated version exhibition at the de buck gallery in chelsea, manhattan, 2011 (from chapter 9) the contributors to section iii read graffiti as a supplement to the historical record based on more conventional sources. specifically, the editors frame graffiti “as witnesses to a historical moment that reveal a certain agency or desire.” (p.140). the location of graffiti at key sites in the casma valley of peru from 2100bce to 200bce demonstrate continued resistance to the sechín alto polity (pozorski and pozorski, chapter 10). similarly, olton (chapter 11, p.159) suggests that graffiti use in classic period maya at tikal, guatemala, is a “politically transgressive commentary.” in a more recent example, beck, falvey, and drollinger (chapter 12) go inside the tunnels at the nevada test site to document 164 panels of art produced by peace activists as a means to come to a greater understanding not only of the events at the site, but also the larger political implications of nuclear testing. section iv explicitly discusses issues of power implicit in the earlier sections by focusing on the politics of defining graffiti. mitman (chapter 13) describes how criminalization of graffiti on the problem-riddled new york city subway system in the 1970s and 1980s galvanized an antiauthoritarian counterculture and, subsequently, amplified the desire of young artists to get their work up on subway cars. daniell (chapter 14) works to define graffiti by distinguishing it from permitted inscriptions or “calliglyphs” at two english military establishments. the final chapter (15) by sheinman considers how mexico creates a space for graffiti near the zócalo, which simultaneously contributes to gentrification and creates “an aesthetic dialogue with graffiti from the periphery” (p.231). 5 as with any thought-provoking piece, this volume left me wanting more. first, many of the chapters are well-illustrated and provide the visual context for the contributor’s claims, some of which would have been bolstered by incorporation of color photographs. scheinman contributes the sole color photo, appearing on the book’s cover. second, the contributors primarily document the counterhegemonic and anti-authoritarian meanings of graffiti as sites of resistance. as with all media, mixed and multi-media graffiti serve to mediate relationships in a variety of social settings which talk to, talk past, and talk at its intended audiences. as many of the contributors point out, graffiti can also be appropriated by the state as public art that needs to be preserved. the general question i am left with is, how has this process played out over time? specifically, what are the potential impacts on the agency of those opposing graffiti through top-down designations, such as toronto’s graffiti panel? further, how has expert analysis of objects and subsequent reinterpretations of the past altered readings of place? in the examples given, context certainly provides evidence that can aid in interpretation. this would be further enhanced in some instances with a greater consideration of the various actors involved in the process of graffiti production and interpretation. nevertheless, the volume successfully situates the cultural and artistic elements of graffiti from diverse perspectives. overall, the editors and contributors to understanding graffiti provided me with the historical examples and theoretical perspectives to more thoroughly reflect on and refine my own understandings of graffiti. the volume provides fodder to consider graffiti in one’s everyday environment, as a guide to students and scholars exploring graffiti. in this sense, the editors have achieved what they set out to do, that is, provide an easily accessible, theoretically grounded text, appropriate to utilize in undergraduate classrooms. david fazzino, assistant professor of anthropology at bloomsburg university of pennsylvania, is a cultural anthropologist trained in law and agro-ecology. his research interests include environmental anthropology, structural violence, intellectual property rights, food and energy policy, and medical anthropology. https://bloomu.academia.edu/davidfazzino © 2017 david fazzino 1 the social life of data review by brendan tuttle cooking data: culture and politics in an african research world by crystal biruk duke university press, 2018 “clean data—well-collected raw numbers—contain within them thousands of stories,” crystal biruk writes in cooking data: culture and politics in an african research world (duke, 2018), an excellent new ethnography of quantitative data production in malawi. whether it is a matter of guidelines, questionnaires, or statistics, producing “clean data” is partly a process of scrubbing away all the subtleties of social existence—all those stories—and reducing them to figures and formulae for comparison. yet despite the great interest in metrics and policy-relevant research, very little ethnography of the actual production of this quantitative evidence exists. cooking data is a valuable and welcome addition. biruk provides an innovative and collaborative view of quantitative dataproduction—a social project (or assemblage) in which heterogeneous objects and a range of people (fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, foreign demographers, scholars and policy-makers) play essential roles in the production and evaluation of data. based on 20 months working on survey-based household research projects, in 2005 and 2007-2008, cooking data is an engaging analysis of how aids-related numbers are made and how aids knowledge is produced, sorted, circulated, valued, evaluated, and seen as trustworthy. the book is arranged along the main sites of what biruk calls the “life course” of data to stress how numbers are socialized and transformed and all of the care that they require. while numbers may seem abstract and unscathed by the hazards of the material world, they do not exist abstractly or without our collective care and attention: our writing them down, adding them together and tabulating them into 2 charts, presenting them at conferences, in powerpoint presentations or articles. but cooking data is not mainly a book about how data are socially constructed, so much as how they are “stabilized”—or, how the production of data involves the construction of whole worlds of support around them. “[r]esearch projects,” biruk writes, “do not so much intervene, treat, or change the contexts they enter into as they co-constitute them” (p.208). each chapter approaches this idea from a slightly different perspective, mapping out features of a research world and how it is knitted together through the production of data and new subjectivities and socialities, characteristic practices and ways of moving around and acting, exclusions and inclusions, hierarchies and relations of expertise, and ways of valuing knowledge. biruk analyzes the labor processes of data production in the ‘sanitized’ space of the office (chapter 1), ‘messy’ interactions in ‘the field’ (chapters 2-4), and in the conferences, presentations of findings, meetings, and policy debates where data is turned into evidence (chapter 5). biruk shows how health knowledge moves within and between these sites and how it is evaluated and validated at each step along the way: not only in formal presentations and articles (chapter 5), but also during its production (chapter 4) and in informal spaces like discussions about the value of research between researchers and respondents (chapter 3) or about the value of expertise between malawian and foreign researchers (chapter 1-2). by describing how worlds are created around survey-based research projects and how they are always entangled with the lives and relations of those who produce them, cooking data provides an important lesson about the idea that “cooked data” are flawed. good numbers are produced by fieldworkers’ creative and skillful negotiations between the standards and plans of demographers and unexpected encounters. by showing how, biruk extends and brings a new set of perspectives to studies of the use of quantitative metrics in global health (adams 2016). the book’s first ethnographic chapter, “the office in the field,” begins with a discussion of the politics of space and how the desire to produce findings from survey-based research that can be exactly replicated elsewhere encourages demographers to imagine a kind of mechanical “assembly line for data” staffed by mindless, interchangeable researchers. the closer biruk looks at the “social life of data,” the more every step of the process can be seen to involve messy negotiations and skillful and imaginative improvisations. data are made through researchers’ encounters with unanticipated obstacles, divergent perspectives, and different valuations of their work; after their collection data are 3 further transformed in offices and policy discussions. yet they must emerge “clean,” as if it were untouched by these encounters. high-quality data are never clean; we can have numbers untouched by negotiations only when we have made them up entirely. much of the book focuses on mediators of survey research worlds and the work-lives of malawian researchers. chapter 2, “living project to project,” focuses on the skilled knowledge brokering done by research supervisors and fieldworkers, how supervisors and fieldworkers perform a kind of local expertise that aligns with foreign demographers’ expectations, and how producing fields for research involves marking off the boundaries that define ‘the field’ and detach it in time and space from ‘the office.’ biruk describes how fieldworkers enact differences between themselves and rural malawians: researchers and supervisors specially dress for the field, tell “silly villager stories,” and discuss how best to ask about witchcraft and other apparently irrational beliefs, constructing “rural research participants nostalgically, as symbols of a nation of peasant farmers, bearers of tradition, and masters of cultural knowledge, as foils to their more modern selves” (p.78). at the same time, malawian researchers draw attention to their differences from foreign researchers, holding difference out as evidence of the local knowledge on which their livelihoods depend. constructing all these divisions, biruk shows, is an important part of the production of data. chapter 3, “clean data, messy gifts,” considers the value of data for different participants through an examination of encounters between fieldworkers and their rural research subjects. in 2008, the longitudinal study of aids in malawi project distributed two bars of soap (lifebuoy and sunlight) as a token of thanks to thousands of participants in a panel survey for their responses to a 25-page survey. small, standardized, inexpensive, and easily transported: ethics boards, demographers, and researchers saw soap as a manageable and appropriate gift. unlike money, soap was not felt to risk coercing the participation (or invalidating the consent) of impoverished people in survey research. for many respondents, soap was a welcome and useful gift, even if they would have preferred cash; for others it was a token of the uneven distribution of project benefits. some were prompted by the gift to reconsider the value of answering questionnaires or providing blood samples for hiv tests, saying that soap was an inadequate “payment” for their investment of time, energy, and blood. still others accused researchers of being “bloodsuckers.” data are not only evaluated by demographers, they are assessed and reckoned at every stage, by researchers and by respondents. respondents held out soap as evidence in their critiques of the impersonal relations characteristic of survey-based research that expected poor 4 people to volunteer their time answering questions. biruk shows that these differing perceptions did not stem from rural malawians’ misunderstandings of researchers’ aims (or from their embeddedness in an exotic “gift society”), but rather from their recognition that gifts of soap fasten together participants in research worlds that demographers, ethics boards, researchers, and rural malawians all take part in but whose benefits are unequally distributed. contrasts of clean and dirty, raw and cooked, skilled knowledge work and unskilled labor provide a series of counterpoints that biruk weaves between the perspectives of people occupying different positions within research worlds. respondents’ critical and reasoned assessments of the value of soap and data complicate familiar narratives of well-intentioned global health projects encountering stubborn culture. chapter 4, “materializing clean data in the field,” describes how standardizing practices of enumeration in demographic survey-research come to be embodied by researchers while also generating new social categories, identities, and practices that sometimes rub awkwardly against values of standardization. the chapter opens in the back county of central malawi, where, during the winter, routes are impassable to any but the sturdiest land cruiser. with the start of rains, fieldworkers walk or hire canoes to navigate “crocodile-infested waters” to reach sample households (p.130). dedicated (and, evidently, often damp) researchers carry questionnaires and consent forms, notebooks and writing implements, hand-drawn maps made in previous years, photos of panel respondents, bars of soap for gifts, and handheld gps devices for mapping households. they frequently ask for directions. it is mostly improvisation and doggedness that count when you find that “good data do not lie passively in wait to be collected by fieldworkers” (p.164). people’s lives in rural malawi, like people’s lives everywhere, are always complicated, disorderly and contradictory. what survey-based projects do to these lives is to shape them into “clean, high-quality data,” patterns of numbers that are households and people and their histories. starting in the office with the design of a survey, researchers start to limit their panoramic and confusing view with the epistemic commitments, practices, and instruments (sampling strategies, probing, and so forth) of enumeration. the most nuanced view is not their aim; it is the clearest vision of a particular bit of reality that demographers are after (and generally get) and this may involve screening off from view much of what ethnographers like biruk construct entire books from. biruk shows how turning lives into numbers 5 involves researchers’ embodying the epistemological commitments of demographers. these permit “seeing” but also create blind-spots. of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with measuring some things and not others. like subway maps, public health metrics are useful because they abstract from the real world many details that would get in the way. abstractions themselves do not have any effect on the real world. our engagements with abstractions do. however, biruk’s aim is not to show what research projects miss, or to debunk numbers “as simply false, socially constructed, or inaccurate” (p.26), but rather to ask what research projects are in fact doing. what larger social worlds cohere around research projects? how does producing numbers afford certain representation and not others? what representations are valued or discarded? chapter 5, “when numbers travel,” begins with an examination of how specific numbers become evidence as they circulate after researchers have returned from the field and their work has been typed up and converted into statistical data. biruk cautions against being swayed by the authority of numbers, noting that even critical accounts risk giving over a power to numbers that they would not otherwise have; “numbers do not stand alone but require cultural, social, and other scaffolding and negotiation to be propelled through the world” (p.168). numbers seem to move easily, crossing difference without effort; they can be detached, rearranged and compared, tabulated, coded, graphed, and statistically manipulated, converted into dollars and inserted into equations. they grip our imaginations. but sometimes good numbers fail to “travel” or to convince their audiences of their validity (pp.184-191); and, sometimes, ideas based on no evidence whatsoever circulate widely, such as the idea that hiv is spread in malawi by “harmful cultural practices” (pp.173-184). whether or not data become evidence is not only a matter of epistemological rigor; their credibility also depends on the confluence of people and institutions with diverse perspectives and interests. cooking data is a readable and engaging book. biruk builds a sophisticated theoretical argument through ethnographically grounded storytelling. the narrative moves beyond familiar oppositions between the rich complexity of people’s lives and the uncaring simplicity of numbers that characterize much critical writing about the processes that turn human beings and communities, with their complicated life stories and histories, into quantitative data. ethnographers commonly use this contrast to explore how a focus on what is quantifiable can obscure and devalue what matters most. but by doing so, such accounts risk confusing the interpretive labor of simplifying and schematizing for the bureaucratic violence characteristic of the state (biruk 2016). biruk opens up new analytical space for 6 caring for numbers, showing how they can be useful, and not only (mis)represent real worlds and values, but also create new ones (p.212). cooking data will be of interest to anthropologists, global health practitioners, researchers and others, and would make an excellent contribution to syllabi on knowledge production, medical anthropology, science studies, global health, and critical development studies. references cited biruk, crystal. 2016. “studying up in critical ngo studies today: reflections on critique and the distribution of interpretive labour”. critical african studies 8(3):291-305. adams vincanne, ed. 2016. metrics: what counts in global health. durham, n.c.: duke university press. brendan tuttle lives and works in south sudan, where he is research manager for forcier south sudan’s monitoring, evaluation & learning unit and for the evidence and learning facility in south sudan (elfss) of dfid's humanitarian and resilience programme in south sudan (hariss). he holds a doctorate in anthropology from temple university and is a research associate with the children’s environments research group (cerg) at the graduate center, city university of new york (cuny). © 2018 brendan tuttle 1 mythbusting bodies, genders, and sexualities review by william j. robertson 50 great myths of human sexuality by pepper schwartz and martha kempner wiley blackwell, 2015 unfounded beliefs about bodies, genders, and sexualities are running rampant in euroamerican societies. these beliefs are more than mere misgivings or misunderstandings, they have real effects on people’s lives and can support structures of marginalization and oppression. in 50 great myths of human sexuality, pepper schwartz and martha kempner attack many of these insidious and omnipresent beliefs head on, providing a succinct but well cited rebuttal to fifty of the most pernicious myths around gender and sexuality. schwartz, a sociologist, and kempner, a sexual health writer, draw on a wide array of sources across the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities to craft a text that is eminently readable. the text is divided into nine chapters each containing several myths (consecutively numbered 1 through 50). chapter 1 focuses on body parts and addresses myths concerning penis size, vaginal odor, penile circumcision, testosterone, and binary biological sex. chapter 2 addresses sexual orientation and identity and covers myths about homosexuality and gaydar, bisexuality, transgender surgery, gay conversion therapy, children raised by same-sex parents, and child molestation and homosexuality. chapter 3 covers a variety of myths concerning “normal” sexuality, including the differences between single and married sex lives, sex and age, and anal sex. chapter 4 examines myths concerning sexual performance, including first-time sexual encounters, simultaneous orgasm, faking orgasms, domination and rough sex, masturbation, and aphrodisiacs. 2 chapter 5 discusses conception and contraception and covers myths concerning the health dangers of oral contraceptives, withdrawal as a birth control method, condoms, and abortion. chapter 6 addresses sexually transmitted infections (stis) and myths concerning hiv/aids, sti medications, and hpv vaccination. chapter 7 deals with relationships and addresses myths about hooking up, feeling attracted to other people while in monogamous relationships, female sexual fantasies, infidelity, and (mis)matches in couple’s sexual desires. chapter 8 addresses health and sexuality and tackles myths concerning jealousy, alcohol, pain during intercourse, erectile dysfunction, sex addiction, sexual assault, and pornography. finally, chapter 9 covers public sexualities and includes myths about sex education, promiscuity, sexting, and gay rights. the myths within these chapters span only a few pages, each with its own references section. any one of these myths could warrant an entire text of its own, so given the project’s scope and size it is commendable that schwartz and kempner have been able to distill these myths into quickly readable and easily digestible essays that cover the most essential points of each myth. unfortunately, doing so also has the effect of erasing or ignoring much of the nuance and subtlety in the gendered and sexual lives of humans across societies—these myths are american-centric and largely lack any substantive cross-cultural engagement. there is also the problem that some of the responses and explanations provided by the authors produce new myths in place of the old ones. for example, the only mention of polyamorous relationships in the entire text is at the end of the myth that “no one is really bisexual” in chapter 2. the only sources cited for this mention of polyamory appear to be psychology sources, which is a missed opportunity considering the vast anthropological literature on the place of polyamory in kinship and sexual relationships. the definition of polyamory provided by the authors— “a desire to live in romantic and sexual situations with both men and women” (p. 48)—is misleading and heteronormative and is presented as a synonym for bisexuality. yet, there are homosexual polyamorous relationships in which all partners are of the same gender (which is odd for the authors to exclude from their definition considering one of the sources cited for their definition is from a study of lesbians). this may seem pedantic, but it is important as polyamory is becoming more known in popular culture and as more polyamorous people are coming out and being open about their non-normative relationships that the topic be treated with care and not merely reproduce the very problem the text itself is trying to combat. 3 despite these issues and given the project’s inherent limitations, schwartz & kempner have written an accessible and wide-ranging text that does a good job of addressing many common misunderstandings and problematic beliefs about genders, bodies, and sexualities. their book is probably most pedagogically useful for undergraduate courses ranging across scientific and humanistic disciplines, though is probably most useful in the social sciences. any individual myth could make for a great introduction to its topic, which could then be covered in more depth in the classroom or in research papers or class essays. any of the myths within this book could also be useful in non-academic settings as well, as it is written for an audience that does not need a deep background in these topics or the science behind them. william j. robertson is a phd candidate in the school of anthropology at the university of arizona. his research interests involve questions concerning how biomedical knowledge and practice are wrapped up in the production and reproduction of sex/gender and sexuality. © 2017 william j. robertson demilitarized guerrillas and the cultural legacies of state sponsored violence in guatemala review by m. gabriela torres secrecy and insurgency: socialities and knowledge practices in guatemala by silvia posocco university of alabama press, 2014 secrecy and insurgency is purportedly about the demobilization of guerrilla insurgents and their resettlement in the department of petén in northern guatemala. using extensive tracts of narratives from former guerrillas, it traces how individuals and communities once coalesced by their agency in armed conflict reckon with their identities and social relations as they settle in a national backwater in the wake of war. in doing so, however, posocco’s volume also actively interrogates the processes through which we make ethnographic knowledge. as a result, it is a complex text with extensive reference to the scholarly debates and legacies that inform the author’s framing of the lives of former guerrillas in a geographic periphery. secrecy and insurgency provides a unique perspective on the historical and ethnic context that gave rise to the conflict and its dissolution. like others, posocco claims that ethnic diversity often mapped into guatemala’s geography is a defining feature of any knowledge produced about the country in popular and scholarly rhetoric. yet because she is focused on an, until recently, understudied region and on former guerrillas of mixed ethnicity who resettled out-of-place, posocco presents a guatemalan reality that lies outside the typical narrative produced by scholars. one of the unique features of the volume is its thorough history of the petén’s development understood as a project of governmentality. as such, it charts how the region fit into national development schema and the deep and institutionally entrenched participation of the guatemalan armed forces in its development. secrecy and insurgency also interrogates the underlying ideological motivations for the 20th century “colonization” of the petén which draws the reader squarely into understanding guatemalan ethnic politics. posocco’s ethnography is particularly focused on the “scramble of ethnicities” (p. 80) that resulted from the 20th century push to make the now geopolitically important and resource rich petén region a regular part of the guatemalan nation. the former guerrilleros/as featured in posocco’s ethnography draw particular attention to how identities and social positions are framed, disclosed and obscured through particular naming practices. drawing on narratives of life in the midst of war, posocco shows that the use relational pseudonyms and their constant change as guerrillas traveled and settled now result in naming practices with “holographic effects” (p. 103). secrecy and insurgency suggests that to understand how one is identified and engage in the art of identifying others in guatemala, a wealth of sometimes illusive information is necessary to decode the partial representations of everyday life. secrecy, a hallmark of living through war, has left a legacy in interpersonal interactions which in nelson’s work is often defined are duplicities. importantly, duplicities are relational in secrecy and insurgency. posocco’s suggests that instances of duplicitous naming are more than intentional misinformation, rather the very practice of constructing obscured identities has become essential to the fractured yet still-relational identities guerrilleros/as make in their post-conflict lives. additionally, the narratives of war-time and its remnants presented by exguerrilleros/as show that militancy developed a national consciousness that was previously lacking. choosing now to reside in communities of former militants rather than returning to ethnic enclaves, exguerrilleros/as narrate the importance of the shared experience of combat and survival to their own sense of self, community and future. exguerrilleros/as attained a shared experience in combat but also developed what posocco identifies as a “shared substance” (p. 155) which was through their struggle and cohabitation under constraints. the connections that exguerrilleros/as developed were so akin to family relationships that they are often described in kinship terms. yet, the guerrilla experience did not only alter the social fabric, according to pocosso, it also reframed moralities impacting their sexuality and the ways that they understood the value of life. interestingly, the importance of the shared experience of war sometimes extended to exguerrilleros/as’ relationships with former army personnel. posocco suggests that ex guerrilleros/as develop a “merographic capacity” (p. 132) that allows for particular forms of rapprochement with former enemies in battle. in the narratives posocco collects such rapprochements do allow for the imagination of shared identity categories, like the peasant community, that transcend the war-time identification of former enemies. posocco’s work shows that the development of possibilities for shared national identities happens through war in very specific terms and in the words of the men and women she interviewed throughout the petén. the social transformations that result from war are evidenced in much of the ethnographic work that is being produced by guatemalan specialists of post conflict (nelson 2009, levenson 2013, weld 2014). ethnographers of post-conflict often place emphasis on the fluidity of identities, focus on the conjuring – our own and our subject’s – that yields a sometimes ephemeral grasp of realities and on tracing the perennial partiality of social allegiances. silvia posocco’s secrecy and insurgency shares this emphasis. importantly, posocco’s work also contends that post-conflict contexts inevitably challenge the assumptions of current ethnography’s turn to thick description. co-existing practices of open secrecy and performative disclosure often exemplified in post-conflict peace accords force anthropologists to contend with the partial and performative knowledge production. posocco clearly understands that “ethnographies of violence and conflict must simultaneously expose and conceal” (p. 16). secrecy and insurgency offers a deep engagement with our disciplinary constraints whilst also providing a unique perspective into guatemala’s current social rebuilding. references cited nelson, diane 2009. reckoning: the ends of war in guatemala. durham: duke university press. levenson, debora t. 2013. adiós niño: the gangs of guatemala city and politics of death. durham: duke university press. weld, kristen 2014. paper cadavers: the archives of dictatorship in guatemala. durham: duke university press. m. gabriela torres, an associate professor of anthropology at wheaton college, ma, is a guatemalan-born anthropologist specializing in the study of the violence and state formation. her work explores the impact of violence on gender relations, nation-building and post-conflict reconstruction has most recently been published in anthropologica and the anthropology of work review. her forthcoming co-edited book (with kersi yllö), marital rape: consent, marriage and social change in global context, is the first book to examine rape in marriage as a global problem affecting millions of women. © 2015 m. gabriela torres globalization and the hajj pilgrimage: from a brief history to the future management of mecca and medina review by solaiman m. fazel hajj: global interactions through pilgrimage by luitgard mols & marjo buitelaar, eds sidestone press, 2015 mols and buitelaar’s edited volume places the hajj within a wider historical scope that informs us of the ways that the political and cultural spheres of the middle east have been restructured as a result of interactions with the global economic system since the second half of the nineteenth century. these social transformations have been instigated by the advent of modern technologies, new modes of transportation, and the rise of a middle class that has placed travels to hajj (and umra) within reach of increasing number of muslim pilgrims from the so-called muslim heartland and overseas. the volume shows the processes of change by tracing the flow of contemporary objects and ideas on networks of scholars, entrepreneurs, artists, and communities. hajj weaves together a rich and eclectic collection of material: (new) primary sources, curated collections, material culture, fieldwork data, and in-person interviews. it discusses the theory, rituals, and personal experiences of the hajj from various social, class, and personal perspectives. the individual chapters make effective use of maps, graphs, scrolls, murals, and paintings to help the reader along. the twelve chapters are organized into two overlapping sections. the first section covers the broader “religious, social, and political meanings of the hajj,” (p. 1) and the second section reminds us that mecca has always been a venue for the exchange of products. contributors to the second section study hajj-related objects and tell us about the implication of hajj “pilgrimage in the daily lives of muslims in the past and present” (p. 2). chapter one opens with a brief overview of the pilgrimage theories. buitelaar includes the 1980s developments when the gaze of pilgrimage studies shifted from intrinsic quality toward shrines as sites of contestation among different social groups. buitelaar argues for a methodological approach for an anthropology of hajj that could transcend the “intrinsic” and “constructed” debate. in chapter two werbner states how pakistani muslims in the united kingdom interpret hajj as a ritual of purification and connection between distant places. the sequence of hajj rites that pilgrims perform connects them to a “powerful chain of placed memory,” and gives them a sacred “homing desire” (p. 49). in chapter three mcloughlin shows how muslim identity is constituted through the enactment of normative religious scripts such as the hajj among the british muslims. in addition, he points out the lucrative hajj industry sadly remains risky, “and fraud has become a problem” while the need to modernize services and facilities that can safely accommodate over three million pilgrims at once looms large (p. 46). bianchi’s chapter discusses that hajj travel has become a politicized feature of daily life in indonesia and turkey. in both countries government “sponsorship of the hajj generates a steady stream of scandals, subsidies, services, contracts, investments, and patronage” (p. 65). requests for favoritism intensifies when saudi officials suddenly change the national hajj quotas, which are often politically driven. bianchi argues for restructuring the hajj management since saudi officials remain out of touch with the more advanced cosmopolitan societies. moreover, saudi officials continue to “demolish historic sites in the holy cities, and systematically mistreat shi’ite, female, and non-white pilgrims from every corner of the world” (p. 78). the final chapter of section one is by leeuwen who revisits the theme of transnational “network of scholars,” the “place of religion in future societies,” and the “purification of the faith” that were part of rida’s 1916 pilgrimage account (p. 91). the essential question of how to reform and by what method that would not result in more conflict in the heterogeneous muslim societies are not discussed. some of the ideas brought forward in leeuwen’s chapter overlaps with langner’s section in a global middle east (2015). the second section of the volume covers nineteenth century arts and material cultures related to the hajj and medina. porter in chapter six gives an overview of the symbolic meaning of the gifts that were sent by the elites and kept safe in the qubbat al-sharab structures in mecca. this notion of gift giving is reminiscent of the social system of reciprocity in which the honor of giver and recipient are engaged, and forms the central thesis of marcel mauss in the gift (2000). in chapter seven, moore explores the visual manifestations of chinese relations to the hajj, the books written in chinese known as han kitab, and refers to liu zhi (1660-1739) who argued that islam does not conflict with obedience to the chinese imperial state. in the next chapter, tütüncü studies a three dimensional oil painting of mecca from approximately 1710-1712. he gives insights about the nature of urban mecca and its cultural topography. kruk and oort surveys the decorative murals in parts of egypt, which was usually added by relatives and friends of the pilgrims for their homecoming to highlight the major elements of the pilgrimage fulfillment. they argue against the notion that murals had an apotropaic function (p. 165). similar to murals that were painted on the interior and exterior walls was the pilgrimage scrolls, another manifestation of the hajj pilgrimage. mols’ chapter studies the textual and pictorial hajj certificates from the late-nineteenth century, and elaborates on the impact of pilgrimage on the local social relations. vrolijk approaches the study of hajj-related objects from a different perspective. he studies and contextualizes a mid-fifteenth century map with ka’ba at its center. he argues that a mecca-centric world is an aberration in the tradition of islamic cartography. the depiction of the ka’ba in maps is a relatively late phenomenon, dating from the mid-15th century onwards (p. 216). the second object that he looks at is a group portrait taken at the dutch consulate in jeddah, which he argues is not an accurate depiction of daily life in late nineteenth century, but an artificial view with strong orientalist overtones (p. 225). in the final chapter, neil van der linden, offers a collection of twentieth and early twenty-first century songs from egypt, syria, and lebanon that celebrate “the departure and the return of the pilgrims” and concludes that this genre of songs are not as diverse as it once was (p. 229). he argues that the nature of music celebrating pilgrimage has been impacted by the parallel rise of puritanical teachings and bourgeoisification. the writing throughout this volume is rich, thoughtful, and engaging. scholars of pilgrimage studies and students will find this timely publication useful since there is not a lot of prior anthropological studies on this range of topics. the bibliographies at end of the each chapter includes a list of old and new published works, which are useful for theorists and anthropologists of hajj. it is also important for hajj bureaucrats since the issue of (mis)management that led to the tragic loss of life of hundreds of pilgrims was amplified at the united nations general assembly 70th session. lastly, this volume is a welcome addition to the anthropology of the middle east and islam. the chapters force us to rethink the impulse toward homogenization, canonization, and legal consensus of scholars that is often given priority and appears to be inconsistent to historical islam and to today’s cosmopolitan realities. it remains to be seen if the problem of sectarian, class, and ethnic discrimination will intensify or vanish with the rise of religiously inclined bureaucrats. how, one wonders, will the present frustrations with saudi control over mecca impact the personal experience and the hajj industry in the near future. hajj leaves us with the palpable question of whether the management of islam’s holy sanctuaries in mecca and medina should become under the auspices of muslim majority countries. references cited langner, joachim 2015 religion in motion and the essence of islam: manifestations of the global in muhammad abduh’s response to farah antūn. in a global middle east: mobility, materiality and culture in the modern age, 1880-1940. liat kozma, cyrus schayegh, and avner wishnitzer eds. pp. 356-364. london: i.u. tauris and co. ltd. mauss, marcel 2000. the gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. trans. by w.d. halls. new york: w.w. norton. solaiman m. fazel is a ph.d. candidate in the department of anthropology, and an associate instructor of sociocultural anthropology and persian at indiana university. his research interest includes globalization, minorities and the state, and the middle east. his doctoral dissertation is tentatively titled, a historical ethnography of qizilbash: state, modernism, and a shi’a minority in kabul, 1880-1978. © 2015 solaiman m. fazel 1 the state of the discipline: a look at heritage studies geoffrey m.j. chappell university of lethbridge 2 object review: title: a companion to heritage studies editors: william logan, máiréad nic craith, and ulrich kockel year: 2016 publisher: wiley blackwell 3 keywords: heritage, historic sites, national characteristics, cultural property, ethnicity, 4 the editors of a companion to heritage studies, the 28th title in the blackwell companions to anthropology series, choose to consider the origins of heritage studies with the venice charter of 1964 before moving to the “heritage boom” of the 1990s and onwards to the present day. in the wake of the rapid increase in scholarly production regarding heritage studies, the editors offer their work as illuminating the concept of “new heritage” which they define as “the exploration of cultural heritage as a construct resulting from processes that give present-day significance to elements from the past” (logan, nic craith, and kockel 2016). as the burgeoning field of heritage studies advances, the absence of a foundational handbook style work which synthesizes the current views from several authors and several areas of specialization can be felt. logan, nic craith and kockel have completed an ambitious project to fill this gap. their aim has been to compile in a single volume “an up-to-date, international analysis of the field [of heritage]”. the resulting work calls on contributions from 44 scholars on five continents, from a range of disciplines both within and outside the academy, resulting in 37 chapters divided into 3 sections. part one entitled ‘expanding heritage’, is further broken down into 3 subsections by the editors in their introduction. chapters two through five explore theoretical questions concerning: conceptions of tangible heritage spaces, the transition from “folklore” to “intangible heritage”, the shortcomings of legislation surrounding intellectual and culturally property rights, and japan as a non-western example of intangible heritage practices. chapters six, seven, and eight fall under ‘landscapes of heritage’ wherein the authors use location based case studies to consider heritage landscapes. part one closes with ‘collecting heritage’ which includes a discussion on unesco’s memory of the world document preservation program, and maurice mugabowagahunde’s work with the rwandan batwa people and the possession of indigenous artefacts by museums. ‘using and abusing heritage’ is part two of a companion to heritage studies, it begins with a section on ‘socioeconomic development’ a topic that has been of great interest to many scholars in the field of heritage studies. chapters 11, 12, and 13 consider the connection of heritage and socioeconomic development through case studies from canada, peru and india, and sri lanka. chapter 14 reflects on the role of heritage in social needs and the preservation of community identity. the next section addresses ‘digital heritage’. in chapter 15, maria economou discusses some of the ways current technology has been, or can be, implemented in heritage spaces, and considers the benefits and challenges technology brings. chapter 16 is a discussion of the use of unesco designation of spaces as world heritage, as an ongoing means of nationalist state reinforcement in china. part two continues on to ‘war and civil unrest’ which is particularly relevant in the present, in light of the destruction of heritage sites to violence around the world. chapter 17 considers post-communist associations to world war ii in poland and the development currently underway of the new gdańsk museum of world war two. chapters 18 through 20 discuss instances of heritage destruction in bosnia-herzegovina, iraq, afghanistan, and mali, including both tangible and intangible heritage. ‘using and abusing heritage’ closes with a chapter from o. hugo benavides who discusses the harm to heritage and culture inflicted by the european invasion of the andes, and the resistance still offered by indigenous peoples today. part three ‘recasting heritage’ is the final piece of a companion to heritage studies; it begins with ‘limiting heritage’ covering chapters 22 through 27. these chapters discuss the 5 limitations of current conceptions and practices of heritage. including, failing economic feasibility, the shortcomings of unesco, the exploitation of heritage for political ends, deficiencies in unesco’s approach to indigenous peoples, and specific unesco failings in africa. ‘holistic and inclusive heritage’ follows, in chapter 28, aygen and logan discuss their expectations to see asia play an increasing role in the heritage sector. in chapter 29, nic craith and kockel consider integrating tangible and intangible heritage. drawing from her masterful uses of heritage, (smith 2009) laurajane smith and co-author gary campbell conceptualize affect as ‘the elephant in the room’ when it comes to heritage and museum studies. chapter 31 bridges the gap into the next section ‘the ethics of heritage’ carrying on to include chapter 34. these chapters advocate for cosmopolitanismi, reconciliation, and dialogue. the final section ‘the new heritage studies’ contains three remaining chapters. these chapters are forward looking, to the future of the heritage field and necessary changes to policies, laws, and academic training. they will be of particular interest to heritage specialists. as far as this author is aware, no other work in heritage rivals a companion to heritage studies in scope or contemporaneity. it succeeds in the editors’ goal of providing an international perspective of the current state of the field. i would be remiss not to mention that the text focuses quite heavily on an international perspective, concerning itself primarily with international phenomenon, such as unesco world heritage sites and top-down management strategies. the editors acknowledge this international focus and stress the need for “heritage from below” (robertson 2012) but argue that the international level has a richness of discourse and the interplay between “periphery” and global scales is profitable. the editors’ assessment is correct, but in an already lengthy work such as this, i feel that the decision not to devote more attention to local level heritage questions on their own terms was an error. nonetheless that was not the editors’ intent and the collection of works they have gathered and arranged are remarkable as an exemplar of the current state of the field. a companion to heritage studies should be sought out by any specialist in the area of heritage studies, and especially by educators who would benefit from access to a range of works on diverse heritage topics to entertain and inspire students. i see (meskell 2009) for more. 6 logan, william, máiréad nic craith, and ulrich kockel, eds. 2016. a companion to heritage studies. west sussex: wiley blackwell. meskell, lynn, ed. 2009. cosmopolitan archaeologies. durham & london: duke university press. robertson, ian j.m. 2012. “introduction: heritage from below.” in heritage from below, edited by ian j.m. robertson, 1–28. surrey: ashworth. smith, laurajane. 2009. uses of heritage. london and new york: routledge. 1 the complexity of what is not a bone review by mattia cartolano bones of complexity: bioarchaeological case studies of social organization and skeletal biology by haagen klaus, amanda harvey and mark n. cohen university press of florida, 2017. bones of complexity is a considerable collection of bioarchaeological studies that aims to identify social structures and inequality in ancient communities from osteological analysis. the editors haagen d. klaus, amanda r. harvey and mark n. cohen (all writing from united states institutions) bring together a group of anthropologists, archaeologists and scholars from other disciplines with the aim to enrich the ongoing work on skeletal remains and to explore the linkage between social complexity and human biology in prehistoric and also historic communities. the collection is constituted by a total of 17 chapters including one cross-cultural investigation (chapter 2), a general introduction and concluding remarks. the other 14 bioarchaeological works in the volume analyze skeletal samples retrieved in some regions of the world: 6 studies come from north america, one from south america, one from africa, two from asia and four from europe. the time periods examined in the text range from ancient egypt and bronze age in greece and spain to late prehistoric tennessee in the usa. epipalaeolithic and neolithic case studies in southwest asia (where the first large social centers appear), as well as any complex hunter-gatherer communities, are not covered in this book. the main body of this publication is divided into three sections. part i focuses on the connections between human stature and growth, and social ranking. by analyzing a diverse range of archaeological and historical frameworks, boix and rosenbluth, in chapter 2, observe that inequality and social differentiation, especially between men and women, are significantly conspicuous in agrarian societies where conflicts for land management and food surplus emerge and new demographic and social challenges appear. the following two chapters propose other significative bioarchaeological studies on 2 body health and height in the maya center of tikal and ancient bohemia. data results suggest that skeletal health and robusticity, which are influenced by access to food and water resources, constitute a well-founded source of evidence for corroborating socioeconomic structure. part ii concentrates on gender and sex. the three works of this section analyze very different contexts in which hierarchy and gender inequality appear by bringing forth not only multiple skeletal indicators but also comparing them with elements of mortuary practices and written records. finally, part iii presents a series of case studies in which some bring more data analysis whereas others deliver more theoretical observations to the discussion. anyhow, all contributions have the common intent to associate the skeletal pathologies and trauma (e.g. stress markers and dental enamel hypoplasia) with socially enforced practices that might suggest a peculiar community organization and set social status. the contributions in this volume were aimed to further the discussion about inequality, hierarchy and heterarchy in ancient population through bioarchaeological analysis of human remains and the authors successfully achieved the primary objectives of this book. this up-to-date bioarchaeological research shows how skeletal indicators still constitute one of the most compelling lines of evidence in the study of human behavior. seeing how small biological elements (e.g. dental pathologies) allow the gathering of an extraordinary amount of information is extremely fascinating and useful. the fruition and integration of different osteological and archaeological data provide a vast range of information about social life, and it would be interesting seeing how the appearance of inequality and social stratification develop diachronically and regionally whenever possible. as mentioned various times by the editors, bones of complexity should be considered as a starting point in the reflection over the significance and use of the bioarchaeological data in the interpretative attempt to outline social complexity. the seven broad observations mentioned in the concluding chapter synthesize the areas in which the bioarchaeological analysis of ancient social organization should improve, and i shall add a few more comments in this regard. the sentence larsen states in the foreword of ‘how much more we need to know before drawing simple conclusion’ (p. xviii) illustrates a never-ending issue that affects the bioarchaeological modus operandi. the process of integrating different sources of evidence is a challenging task that is, and will be, constantly present. it seems that the combination and discussion of archaeological and biological results must be framed within a wellgrounded theoretical framework and this is what haagen d. klauss and colleagues have well proposed in chapter 16. the lack of an appropriate analysis of the cultural elements involved in the dynamics of complex societies inevitably leads to assuming a series of questionable assumptions in the discussion of 3 data results, which is one of the common weakness of most of the case studies (e.g. type of burial indicating social status). the values that determine social inequality are a clear example of the topics on which bioarchaeologists should work. ryan p. harrod and colleagues tackled this topic by bringing the aspect of the violence visible in the skeletal markers. similarly, authors in part ii have used the diverse nutritional status among members of the same group as an indicator of social disparities. what appears to be pending in the proposed interpretations is an extensive analysis of the material culture that generates the unequal distribution of goods, spaces and workload. in this regard, i suggest that the study of the symbolic production and fruition might be a principal source of information to integrate into the analysis. a simple reference to mortuary practices and architectural settings might not be enough in supporting the interpretation of osteological disparities as an indicator of social inequality, especially in circumstances when skeletal sampling is restricted. it is unlikely that social inequality, exclusion and differentiation is not lead by a rigid ideological framework that is displayed and enforced through the material culture. same discourse can be applied to gender inequality. in other words, i believe that the analysis of symbolic materials (e.g. special burial goods or monumental architecture) must be integrated into the process of interpreting osteological data. overall, the assemblage of studies proposed by the editors in this publication is a very useful textbook for all readers in and outside the field of bioarchaeology. if anyone would like to engage with the ongoing debate about combining the diverse sources of information for studying social complexity in ancient communities, then they should have a look at this publication with all examples and insightful theoretical discussions therein. mattia cartolano is a phd student from the department of archaeology, classics and egyptology at the university of liverpool. his current research focuses on the usage and development of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic symbolism during the pre-pottery neolithic time frame in the near east. © 2018 mattia cartolano on the benefits and limitations of using metrics in global health review by lauren wallace metrics: what counts in global health by vincanne adams duke university press, 2016 there has long been a tension between sociocultural anthropology and more quantitative fields such as demography and medicine (christman and maretzki, 1982; schepher-hughes 1990; kertzer and fricke 1997). while some of this history results from differences in methodological and theoretical orientations, it also reflects fundamental contrasts in disciplinary worldviews. the basis for the differences between quantitative and qualitative forms of evidence and methods, and the possibilities for a productive union between them, have long been discussed by anthropologists. metrics: what counts in global health, a compilation of works edited by vincanne adams, builds on this concern by undertaking a detailed examination of the production and uses of metrics in global health practice. one of the goals of this volume is to enable readers to think productively about the benefits and limitations of metrics. adams defines metrics as “technologies of counting, but specifically technologies of counting that inform global knowledge” and are “imagined to offer uniform and standardized conversations about how best to intervene, how best to conceptualize health and disease, how best to both count and be accountable, and how best to pay for it all” (p.6). simply put, global health metrics are standard, quantitative ways of measuring wellbeing and the impact of health interventions. adams and the other authors in the volume extend previous anthropological examinations of the problems of quantitative forms of evidence, their contribution to omission and erasure, and their effects “beyond the numbers” by exploring how metrics are a form of politics in their own right (schepherhughes 1997; bledsoe 2002). they argue that the impacts of metrics, and the ways that they are produced and circulated can be understood in terms of a new kind of “global sovereign”. in the first chapter of the volume, adams defines global sovereignty as “a flexible assemblage of data production that like mbembe’s fetish, orchestrates biopolitical health interventions so that they work within capitalism’s terms and limits…” (p.45). adams and colleagues argue that this type of sovereignty is a political imperative tied to lingering forms of neoliberal financial arrangements, as well as types of development aid that both reaffirm and transcend state boundaries. the introductory chapter traces the history of metrics from the colonial period through to the postcolonial focus on the need for development aid. adams argues that the interdependence of health and economics, as well as the search for a universal metric, are constants between these time periods. she provides a detailed account of the development of some of the key metrics in postwar international health, including the qualy (quality adjusted life year) and the daly (disability adjusted life year), which are both ways to quantify the relationship between health and economic value. next, she describes the history and uses of the new gold standard in global health metrics – the randomized control trial (rct). she concludes with a brief exploration of alternative forms of accounting in global health, such as stories. she suggests that rather than opening up a space for rethinking evidence, these narratives often work to reaffirm the legitimacy of quantitative indicators. this introductory piece artfully provides the reader with an understanding of the role that history has played in the rise of metrics, while drawing an outline of some of the broad themes in the forthcoming chapters. these themes include the difficulty of producing good data, and the creation of “silos of exclusion” (p.36), in which data and methods that do not meet the gold standard are rendered invisible. in addition, adams explores the “fiscalization” of health, and life, (p.29) both in terms of the ways that the production of metrics is expensive, and in the ways they are linked to profit generation via publicprivate partnerships. the volume is divided into four sections: getting good numbers, metrics politics, metrics economics, and storied metrics. the first two chapters of the book, both case studies of maternal health in subsaharan africa, focus on the ways that numbers can place political outcomes over health. wendland’s discussion of “wobbly” estimates of maternal mortality in malawi provides counterevidence for the idea that statistics are accurate and neutral. in reviewing how maternal mortality metrics are made into evidence, she shows that although the products of the equations used are assumed to be facts, they hide uncertainty. wendland demonstrates how maternal mortality statistics are important politically, and are treated as fetishes even though they omit critical information and downplay the root causes of problems. oni-orison’s account of the healthy mothers healthy babies program in nigeria deepens the linkage between politics, sovereignty and metrics further by arguing that these numbers are not just used to advance politics and goals “but they also carry the political clout to determine who will get reelected to office, who will be promoted to chief medical director of a hospital, and who will win a government contract” (p.85). where numbers are conduits for securing local sovereignty through development aid, health programs become woven into politics and governance. here, oni-orison illustrates how the politics of record keeping can get in the way of good medical practice, with real consequences for the treatment of patients. part ii, metrics politics extends the analysis of the interlinkages between metrics, governance and sovereignty by exploring how global health measurement becomes the foundation for regimes of governance. in the first chapter, marlee tichenor describes the fascinating case of the health workers’ data retention strike in senegal. tichenor’s analysis illustrates the way that metrics have outcomes for citizenship, since a lack of data can undermine the relationship between nations and their status as participants in systems of global health governance. while tichenor focuses on the relationship between data and global citizenship, in her chapter, “native sovereignty by the numbers,” molly hales describes the part that health metrics play in indigenous sovereignty. she shows that the demands for quantitative data placed on the healing our families program in alaska has undermined local forms of treatment and knowledge. in part iii, metrics economics, the authors further explore the so-called “fiscalization” of health and life that adams introduces in chapter 1. drawing on her work in washington and sierre leone, susan erikson’s discussion of market logics provides an overview of the troubling links between moneymaking and global health problems. erikson argues that more reflexivity about new fiscal arrangements in global health is required, since we do not yet fully understand their impacts. in the second and final chapter in part iii, lily walkover provides an overview of the ways donor money shapes the metrics of accountability at hesperian health guides. she argues that the involvement of donor support shapes the type of work that non-profits do and in turn makes them complicit in the very systems they criticize. picking up threads from hales and walkover’s discussions, the final chapters in storied metrics examine more directly the resistance anthropologists and other qualitatively-trained individuals working in global health run up against in working with metrics systems. first, carolyn smithmorris examines how ethnographers work on rct research with united states veterans. building on the theme of omission and erasure introduced in previous chapters, smith-morris highlights how clinical accounts of “fidelity” fail to capture the contextual data that are important in veterans’ lives. she suggests that social scientists who work alongside rcts can ensure that more of this contextual data is reported. however, she argues that the inclusion of qualitative data is insufficient where decisionmaking power rests with clinicians. next, in his account of konbit sante, a medical humanitarian ngo in northern haiti, pierre minn describes the strategies used by staff to communicate the relevance of their program to funders. minn illustrates the way that konbit sante’s strategies are a form of resistance against a limited set of indicators being used to evaluate global health interventions. finally, in a very brief concluding chapter, adams explores future directions for social scientists’ meaningful engagements with global health metrics. she argues that discussing metrics in ways that undo their claims is essential. however, she suggests that subscribing to a critically applied medical anthropology, which also describes new models worth pursuing, is equally important. adams contends that many anthropologists and other social scientists working in global health have taken up the challenge of including ethnographic evidence in statistical and rct metrics. she provides a few succinct examples of this type of work. for instance, she describes how sufferers of “orphan diseases” have begun to advocate for the inclusion of small sample sizes in the production of metrics. in closing, she suggests that while many ways of rethinking the paradigm of global health research have been proposed, these alternative approaches are still underutilized today. the epilogue is successful in assuring readers about the multiple forms of resistance leveled at metrics by anthropologists and others. however, a few more in-depth descriptions of social scientists’ optimistic engagements with statistical and rct metrics would be useful, particularly for applied anthropologists and other global health practitioners. for example, adams briefly mentions the groundbreaking model used by partners in health, however, she could elaborate more on the ways the model is particularly useful in thinking about our engagement with metrics. overall, this volume is insightful, engaging and impressive. adams and colleagues succeed in exploring in detail the limitations of global health metrics and their impacts on what adams terms “global health efficacy” (p.6). one of the major contributions of this volume is the way it shows how the production, circulation, and impacts of metrics can be understood in terms of the “global sovereign” (p.45). it is clear from the work of adams and her contributors that as metrics become the organizing principles for global health, they create new kinds of identities and social relationships that have real effects for health workers, nation-states, and local, regional and national governments. i highly recommend this enlightening and ethnographically rich book. it is a must read for both medical anthropologists and global health practitioners, and would make an excellent addition to the reading list for graduate classes in medical anthropology or global health. references cited bledsoe, caroline. contingent lives: fertility, time and aging in west africa. chicago: university of chicago press, 2002. chrisman, n., and t.w. maretzki, eds. clinically applied anthropology: anthropologists in health science settings. london: d. reidel: 1982. hahn, robert and marcia inhorn, eds. anthropology and public health: bridging differences in culture and society, second edition. new york: oxford university press, 2009. kertzer, david i., and thomas e. fricke, eds. anthropological demography: towards a new synthesis. chicago: university of chicago press, 1997. schepher-hughes, nancy. “three propositions for a critically applied medical anthropology.” social science and medicine 30, no. 2(1990): 189-97. schepher-hughes. “demography without numbers.” in anthropological demography: toward a new synthesis, edited by david i. kertzer and tom e. fricke, 201-222. chicago: university of chicago press, 1997. lauren wallace is a phd candidate and vanier scholar at mcmaster university. she is a medical anthropologist who studies changes in family planning and family formation in northern ghana. © 2016 lauren wallace taking control of your health: communicating neoliberalism’s pseudoscientific claims to health review by david fazzino neoliberal health organizing: communication, meaning, and politics by mohan j. dutta left coast press, 2015 in a very readable and accessible format dutta, provost’s chair professor and head of the department of communications and new media at the national university of singapore, analyzes the various components of neoliberal strategies in defining and delivering health care to a variety of publics. he draws from his own experiences and recent literature to provide an indictment of neoliberal health organizing and neoliberalism, more generally, as a pseudo-science. dutta (p. 87) notes that, “neoliberalism is founded on a spirit of anti-evidence and information inequality while at the same time it uses this language of evidence, accountability, and transparency to consolidate power in the hands of transnational capital. claims of economic growth facilitated by neoliberal policies are not borne out.” although written from a communications rather than an anthropological perspective, anthropologists will nonetheless recognize many of the themes from critical medical anthropology and the anthropology of development literature. neoliberal health organizing is suitable for use in advance undergraduate anthropology courses and provides an excellent overview/review of many of the issues i addressed this past semester in a medical anthropology course. it shows that current theorizing in critical medical anthropology, as summarized in singer and baer (2012), aligns closely with the work of other fields and hence demonstrates the value of drawing from other disciplines and working in multi-disciplinary teams to provide critical analysis of, and appropriate responses to, the ever-extending reach of neoliberalism. the book has eight chapters, the majority of which directly address the current state of affairs with the dominance of neoliberal hegemony and the resultant disparities. dutta begins chapter 1, “neoliberalism and health,” by taking neoliberal discourses of “freedom” and “choice” to task for its attempt to rest responsibility for health on individuals as consumers of health. the health as commodity approach is yet another attempt to minimize responsibility for “externalities” of growth and production while maximizing profits by creating new desires via advertising, public relations campaigns, and medicalization of “other” bodies. dutta works to draw out the interconnections of those working to promote dis-ease with the self in various industries, governments, and in academia. in the realm of communication he introduces the terms he uses throughout his text: communicative inversions, “the deployment of communication to circulate interpretations that are reversals of the material manifestations.” (p. 12); communicative inequality “the unequal access to sites of discourse, discursive processes, and discursive articulations.” (p. 12); and structures as “frameworks of organizing material resources that both enable as well as constrain access to these resources. structures of health constitute resources such as hospitals, education, food, employment, work, and so on, that reflect the ambit of global health inequalities.” (p. 15). dutta approaches health in holistic fashion by considering the impact of neoliberal ideologies of privatization, individualism, and commodification encoded in policies which further disenfranchise people who are already marginalized, in a variety or arenas including: land tenure, displacement, worker’s rights, food systems, gender, violence, and education. hence health is not merely about the delivery of healthcare for dutta, but the sociocultural, economic and political environments within which communities and individuals are situated. dutta concentrates on specific aspects of his arguments in chapter 2-7. chapter 2, “development communication and imperialism,” examines the interconnections between development and imperialism. dutta argues that proponents of development define development in opposition to the undeveloped or those that are lacking (technology and rationality). for dutta, the existence of the development project, including its various projects (including those of the body) to increase the rationality and global economic participation of undeveloped countries and persons may make the claim to benevolence and good will, but through an imperial logic it reifies evolutionary and racist hierarchies wherein those who are to be developed are not rational enough to be involved in the development process. this ideology justifies unequal participation in the development process as a matter of the supposed innate capacities of “experts” and “locals” who possess a static culture that inhibits development (see p. 52). dutta explains how these development ideologies play out in the increasingly privatized projects of population control and agricultural development wherein “empowerment” and “participation” refer to how well community members can be mobilized to assist in the implementation of a plan of action crafted by experts. chapter 3, “foundations as neoliberal health interventions,” discusses the role of foundations, such as the bill and melinda gates foundation and the clinton foundation, in encouraging privatization and “shaping the global policy agendas” thorough what dutta refers to as “philanthrocapitalism” or the “powerful role of capitalism in ending extreme poverty” (p. 93). chapter 4, “transnational capital and health,” looks at the role of the state in efforts which enable privatization, including various stateprivate sector relationships including state support for neoliberalism through law and policy and explicit public-private partnerships. chapter 5, “ngos, health communication and democracy,” discusses the role of ngos as sites of local dissemination of global health communication. here, dutta furthers his arguments of co-optation of civil society in order to advance neoliberal agendas by undercutting resistance through tropes of “community participation” and “democracy,” giving specific examples of the usa’s democracy promotion in chile, the world food program’s framing of hunger as a brand to be confronted with technological solutions, and avahan hiv/aids campaign in india focusing on individual decision-making. the vision of democracy and democratic participation espoused in these settings is “deeply intertwined with the commoditization of individual subjectivity, where the acknowledgment of the citizen is tied to his/her ability to participate in the market as a consumer and to his/her position as a property-bearing subject” (p. 155, see also lipsitz 2006). larger structural and causal considerations of environmental contamination and health impacts remain absent from “community” concerns as articulated by ngos associated with extractive industries which offer development projects in the realm of environmental sustainability, health, and educational programming. dutta concludes the chapter by noting that communities and ngos might also serve as sites of resistance to neoliberal visions, potentially holding ngos to greater levels of accountability at the local level. chapter 6, “health as security: crisis, surveillance, and management,” presents the neoliberal vision of health as a series of global security threats and the subsequent militaristic responses, including governance and violence, which prioritize security of the neoliberal order, including resources flows via extractive industries, over health as a human right. dutta notes that the violence of war renders moot all of the promoted individual exercise and dietary shifts, in so doing he highlights the communicative inversions that take place in justifying war as a necessary intervention in maintaining global security and well-being. chapter 7, “communication technologies and health,” reiterates much of dutta’s earlier arguments through focusing on technological determinism in the context of development of the “primitive” towards adoption of (health) technologies that would mark one as “modern.” in his concluding chapter, “epilogue: neoliberal health and alternatives,” dutta offers alternatives of neoliberal approaches to health, suggesting that global communication technologies and processes may be utilized by a variety of actors, including those publics who are otherwise marginalized in dominant health care delivery systems. of particular interest he takes on the concept of culture and its utilization in neoliberal health organizing, wherein culture is viewed as something which is bounded, can be discerned at a distance, and must be thought around using the multi-cultural expertise of experts in faraway conference rooms. culture is a barrier to be overcome in neoliberal health organizing and those that assumedly possess culture cannot be trusted to effectively participate in neoliberal health organizing, rather local knowledge and peoples are neglected, dismissed as irrelevant, or obstacles to expert knowledge. hence the value of coming to know communities through effective channels of communication is co-opted and it used as a conduit to communicate expert, technological, and scientific knowledge in order to “educate” localized others. dutta uses a vignette in the concluding chapter where he highlights the creation and maintenance of international expertise from afar, aside from this we get little on how his positioning in neoliberal health organizing moved from one of facilitation to critique. this would have potentially elucidated the complex interrelationships between business, government, industry, local elite, and ngos further, adding depth to his analysis. nonetheless, neoliberal health organizing provides a solid point of departure for critically examining the ways that health is conceptualized and acted upon through a neoliberal lens resulting in the commodification of health. thorough dutta’s analysis we see the questionable ethical and moral ramifications of communicative inversions in the context of structures within which neoliberal healthcare is delivered, but also the potential of enacting alternatives in the world. as such dutta’s work should be considered by those who feel moral indignation in the face of slights of neoliberalism and a sense of responsibility to act on these. this would include anthropologists teaching undergraduates who seek to situate the anthropological approach in relation to a communications perspective of conveying alternatives to neoliberalism. in this context, pairing dutta’s neoliberal health organizing: communication, meaning, and politics with the literature of critical medical anthropology and the anthropology of development would demonstrate to students a broader, multi-disciplinary, critique of neoliberalism, and examples of how there are, in fact, alternatives, including alternative conventions of critique. references cited lipsitz, george. 2006. learning from new orleans: the social warrant of hostile privatism and competitive consumer citizenship. cultural anthropology 21(3): 451–468 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.2006.21.3.451/epdf singer, merrill, and hans baer. 2012. introducing medical anthropology: a discipline in action. second edition. lanham, md: altamira press. david fazzino, assistant professor of anthropology at bloomsburg university of pennsylvania, is a cultural anthropologist trained in law and agro-ecology. his research interests include environmental anthropology, structural violence, intellectual property rights, food and energy policy, and medical anthropology. © 2016 david fazzino 1 boredom in bucharest review by christopher m. kloth the space of boredom: homelessness in the slowing global order by bruce o’neill duke university press, 2017 the space of boredom: homelessness in the slowing global order, by bruce o’neill, offers a crucial insight into the boredom experienced by the homeless in bucharest, romania. examining the pitfalls of global capitalism, o’neill is able to probe the emotional toll that limited opportunities for those struggling to find a way, while struggling with seemingly permanent unemployment. this work stems from three years of ethnographic research in bucharest, romania, following the transition from communism to consumer capitalism, and “weaves between homeless shelters and day centers, squatter camps and black labor markets, in order to detail how people internalize and make sense of deepening poverty over and against the anticipation of rising, consumer driven prosperity” (o’neill x). boredom is “traced in three types of spaces” (16). the first is a material space, referring importantly to the physical spaces that the homeless may inhabit, such as shelters. shelters are themselves boring and create boredom for those inside of them. the second is an inward boredom. this inward boredom refers especially to the lacking of “meaning and significance” in shelters, camps, and others spaces that the homeless may inhabit (17). finally, this boredom can be understood as a boredom that “define[s] individual personhood” (17). this boredom is of particular concern, as it is a feature that impacts one’s interaction not only with the world, but with their own happiness. as o’neill states, “[u]ltimately, the boredom captured within these pages registers within the modality of time the homeless’s displacement from meaningful places and marks their resignation toward occupying the discarded spaces of the city” (17). boredom, then, in addition to being an emotion of significant importance, helps one to understand 2 the ways in which the homeless inhabit space and “they rhythm of everyday life” (17). the global expansion of capitalism is crucial to this ethnography. as capitalism expanded and tried to grow in bucharest, it left the homeless to aimlessly search for opportunity. while capitalism promises to deliver prosperity and opportunity, this reality is not felt by everyone. after experiencing early growth, through the transition from a communist state, the economy again faltered. early growth was largely rooted in consumerism and the rise of credit. o’neill discusses the rise of shopping malls, new construction, and early hiring amongst business, both new and existing. additionally, romania was accepted into the european union during this time, which increased resources, giving “people tangible cause to believe that better days were coming” (9). it is through these feelings of hope and desire that the emotional importance of boredom becomes more apparent. while this book makes numerous theoretical contributions, the most important is the discussion of the embodiment of boredom. boredom is examined as both an internal and external feature of homelessness in bucharest. in all of the ways noted above, boredom could be understood simply as an emotion, one which is the result of certain pressures on one’s existence. while this is certainly the case, o’neill pushes this notion further. he critically examines the way that boredom, and again, not depression, is woven into the fabric of the homeless’ existence in bucharest during this time. seemingly every feature of their lives is tied together by boredom, with it becoming the consuming force. importantly, the embodied nature of boredom becomes the lens through which we can understand the experience of the homeless. o’neill additionally makes a broader contribution with this text. he provides a framework with which one can study homelessness in a more complete and all-encompassing manner, beyond just bucharest. the examination of the relationship between space and the internal and external experience of a particular defining emotion is a method by which one can dig deeper into lived experience. it is this lived experience that ethnographers are often trying to get at, making understandable previously not understood ways of living. the way that the material and immaterial world hang together in o’neill’s analysis provide a rich experience for the reader and inspire areas for further examination on the other side. the area of gender, however, is one place in which a further analysis would have likely proven fruitful. 3 while o’neill has offered reason for his not exploring further, a more thorough, even if brief, look at the matter would have aided in rounding out the overall aim of the project. the differences in lived experience of boredom by men and women in post-communist bucharest, would allow a deeper consideration of the uniquely male experience that o’neill is focused on, offering a foundation for further analysis. among the numerous contributions made by this ethnography, o’neill captures the importance of seemingly mundane emotions, such as boredom. importantly, this boredom is distinct from depression. everyone experiences boredom, in one way or another, but less experience the kind of boredom described in this text. what is important about the boredom that o’neill describes is the more dreadful impact that it has on those experiencing it. those who are not facing endless unemployment often experience boredom as a temporary affliction. however, the boredom that is of concern here is one from which the afflicted “suffers” (xiv). the poverty and unemployment experienced by the subjects of this ethnography does not have a similar end in sight and is much less temporary. this examination of an often overlooked emotion provides a unique insight into the experience of those suffering at the hands of global capitalism in a desperately poor country. additionally, it provides a kind of framework which one can use for future research into the emotional nature of lived experience, specifically those emotions not generally probed. taken together, the space of boredom: homelessness in the slowing global order, is an excellent and thorough exploration of the mundane emotion of boredom. this ethnography is certainly necessary reading for anyone working in the area of homelessness, especially, but also those interested in the impacts global capitalism more broadly. christopher m. kloth is a doctoral student in cultural anthropology at the university of nevada, reno. he studies homelessness, poverty, kinship, and public space. © 2017 christopher m. kloth 1 fullness of life: male potency and loss in contemporary china review by mollie gossage the impotence epidemic: men’s medicine and sexual desire in contemporary china by everett yuehong zhang duke university press, 2015 everett zhang's the impotence epidemic is an unprecedented in-depth examination of men's changing sexuality in modern china and a powerful deconstruction of impotence as mere biological dysfunction. zhang was drawn to the topic in the late 1990s, when nanke (men's medicine) had established itself in hospitals across the country, and both men and women increasingly expressed their (or their husband's) inadequacies of virility, whether in private or public venues. why was impotence, at that particular moment, suddenly an issue of seemingly epidemic proportions? standard psychological and biomedical explanations, which approach the body as a machine-like system and impotence as a "neurovascular event", fall short of clarification, as the emergence of an impotence discourse in china did not equate to a demonstrated increase in erectile dysfunction per se, but clearly had something to do with wider social changes of the post-mao reform era. neither did it seem that this development was comparable to the 1970s "impotence boom" in america that associated declining masculine capacities with feminist demands for sexual equality and satisfaction (5). further illustrating this incommensurability of cases is the relative failure of america's wonder-drug viagra in the chinese market after its highly anticipated introduction in 2000. to understand more precisely the complex relationship between impotence and the chinese social body, zhang conducted fieldwork in biomedical nanke and tcm (traditional chinese medicine) clinics in both beijing and chengdu, interviewing hundreds of male patients as well as their partners and doctors. he found that patients' stories about impotence were inevitably stories about how to live in a rapidly transforming society, and that concerns about impotence far exceeded (sometimes, had nothing to do with) sex itself, yet could be matters of life and death. 2 zhang divides the book into two parts. in the first, "society and the state", he tackles the shifting social context of impotence, applying deleuze and guattari's notion of "desiring production" to highlight how, in post-mao china, impotence is a "positive sign" of reemergence from repression (13). although many men also experienced erectile dysfunction during the mao era, it was only in the 1980s, after the establishment of nanke and encouragement of individual desire, that impotence could reemerge as a recognizable medical problem from which men suffered. under socialism, men instead suffered from excesses of desire, in some cases even choosing castration or death rather than to act upon their stigmatized impulses. these shifts in what zhang calls "moral symptomatology" are clearly more than biological or psychological processes, but are intimately tied institutional legitimation and structural changes (32). zhang argues that the hukou registration system and organization of danwei work units were exercises of biopower that disrupted lives and produced impotence. keeping working married couples geographically separated prevented them from establishing sexual relationships and reproducing. prejudices that formed around the class and rural-urban social stratification of socialist living further limited many individuals' prospects in love and marriage. even now in an age of new freedoms, impotence experiences reveal how histories of family obligation, class conflict, hunger and violence, surveillance, restrictive political policy, a lack of sex education, lay-offs in early postsocialism, and the shock or pressures of a new consumerist culture persist to thwart the desires of men and women today. in part two, "potency and life", zhang unpacks complex relationships and seemingly contradictory ethics between the resurgence of yangsheng (a reinvented ancient notion of wellness, or “cultivation of life”), the loss of jing (“seminal essence”), and the biomedical turn. although the so-called epidemic is a positive expression of the liberation of desire, it co-occurs with the revival of traditional notions of wellness that warn against a lifestyle of desire and indulgence. yangsheng in particular recommends moderation and restraint. the loss of jing, or potency, that occurs in an impotent individual is therefore inescapably a moral issue. in order to make sense of the contradiction between legitimized sexual desire in the new society and a persistent ethic of restraint, zhang identifies a transformation in the ethics of being that allows men to take control of their lives in an age of new cosmopolitan freedoms. meanwhile, even as the rise of biomedicine in china downplays the holistic or moral aspects of impotence (as in loss of jing), there is a limit to how far chinese men are willing to understand their erectile failure mechanistically. doctors and patients frequently follow a pattern of hybridization, utilizing both herbal treatments and viagra. to rely completely on western medicine for this kind of 3 disorder would constitute an ethical imbalance. hybridization and movement between two medical systems or perspectives creates a cosmopolitan ethos among doctors and patients zhang observed. the author's skill in straightforward application of theory and gifted narration of a wide range of case studies complement each other to show that sexuality is necessarily intercorporeal, always already about one's relations to others and being-in-the-world. the "epidemic" not only reflects, but also provides new insights into transformations in china's political economy from the confucian state to intensifying collectivism under mao, to the desire-affirming consumerist culture of reform-era china. zhang presents his informants’ personal stories with care and provides necessary socio-historical contextualizations without losing his guiding lines to overdetail. in short, this was a meticulously crafted book, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. potential readers worried that they have no connection to or interest in the topic should rest assured—the impotence epidemic is about everything behind and beyond the impotence itself, which is exactly its point, its ethnographic value. this book speaks to a larger literature on the social psychology of desire in contemporary china, ethnographies of chinese medicine, and scholarship on gender and embodiment. however, i believe the work will not only be of interest to scholars in these fields, but also to those looking for an engaging introduction to medical anthropology, as the work repeatedly and clearly illustrates the shortcomings of universalist disease categorizations and purely bio-scientific approaches to understanding health and bodies. it is important to mention that the author also includes women’s experiences and perspectives in this book, although this material raises many questions that lie outside of the work’s scope and which will hopefully prompt further research on women’s sexuality in the coming years. mollie gossage is a phd student of cultural anthropology at the university of wisconsin-madison. she is interested in morality and spirituality in china, as well as tourism, visual culture, and the globalization of buddhism. © 2017 mollie gossage a pill for every market, and a market for every pill review by ellen rubinstein the pharmaceutical studies reader by sergio sismondo & jeremy a. greene (eds) wiley-blackwell, 2015 my mother is a psychiatrist, and i grew up in a house littered with prozac pens and paperweights. by the time i reached adolescence, i had already attended my fair share of drug company-sponsored dinners and had met several fresh-faced, cheery pharmaceutical sales representatives who visited the outpatient clinic where my mother worked. the sales reps were part of the clinical scenery, bearing gifts of drug samples she could pass on to patients who couldn’t afford their meds. it seemed straightforward enough at the time. of course, ensuing decades have proven that the social and biological relations between pharmaceuticals, physicians, and patients are anything but straightforward. it is in these tangled relations that editors sergio sismondo and jeremy a. greene find their point of departure for the pharmaceutical studies reader. citing the value of a science and technology studies (sts) approach, sismondo and greene argue for a critical gaze on “the scientific, organizational, and rhetorical work” that engenders new logics and practices involving pharmaceuticals (p. 2). the seventeen previously published articles and book chapters that comprise the reader shed light on the complexities therein. in their introduction, sismondo and greene invoke derrida’s pharmakon to describe the pharmaceutical’s potential both to cure and to poison. it is not the pill or capsule that proves the focal point of this volume, however, but the social processes that undergird the production and marketing of drugs. eleven of the articles address some aspect of pharmaceutical marketing, testifying to the wealth of strategies companies use to peddle their wares to unsuspecting customers. (adriane fugh-berman and shahram ahari’s description of sales representatives’ “tactics for manipulating physicians” is particularly troubling when i think back on those fresh-faced, cheery reps who once frequented my mother’s office.) as these articles make clear, every interaction we have with pharmaceuticals is carefully framed, scripted, and finessed to ensure maximum persuasion to prescribe (for physicians) or request (for patients) a certain drug. sismondo and greene have divided the book into five parts that represent cross-cutting themes in pharmaceutical studies: 1) pharmaceutical lives; 2) new drugs, diseases, and identities; 3) drugs and the circulation of medical knowledge; 4) political and moral economies of pharmaceutical research; and 5) intellectual property in global and local markets. in what follows, i highlight some of the articles that comprise each section. part i (pharmaceutical lives) provides a general overview of some of the people and processes involved in the pharmaceutical world. the first article (ch. 2), by simon j. williams, paul martin, and jonathan gabe, argues for the theoretical utility of “pharmaceuticalization” as a framework for understanding both the therapeutic and non-therapeutic roles of drugs in everyday lives. pharmaceuticalization expands on the twentieth-century concept of “medicalization” by acknowledging that biological and psychological states are now targets of enhancement and transformation, not simply pathologization. part ii (new drugs, diseases, and identities) addresses the market logics that contribute to the creation of disease and identity categories, particularly vis-à-vis gender and race. nathan greenslit (ch. 4) details the rebranding of prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride) as sarafem, a chemically identical yet symbolically separate substance. while the green-and-white prozac pill was marketed as a treatment for depression, pink-and-purple sarafem was advertised to treat premenstrual dysphoric disorder, itself a contested diagnosis. greenslit demonstrates that “identity practices”—the situating of individuals and organizations with respect to sociomedical discourses—apply to pharmaceutical objects, as well, and are made manifest through direct-to-consumer advertising. anne pollock (ch. 6) recounts the “contingent history” of bidil, approved by the food and drug administration in 2005 to treat heart failure in “self-identified black patients.” pollock unpacks the various actors and motivations that drove the production of this highly publicized yet commercially unsuccessful drug, arguing that its potency lies in its unresolvable “undecidabilities” as pharmakon (cure and poison) and as a material object rife with symbolic meaning. part iii (drugs and the circulation of medical knowledge) offers explicit delineation of the marketing strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies. as mentioned above, fugh-berman and ahari, the latter a former eli lilly sales rep (ch. 8), describe in chilling detail the strategies behind sales representatives’ social interactions with physicians, all of which are calculated to increase physicians’ prescriptions of their respective pharmaceuticals. sergio sismondo (ch. 10) introduces readers to a new set of marketing specialists (although they would rankle at such a description): publication planners who “ghost manage” the production of drug company-favorable manuscripts for publication in peerreviewed scientific journals. he argues that publication planning represents a “new, corporatized, mode of scientific research” (p. 151)—research that is still scientifically defensible but is produced for the sake of the corporation. scientific knowledge itself becomes a commodity to be bought and sold through knowledge brokers such as publication planners, medical science writers, and journal editors. part iv (political and moral economies of pharmaceutical research) departs from previous sections in its attention to the material and symbolic construction of pharmaceuticals before they become marketable to the general public. this construction happens in part through clinical trials, and the need for participants for such trials gives rise to new populations of human subjects, whose rights are often protected in name only. jill fisher (ch. 13), adriana petryna (ch. 14), and kaushik sunder rajan (ch. 15) all interrogate the slippery ethical standards of the american contract research organizations (cros) responsible for conducting trials both domestically and abroad. sunder rajan describes the creation of a new infrastructure in india to support the mass migration of clinical trials, arguing that these trials have the potential to create two types of subjects: ethical subjects (i.e., researchers) and local experimental subjects who become exploitable human capital. part v (intellectual property in global and local markets) returns to the idea of markets, this time linking patents, the generics industry, and public and private health organizations to explore the pharmaceutical landscapes of brazil, india, and mexico. maurice cassier and marilena correa (ch. 16) detail the “technological learning process” that occurred in brazilian generics laboratories following the implementation of the health ministry’s 1996 policy to provide its citizens with universal access to hiv/aids drugs. stefan ecks (ch. 17) reveals how novartis’s glivec international patient assistance program (gipap), which gave indian patients the cancer drug glivec free of charge, was driven not by corporate responsibility and the moral obligation to be a good corporate citizen, but rather by a strategy to protect glivec’s high price point in american and european markets. cori hayden’s article (ch. 18) on the shifting semiotic terrain of “similars, generics, and interchangeable generics” (p. 262) in mexico raises the question “of what, precisely, does a pharmaceutical consist?” (p. 264)—a fitting question to which each article in the reader offers its own unique answer. the pharmaceutical studies reader is the first volume to come out from the blackwell readers in anthropology series in which neither of the two editors is an anthropologist. sismondo is a philosopher by training, and greene is a physician and medical historian. as the title of the book suggests, and as the authors make clear in their introduction, this is a volume situated within the interdisciplinary space of sts rather than in sociocultural anthropology proper. articles focus on processes rather than people and engage with abstract concepts like regimes (“pharmaceutical,” “global scientific,” and “experimental,” to name a few) rather than lived experiences. the result is a portrayal of a big pharma behemoth that is well-nigh unstoppable in today’s neoliberal, global economy. i do not intend to rehash the stale anthropological debate about structure versus agency, but agency is something we see little of when the unit of analysis remains at the level of regimes (pharmaceutical or otherwise) and multinational corporations. sociologist jill fisher observes in her chapter that the failure of current models of informed consent to protect patients’ rights hinges on a crucial oversight in “focusing on how subjects participate but ignoring why” (p. 205). her observation may as well have been about this reader; there is a lot of how here, but not a lot of why. or rather, the uncritical assumption is that the why is always the profit motive—and while that may indeed be (and probably is) the case for the corporation, i think the editors missed something by not including literature that delves into the lived experiences of the scientists, physicians, patients, and other actors who constitute the heterogeneous pharmaceutical landscape. as sismondo and greene write in their introduction, “drugs take on value because they simultaneously alter the chemistry and biology of our bodies, the expectations and categorizations of our experiences, and the potentialities and networks of our social relations” (p. 1). none of the articles explore these intimate processes, however, and i think the collection would have benefited from more engagement with the micro-social in addition to the macrosocial. even the most comprehensive of anthologies cannot cover everything, and such critiques are not meant to detract from the strength of the conceptual and theoretical work included in the pharmaceutical studies reader. in the brief foreword to part ii, sismondo and greene paraphrase claude lévi-strauss by identifying pharmaceuticals as good to think with. so, too, are the articles in this volume. taken together, they provide an in-depth look at the machinery that enables the continued expansion of pharmaceutical products, markets, and subjects. ellen rubinstein is an anthropologist and postdoctoral fellow in the department of family medicine and community health at rutgers robert wood johnson medical school. her research explores caregivers’ conceptualizations of mental illness in the u.s. and japan. © 2016 ellen rubinstein 1 together we rise: review of women’s march: a documentary film about democracy and human rights review by véronique senécal-lirette women’s march: a documentary film about democracy and human rights directed by mischa hedges trimtab media, 2017 women’s march: a documentary film about democracy and human rights was produced in 2017 by trimtab media, an agency whose aim is to produce independent documentaries which highlight social and environmental issues. mischa hedges, co-founder of the agency, directed and produced the documentary with michelle olivera and iliani matisse. the project began when the team contacted the san francisco bay area women’s march organizers to tell the story of the women’s march and to create a space of critical thinking and exchange about democracy and human rights. it also aims to provide tools and strategies to inspire listeners to assert their rights when they are compromised. in short, the team’s main goal was to make this documentary accessible to the academic community, and to amplify the voices of people attending the women’s march across the united states. on january 21, 2017, the main march was held in washington, dc, where nearly 725 000 people attended, but several “sister marches” took place elsewhere in the united states and around the world. this short 30-minute independent documentary is shot with five difference women in five american cities – boston, san francisco, oakland, santa rosa, and washington, dc – the day after the inauguration of the new president, donald trump. these five women share their background and motivations to participate in the march. first is angela washington, a black woman who attended the walk in san francisco with her daughter maya. the latter shares a particularly revealing testimony of the reality of black people in everyday life, mentioning that she is afraid every day for the safety of her brother, who is a male nurse, because some people are afraid simply because of the color of his skin. there is also bellx april i , a xicana from mexico and los angeles who walked in boston; gretchen 2 goldman, a scientist who participated in the march in washington (dc); an afghani refugee lila samady, who attended the walk in oakland (ca), and marylou shira hadditt, an 88-year-old jewish woman who walked in santa rosa. these women have multiple reasons to walk, and they talk about the desire to fight for their rights, to signal their disagreement with president trump’s political intentions as well as austerity, gender inequalities, racism and climate change. for example, lila wants, among other things, to pay tribute to her parents who experienced a lot of difficulties and who, despite their important status in afghanistan, decided to leave everything behind to ensure the safety of their children. she also wants to oppose trump’s proposed immigration policies and deportation. as for the others, angela speaks about passing the torch to her daughter, and empowering her. bellx is particularly inclusive, mentioning the importance of social movements like black lives matter, the queer and trans community, and indigenous people. bello also highlights the persistent racial segregation towards first nations by informing us that there were two marches for women in boston: one for women “in general” and one for the indigenous women, since the latter were not welcome in the organization of the women’s march. this last point shows that there were relevant irregularities in the planning of the event. the documentary also features speeches by senator elizabeth warren, senator kamala harris, gloria steinem, a feminist writer, lecturer and political activist, and malkia cyril, the executive director of the center for media justice. some activist’s speeches, such as malkia cyril’s, were very hard-hitting and inspiring, particularly when quoting audre lorde: “when i dare to be powerful to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether i am afraid. together we can transform fear into power.” she mentions the black lives matter movement and an important reminder that this was not a parade, also stressing the importance of keeping up the protesting and resisting actions. at this point, it could have been interesting for the documentary to feature the speeches that raquel willis or janet mock made during the event speaking for trans people, particularly when taking into account that black transgender people are widely persecuted and at risk for sexual violence and transphobia. although the five women’s speeches are interesting and relevant in the context of the documentary, it should be said that these women come from an intellectual background. although they have lived – and continue to experience – injustice, they have an history of militant involvement (for the most part), they already have a thoughtful position and an well-constructed argument on the topic, and they mostly are 3 in the middle and upper classes. shira hadditt, for example, has led a decades-long fight for civil rights. in contrast, no voice is given to the most “invisible” people, the “marginalized” ones, the most “excluded” of the excluded. bello and angela mentioned the rights of lgbtq people and the documentary also shot some posters about those rights, but nothing more. nobody talked about the rights of sex workers either, even though sex workers are also particularly at risk of sexual and genderbased violence. if the purpose of the film is to stimulate reflection and discussion, and to motivate social engagement, it is essential to have a critical look at the event itself. indeed, the event had been particularly questioned and criticized, especially in regard to the fact that it was conceptualised by white people, and that black women, indigenous, trans, and sex workers were very underrepresented, if not forgotten. we can clearly notice in the documentary that there were mostly white protesters among the crowd. in addition, the goals of the march are so wide and numerous that they become diffuse: what are the reflexive and critical aspects of the march? did it serve the women’s cause? was it representative of the values that it advocated? what were the opinions about this march? was there a goal, a general guideline behind the tenure of the march? otherwise, the documentary is aesthetically well done, and it is obvious that the efforts invested both to finance the project and to realize it are important. it presents the points of view not only of the five key participants presented above, but also of some speakers, as well as several people from the crowd, such as the words of some men, and a woman representing an organization for the respect and inclusion of muslim people. the documentary illustrates the global reaches of this march, the solidarity that has been woven among people, and the magnitude that the event has taken. it has the merit of presenting a very inspiring solidarity movement throughout the world, presenting not only images of the marches of the five cities in question, but also of some of the sister marches. the documentary demonstrates that rights should never be taken for granted. finally, at the end of the documentary, listeners are invited to visit the women’s march documentary website to download the “take action guide” to stay engaged. in this guide, points are to engage in politics locally and nationally, to use our power of consumption intelligently and according to its own values, to attend events, gatherings and actions, to get involved in volunteering and to stay informed. under each of those points electronic resources are available. this aspect is an honorable way to give 4 people a view to long-term commitment. without a doubt, women’s march: a documentary film is a relevant one. it is helpful to induce thoughts and actions, and it will surely offer the opportunity to debate the subject of human rights and democracy. however, it represents an introduction: an upstream and partial representation of the event. véronique senécal-lirette is completing a master in social work at the université du québec en outaouais. her master’s thesis is about the experience of unveiling domestic violence from women in kaolack (senegal). she had worked in domestic violence shelters and as a volunteer at the montreal sexual assault centre. © 2018 véronique senécal-lirette i considering that indigenous people have suffered from ostracization, including by misleading appeals, it was not clear to me how bello april, one of the participants of the march, wanted to be identified. i contacted her and explained that i was writing a review about the women's march documentary in which she participated. after our talk, she thanked me for having contacted her and for the intention. she told me then that she would like to be identified as bellx, a mexican xicana from mexico and los angeles, after the queer orthographic rule – to replace the word’s ending by an “x” to symbolize of gender neutrality. weaving the dynamic cosmos review by megan parker aztec philosophy: understanding a world in motion by james maffie university press of colorado, 2014 aztec philosophy is james maffie’s attempt to reconstruct aztec perceptions of nature and reality at the time of european contact. to do so, he draws upon a variety of sources including ethnohistorical, ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic data. maffie rejects the notion that western culture is the sole progenitor of philosophy and seeks to demonstrate how non-western peoples also practiced the self-reflective and critical act of doing philosophy (as opposed to merely having a philosophy (p. 4). indeed, the aztecs had a word for such an individual, tlamatini, “knower of things” who contemplated the nature of reality and existence. maffie successfully accomplishes his goal by presenting an impressive body of philosophical and metaphysical analysis and interpretation that enriches our understanding of aztec culture. maffie begins by introducing the concept of teotl, the dynamic, eternal, self-generating energy that constitutes everything (p. 12). in direct opposition to the western notion that reality is characterized by a state of being, in aztec metaphysics that which is real is only that which is becoming, moving, and changing. teotl is the only thing that exists and everything is identical to it; everything is a temporary manifestation of this energy (p. 25). teotl is not anthropomorphic and has no goals, intentions, consciousness, or purpose but is an amoral force that both creates and destroys indiscriminately (p. 23). in western philosophy, that which is sacred is pure and enduring, at odds with a changing, perishable world. however, teotl is also a sacred energy and in aztec metaphysics there is no distinction between that which is sacred and secular. therefore, that which is sacred is that which moves, changes, and transforms – in essence, everything. the aztecs even had a category of sacred filth associated with the earth/fertility complex and demonstrates an intimate understanding of the role of excrement in amending soil to produce nourishing food (pp. 97-99). in this way, both what is pure and what is impure is still sacred; pure things are merely better ordered and that which is impure is disordered. teotl is also homogenous and non-hierarchical. that which is ordered more fully reveals teotl such as jade, art, and quetzal feathers while that which is disordered veils and obscures it, such as excrement and filth (pp. 100-102). however, both are necessary components to a life-death cycle and as such neither is ranked greater than the other. in the next chapter maffie argues that the aztecs were pantheists. the fluidity of the aztec pantheon supports the idea that “deities” actually represent clusters of specific natural processes (pp. 79-87). these are the micro-processes that act as interwoven threads in a cloth that result in teotl, a macroprocess of eternally changing becoming and transformation. chapter 3 addresses teotl’s “cyclical struggle between paired complimentary polarities,” such as life/death, light/dark, hot/cold, and male/female (p. 137). these pairs do not represent opposing forces but rather ends of a spectrum or dual aspects of a single force. this cyclical struggle is necessary for balance, which itself is not a state but a process much like walking: a series of temporary imbalances that work together and result in a sustained overall balance (pp. 138-140). these pairs are dependent on one another and not distinct, but maintain one another’s existence. to use one of maffie’s metaphors, a tennis match does not exist without two opposing players whose goal is to subvert the other. but without the process of this back and forth struggle there would be no game at all (p. 146). chapters 4, 5, and 6 describe and discuss the three fundamental ways teotl moves, or the different patterns its processes take. these are olin, malinalli, and nepantla, which together interact to result in a process of cosmic weaving. olin is an up/down, back/forth, rising/falling, or pulsating motion associated with the bouncing of a rubber ball and defines the shape of life (pp. 186-190). it’s important to note that the rubber ball was a requisite component to the mesoamerican ball game, which was a metaphorical recreation of the 5th sun’s journey from the underworld each day, a defining life-giving and creative process. malinalli is a twisting, spiraling, revolving, spinning motion that transforms one thing into another (pp. 261-262). it is represented by those who spin rough grasses or fibers into ropes or threads, acting upon disorder with the ordered motion of twisting. it is also associated with sweeping, an act performed with a spiraling motion that moves what is disordered to the periphery to allow for order (pp. 279-281). nepantla is the most difficult form of motion to grasp and yet probably the most fundamental. it represents the process of being betwixt and between, middling, neither one nor the other (p. 361). it represents a state of moving between or being in between two states or phases, which is both creative and destructive. it is reminiscent of victor turner’s (1979) state of liminality, in which an individual exists neither outside of nor in the social order, but occupies a place of powerful ambiguity. however, maffie rejects this comparison, arguing that liminality is a temporary state of extraordinary significance, while nepantla is a continual and mundane process of the everyday (p. 363). this process is associated with weaving, which is a powerful act associated with creation; the cosmos itself is a weaving in progress (p. 363, 403). chapter 7 discusses teotl’s role as time-place. time and place are not distinctive concepts, but concrete realities that exist as a single entity anchored together (p. 422). in chapter 8, maffie discusses how the weaving of the cosmos is a process fundamentally dependent on the energy-pattern of nepantla, the back and forth middling motion of creation and destruction. maffie’s synthesis of aztec metaphysics elevates its status to that which is equal to western and eastern philosophical traditions and is one of the first works to do so for new world cultures. as a result, maffie’s contribution is both unique and desperately necessary. his analysis approaches aztec philosophy at the same academic and intellectual level as other bodies of philosophical knowledge. as he demonstrates, aztec philosophy is rich and dynamic, conveying a sense of connection to the greater cosmos not found in western philosophy. by doing so, he elucidates a way of perceiving reality at odds with western thought. i would recommend this book to anyone with a professional interest in aztec culture, or mesoamerican culture more broadly. it is worthwhile to a wide audience, including philosophers, historians, theologians, anthropologists, and archaeologists. however, this book is a committed read and probably not the best choice for beginners in philosophy. as someone with a background in archaeology, i sometimes found it difficult to follow some of the concepts presented. that being said, maffie offers simplified metaphors that guide the reader along a path of comprehension. it is certainly worth the investment of time and effort to garner a greater understanding not just of the aztecs, but of philosophical thought. in reading this book, i feel as if i have not only increased my knowledge of aztec culture, though. i feel as if it has altered my own personal philosophy of how to be in the world, or better, how to engage in an active process of becoming. references cited turner, victor 1976. “betwixt and between: the liminal period in rites of passage” in the anthropology of experience. new york: harper and row. megan parker is a professor of anthropology in the department of cultural and behavioral science at georgia state university, perimeter college. she is an environmental archaeologist and ethnobotanist who conducts research in mesoamerica with a focus on the maya lowlands. © 2016 megan parker pastoralism and pastoralists since the bonze age till the present: an environmental interpretation of historical phenomenon review by olena smyntyna the ecology of pastoralism by nick p. kardulias (editor) university press of colorado, 2015 the ecology of pastoralism is an outstanding collection of papers edited by nick p. kardulias, wellknown in the scientific community through his works in the field of prehistoric archaeology and ethnography of the mediterranean region and midwestern united states. the basic idea of this anthology originally was born about 15 years ago in frames of special sessions of annual meeting of the central states anthropological society and annual meeting of the american anthropological association (both in chicago in 1999) organized by the volume editor nick kardualis and his colleague, mark t. shutes (1947-2001), specialist in the field of economic anthropology and comparative ethnographic analysis. although the book took a while to crystallize, i highly recommended it for reading and careful examination. kardulias states that the fundamental goal of the book is “to explore the ways pastoralism is embedded in an environment whose framework is set by the terrain, the distribution of vital resources, and the needs of the animals herders tend” (p. xiv). and this goal is successfully reached with the help of a refined combination of geographic and chronological frames of the project. profound case studies in the volume cover target areas of asia (kazakhstan, pakistan, mongolia, some parts of russia and china, iran and turkmenistan), africa (chad basin), europe (ireland and greek island dokos) and the new world (southwestern united states) and deal with the period of time since the early bronze age (i.e., from the very beginning of the pastoralism as historical and ecological phenomenon) through the early iron age (the period of its highest development) till the present. selection of environments with principally different characteristics of climate and natural resources available for groups of population associated with different civilizations and historical epochs provides readers not only with freshly published research data (with no doubts, very interesting even per se), but also opens for inquisitive minds broad possibilities of comparisons through time and space, across cultures and civilizations, stimulating in such a way to further cognition of pastoralism in its environment and a deeper understanding of mechanisms in their interaction. such a unique and alluring combination of geographic and chronological frames are possible due to a synthesis of different national schools and methodological approaches drawn from a rather broad range of scientific disciplines. the volume has contributions from archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists and specialists in environmental reconstructions and gisadded modelling from united states, australia and russian federation. in spite of the international and interdisciplinary composition of the book contributors, the volume is not theoretically eclectic or amorphous. the theoretical frames of the anthology are clearly formulated by nick p. kardulias in chapter 1. he understands pastoralism as a peculiar human adaptive strategy, which covers not only “basic subsistence but also the network of social, political, and religious institutions of the respective societies” (p. 1). this theoretization is followed by a contribution of claudia chang (chapter 2) devoted to the reconstruction of history of studies of eurasian steppe nomads with special emphasis on the theoretical differences in the conceptualization of pastoralism in both western and also soviet and post-soviet science. these two chapters provide an exhaustive outline of both past and present field of pastoralism studies, and supply the reader with references to the most important and relevant theories and empirical datasets published in relation to the subject under study. in chapter 3, nikolay n. kradin proposes his own historical vision of pastoralists in this large scale region, which also includes reflections about social and political structure of the nomads. he does so based on the results of over a century long field studies of climate, livelihood and subsistence strategy of nomads of inner asia, which he views as including southern siberia and the trans-baikal region of russia, sinkiang, inner mongolia, northern shensi, northern shansi and manchuria of china and mongolia. the series of contributions that follow provide detailed case studies of several nomadic groups, which are important for understanding the connection between pastoralists' history and culture and their environment. homayun sidky (chapter 4) models subsistence strategies based on peculiar transhumances practiced by the hunzakutz people who live in the western karakoram mountains of northern pakistan. erik g. johannesson (chapter 5) reconstructs processes of nomadic pastoralism adoption in the xiongnu region, mongolia, and the subsequent emergence of the first nomadic state there in the third century bce. michelle negus cleary (chapter 6) examines the late iron age fortified enclosures and system of canals of ancient chorasmia oasis in central asia as integral elements of a proliferated system of control of local environment and domination in the oasis practiced by the pastoralists. mark moritz (chapter 7, first published in geography research forum (volume 25, 2005) and reprinted here with the permission) discusses the role of the neo-patrimonial state in the lives of chad basin nomadic population (fulbe mare’en pastoralists). lawrence a. kuznar (chapter 8) reveals the flexibility of the navajo (dineh) of the american southwest land use system, and detects shifts in their mode of life through the time. two following chapters by mike t. shutes are based on his field studies in ireland. in chapter 9, he demonstrates that localized agnatic kinship bonds could be regarded as the fundamental background of the social organization of the rural irish parish. in chapter 10, he argues that adoption of animal husbandry there brings substantial changes in existing social links. nick p. kardulias (chapter 11), based on his ethnoarchaeological investigations at the arid island of dokos near the eastern coast of the peloponnesos (greece), models dynamic land use there from the early bronze age to the early modern period. these case studies are accompanied with 20 figures and 4 tables which make the authors' reflections and conclusions more perceptible and illustrative. the final contribution of the collection (chapter 12) by thomas d. hall concludes with very interesting ‘conclusions, questions, speculations’ which stimulate further inquiries not only in the field of pastoralists’ ecology but also in respect with their history. briefly analyzing the previous contributions and discussing some their main points, he comes to the conclusion that pastoralists, precisely because of their mobility in all areas of their dissemination, have often been major vectors of change and “the stimulus for increasing complexity in neighbouring societies and for binding together heretofore isolated groups into larger—even if inchoate—systems” (p.276). his macro-analysis of pastoralist societies (so called world-system analysis) allows him to suggest that “studying pastoral societies is fundamentally important to understanding the structure of past and present civilizations” (p. xvii). that’s why the ecology of pastoralism is an important milestone in the research of the pastoralism as historical, ecological, cultural, ethnic and archaeological phenomenon which is strongly recommended for specialists as well as for students and the general public interested in a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the interaction of people and nature in historical retrospection. olena smyntyna, dr. sci (habilitated) in history, full professor, head of department of archaeology and ethnology of ukraine at odessa national i.i. mechnikov university (odessa, ukraine), specialist in the field of prehistoric environmental archaeology, and author of over 200 scientific publications, four monographs and two textbooks. © 2015 olena smyntyna 1 humor, life, and everything nice review by áron bakos humour, comedy and laughter. obscenities, paradoxes, insights and the renewal of life by lidia dina sciama, ed. berghahn, 2016 considering its importance in our everyday existence, humor is an aspect of universal human behavior, that has not yet received the scientific attention it deserves. this alone could be a reason to warmly welcome a collection of studies that analyze humor and some closely connected phenomena from an interdisciplinary perspective. the volume, with its nine chapters, presents case-studies from a very wide range of topics, such as the childhood development of reactions to and performances of the comic, the role of the ludic element in fieldwork, an ancient chinese physician’s memoir, a historical review of american comics, joking situations in an international work environment, humor in science fiction films, english pantomimes, italian folksongs, and finally, one of goldoni’s plays and its local reception. such diversity of topics, combined with their different empirical background and the reflectively open, interconnected approach towards humor that does not intend to sunder the concept from synonymous constructs confers the volume a certain eclectic character. on the one hand, this eclectic character is a positive feature, as such an approach sheds light upon the different sides of the same phenomena and, with the consecutive reading of the chapters, one is able to see how backgrounds in different disciplines lead to different evaluations of humor. ian wilkie and matthew saxton draw an interesting parallel between adult humor, comic performances and the childhood development of humor, listing and analyzing the features of humor that appear in both contexts. judith okely points out how the ludic experiences during fieldwork – embedded in their 2 highly personal, biographic context – might lead to revelations that enable anthropologists to recognize aspects of the cultural other that would otherwise be hardly accessible. a similarly cognitive-level approach is followed by elisabeth hsu, who, after a detailed theoretical introduction, presents a close and philologically precise reading of her ancient chinese source and understands humor as a way of comprehending the ultimate mysteries of life, that is, the mysteries of birth and creation. ian rakoff is the only author of the volume who, instead of focusing only on the lighter side of humor, points to its darker aspects: through a detailed historical description of the early american comics he stresses how the humor of mid-20th century comics echoed and justified racial stereotypes and prejudices. fiona moore’s functionalist social analysis of an international company shows how jokes become tools for negotiating and reaffirming symbolic borders between ethnically different groups. dolores p. martinez’s study pairs the cognitive level with an emotional one, as her original and straightforward reading of humorous science fiction films illustrates the way in which the movies become a forum not only for dealing with the anxieties that we hold about the future, but also a space for redrawing images of masculinity. shirley ardener also presents a gender-focused understanding of humor when describing the english art form of pantomime with its carnivalesque elements and liminoid characteristics, and sees it as a forum for renegotiating sexuality, while laughter is depicted as a response to the comically dissolved anxiety and fear. glauco sanga’s paper on italian popular songs with its detailed presentation and analysis of different texts in some sense points to the opposite direction of humor, that is, its ability to socially stigmatize deviances and overstepping of boundaries. finally, lidia dina sciama’s text leads away from popular culture to goldoni’s comedy just to lead back to the question of its popular and local reception, describing how the parodic depiction of locals became a source of laughing at oneself and also a part of a reimagined local identity in the making. from a theoretical point of view, however, this eclectic character has negative aspects to it as well, most importantly, the fact that it lacks a commonly defined conceptual framework. while individually each of the studies is worth reading and is a valuable contribution to a more nuanced understanding of humor, it remains questionable whether the book becomes more than a collection of studies in an under-defined topic. of course, it is arguable, and is pointed out both by sciama’s introduction and by ardener’s paper, that humor is a topic that seems to resist definitions or a rigorous scientific approach. although one would agree with this statement, it remains debatable whether we should simply accept this as a difficulty and move on, or rather, try to tackle it. the lack of definition holds the danger that our understandings differ not because of the fact that we share different views on the same theme, but because we might be talking about entirely different subjects. while this argument might seem 3 somewhat trivial, in the case of a volume in which the different topics belong to different times, different cultures, different mediums and different social settings it becomes important to question the ground on which the different phenomena become comparable. in my opinion, the present volume unfortunately lacks this cautiousness. perhaps a more critical and reflexive editorial or theoretical approach in collecting these texts in a (not only seemingly) coherent volume would explain why this grouping is valid or preferable, without leaving the reader with an impression that one is able to understand their commonalities only instinctively. of course, it would not be any more appealing if the volume followed a narrow outlook, without adding anything new to such an intriguing social-scientific subject as humor, but it is the coherence of the texts as chapters of a book that becomes questionable. would it be any different if the papers appeared in an issue of any journal on the topic? apart from reflecting on humor through very differing phenomena, the authors also approach the topic through different methodological tools, and more importantly, from different theoretical standpoints. it is definitely a valuable feature of the title that most of its chapters are able to step out of the boundaries of the bergson-freud-bahtyin triangle, from which otherwise many papers cannot step further. also, even the studies which build on these theories manage to use these creatively, without leaving an impression that they were trying to fit in a set frame. still, it is quite unfortunate that the anthropological theories on humor, that sciama in the introduction is able to review so mindfully and so concisely, are not tackled in the writings of this volume (apart from her and, to a smaller extent hsu’s study). whereas the introduction presents the classic theories on humor and sets the tone for a fruitful dialogue on the topic, it seems as though the chapters of the volume do not truly engage in this conversation. one possible theory that the chapters could have engaged with, which could then have become a common denominator, is mary douglas’ general approach to and theory on humor. in the overview of the papers, i aimed to hint towards the different statements on the function of humor, the comic, or laughter that could be interpreted as questions of affirming, drawing or renegotiating borders. therefore, it is most unfortunate that the potential that douglas’s understanding of culture (as an amalgam of categories and boundaries) and jokes (as a questioning of rigid structures) might have offered, was not reflected on more in the individual papers. both the heartening humor sciama mentions and the ridiculing negative humor – on which (probably due to an idealizing tendency of culturally preferred states of being, such as play in its connection to childhood) there is less said in the present volume – seem to be connected to liminal phases. the statement seems to be true both for the liminality of changes of seasons (e.g. carnivals) and those of life stages (e.g. initiations). thinking about humor in a turnerian line of thought, it is not only the liminal, but the liminoid, with its 4 happenings, performances, the consuming of different arts etc. that seem to be a general flourishing ground for humor. the stress of most studies on renegotiations seem to point to this double fluctuating nature of humor, that is, its liminal or liminoid setting and its impact in the reaffirmation and renegotiation of boundaries. the cognitive boundaries are reflected in the context of performative boundaries, and it is humor that seems to flourish in this setting and reaffirm or rewrite the structures of everyday existence. in my reading of the topic, such a general idea might firstly point out why the majority of the papers of the volume are on different art forms, i.e. comics, movies, pantomime, popular songs and comedies, performed in a liminal, liminoid setting or consumed as a liminoid experience. it might also explain why humor becomes important in such a liminal state of being as doing anthropological fieldwork or early childhood, which are in a sense, both initiation stages into the social man’s world. secondly, such a general argument might point out why most papers underline incongruity, the reaffirmation or remediation of categories as a notable aspect of humor, or why such an existential question as the creation of life, which is hardly touched upon in everyday conversations could be tackled with such contempt in comic context. all in all, the present volume is a notable contribution to understanding humor and comic performances. it clearly shows that humor is such a nuanced topic that in order to understand it in its complexity, one has to analyze it from a varied range of perspectives, sometimes through the study of seemingly unconnected phenomena. what however i miss, is a more reflexive and well-rounded definition of the concepts touched upon, and a common linking element for the studies. the reading i presented is an attempt to enter in a dialogue with the theories presented in the introduction: another possible link between the studies, that not only tries to justify their collection in a volume, but hopefully also points toward a more rounded understanding of humor as an analytical concept for social sciences. perhaps such a reading might contribute to more conversation on the topic. áron bakos is a phd student at the babeș-bolyai university, cluj-napoca. he published papers on the humor of trolling in mmorpgs and among servicemen. his research interests include life histories, military stories, rites of passage, carnival and humor, gaming and the history of cultural anthropology. © 2017 áron bakos 1 a practical guide to oral history review by solaiman m. fazel practicing oral history in historical organizations by barbara w. sommer left coast press, 2015 barbara sommer’s (2015) practicing oral history in historical organizations is a welcome addition to the field of qualitative research methodology. generally the topics that public historians, ethnographers, and other practitioners of oral history probe are fragmented and lack human voice. sommer’s book speaks to practitioners who “collect, archive, and use oral history” (p. 10). since the second half of the twentieth century when oral history was established as a viable ‘bottom-up’ research method that can help foster social change, sommer demonstrates how the field has grown to where it is now practiced by museum curators, librarians, scientists, cultural institutions, activists, and artists. at the same time, some practitioners may not have received any rigorous graduate level training on research methods, but want a practical guide on how to create the best records possible within the realm of their own professions. to fill this gap, sommer’s book offers valuable tips and checklists. sommer weaves together a mixed collection of data: seven first-person interviews, twelve historical organizations, fieldwork, and secondary sources. she discusses the oral history life cycle in part three of her book. the individual chapters make effective use of pictures, graphs, outlines, samples, definitions, and forms to help the reader along. the twelve chapters are organized into four sections. part one provides an overview of the theory and practice of oral theory. part two examines the theory of oral history in-depth and tells of the special issues that can arise when oral history is practiced. part three provides a roadmap for planning, implementing, disseminating, and preserving oral histories. the final part includes reflections and advices. sommer’s book ends with a glossary, appendices, and list of further readings on different aspects of oral history. 2 chapter two opens with an inclusive definition of oral history and ends with a ten step guide on how to best conduct oral history in a community (p. 30-1). for sommer oral history is more than merely documenting and preserving data stored in memories. she cites oral history association’s definition that offers the following points. oral historians “record spoken information gathered from people’s memories, collect first-person information deemed historically significant by those recording it, [and] preserve the recorded interview information and make it accessible to others” (p. 26). for sommer oral history is no different than “primary source documents like letters or diaries” (p. 26). she claims it can be used in conjunction with surveys, family histories, journalistic interviews, books, folklore, and documentaries to reconstruct a more complete narrative of the past. this understanding of oral history overlaps with ray demallie’s description of ethnohistory in which history is not only limited to written primary sources. ethnohistory uses an eclectic array of sources that give its own particular sense of the past, which encompasses literature, traditions, places, memoirs, maps, artifacts, images, arts, and oral stories. sommer’s chapter three discusses the five step process of oral history life cycle. it includes: “idea, plan, interview, preservation, and access/use” (p. 33). for sommer oral history projects are generally inspired by ideas, events, shared experiences, or disappearing histories and cultures. step two is the project design statement. it is a detailed and flexible roadmap that guides the end-to-end process. it entails having the proper fieldwork equipment(s) and a depository where the recordings are carefully kept. step three is the interview part, which is considered the central stage in the oral history life cycle. chapter ten covers the science and art of interviewing in detail. step four is preservation that includes classification and organization of the fieldwork data. preservation “moves the lifecycle from creation to curation” (p.36). step five is when the oral histories are placed in a depository that makes is accessible to public for additional research, museum exhibitions, publications, documentaries, and other educational programs. part two covers the copyright laws, ethical guidelines, and legal release agreements. the final part of the book ends with reflections. sommer concludes by stating “oral histories provide an opportunity for historical organization to bring people into the action” (p. 162). this statement reminded me of eric wolf’s influential anthropology book, europe and the people without history. although sommer’s book is written for practitioners of oral history, it remains to be seen if oral history can become a bigger 3 component of the research methodology courses that are taught in academia. references cited demallie, raymond j. “these have no ears”: narrative and the ethnohistorical method.” in ethnohistory 40 (4) (1993): 515-538. wolf, eric r. europe and the people without history. berkeley: university of california press, 2010. solaiman m. fazel is a ph.d. candidate in the department of anthropology with an outside minor in the department of central eurasian studies at indiana university. his research interest includes globalization, minorities and the state, the modern middle east and central asia, and ethnohistory. solaiman is a future faculty teaching fellow in the department of sociology and anthropology at indiana university south bend, where he teaches introduction to social and cultural anthropology; globalization, development, conflict; and peoples and cultures of the middle east. © 2017 solaiman m. fazel 1 hadza film review: ‘last of the first’ review by camilla power the hadza: the last of the first directed by bill benenson benenson productions and firestick productions, 2014 this is a fascinating, watchable documentary on the hadza people of tanzania. anyone interested in hunter-gatherers and their lives in today’s world, as well as their contribution to our understanding of human evolution, will want to see it. several headline-grabbing statements justify the title of ‘last of the first’. but there are important ways in which that designation is true. of around 1000 hadza speakers, some 2-300 still live a bush-life as the only equatorial big-game african savannah hunters in the rift valley. this places them right in the environment in which our modern human ancestors emerged in the past 200,000 years. there are real aspects of cultural continuity which can teach us about that ancestry, besides a genetic diversity among the hadza population showing that their lineages are ancient, comparable to those of khoisan people in southern africa and central african forest hunter groups. the hadza are known as immediate-return hunter-gatherers, a term developed by the major researcher james woodburn who has worked with them for over 60 years and speaks their click language hadzane. this means they keep nothing but consume all they produce on that day; no one can control anyone else’s access to resources; everything is shared, and they are strikingly egalitarian. no single hadza can tell any other man, woman or child what to do and expect to be obeyed. sounds like a beautiful life, and it is. we join the men in the excitement of the chase, aiming their poisoned arrows through the green acacia bush at antelopes, giraffes, zebras, warthogs – everything but elephants, which are not stopped by the poison. we see them sticking their arms into african killer bee nests to get the honey, thanks to the help of the honeyguide bird, who gets some wax. this is fun, much more fun than the hard work of farming, which yields a less healthy diet. that could explain why the hadza have been so reluctant, despite all the pressures from previous colonial states and the current tanzanian state, to settle down, usually with disastrous results. while bow-and-poisoned arrow technology may only be some 50,000 years old, evolutionary anthropologist richard wrangham gets down and dirty with the hadza women digging up roots, using their tsipale digging sticks. these could be 2 million years old in human evolutionary terms. wrangham has an axe to grind on fire and how cooking made us human, which is a reasonable theory, 2 but fire at that date is a matter of debate among archaeologists. perhaps half a million years for controlled domestic use would be closer to the mark. still, he gamely deploys bush swahili to inveigle himself into the women’s group, before realizing the wily multilingual hadza women are well able to pick up his english when it suits them. gatherer-hunter more fairly reflects the fact that women provide staple food day in, day out, while the men may get lucky and kill once a moon. there are always roots to dig, and in the right season nutritious baobab fruit to knock down from the trees, grind and mix with that rich honey. alyssa crittenden, a key researcher on hadza diet and child-rearing, chats with the famous hard-working hadza grandmothers who have given us so much insight into the evolution of menopause as a characteristic which made us human: the grandmother hypothesis. jane goodall makes a somewhat gratuitous appearance, celebrated as she is for research on nonhuman primates, not the hadza at all. with all the discrimination they have faced as ‘primitives’, we need to be careful to focus on the hadza as fully modern, cultural human beings and not in any simple way continuous with two million years of hominin or primate evolution. what made us human is not only use of fire, and foraging technologies, nor even language, but singing, dancing, music, body decoration, rock art, ritual. although little is said, the film keeps revealing the exuberant culture of the women as they sing energetically. regarding hadza ritual and religion, the film can’t show us anything because it all happens in total darkness (no fires) on nights of dark moon beneath the milky way. one of the great hadza cultural experts and storytellers, gudo baala, shows off some local rock art. he reasonably argues that this was made by hadza ancestors, even though no one is painting today. since the hadza hills are full of undocumented rock art, we need to hear these interpretations from the hadza themselves, just as khoisan peoples have given insight into southern african rock art sites. gudo lives in the mang’ola area which in recent decades has been flooded by people from all over tanzania, seeking their fortune by farming onions under irrigation schemes. this has catastrophic effects on the hadza environment, water table and bush ecology, driving away the game animals on which they depend. mang’ola people have been reduced to living on tourist handouts, succumbing to alcoholism. a great supporter of hadza cultural conservation through the dorobo foundation, daudi peterson explains here how the hadza reject the use of storage, leading to wealth and accumulation. this is the way of life that made us human, for the vast majority of our history, but not the way of life favored by states seeking tax revenues. even recently, the tanzanian state almost destroyed hadza culture at a stroke by offering the whole of yaeda valley to the abu dhabi royal family as a hunting ground. thankfully, a washington post journalist was able to raise the alarm, and advice was sought from the un indigenous rights section. a very small – but significant – area of the ancestral hadza territory has been secured under hadza governance in the swahili village system. but it is still tough to enforce antipoaching and controls on cattle movement. especially poignant scenes show datoga cattle being brought down to waterholes where they monopolize resources needed by the hadza themselves and the game animals. as peterson says, these are historic processes being acted out in front of our eyes. also very affecting are the various, bewildered reactions of hadza children reflecting on their experiences in swahili schools. a couple of lads, who received beatings when they were trying to learn 3 to write, decided they preferred bush school. they had no problem finding their way home two days walk back across the country. as has been seen with so many other first nation cultures, hadza interaction with tanzanian education is going to be critical in determining how well hadza culture will be sustained for the future. tanzanian officials and academics interviewed here show glimmerings of sympathy and awareness of their responsibility in supporting this most ancient culture, a culture which achieves equality and sustainability for all its members every day. rather than develop the hadza, aren’t we are the ones needing to learn lessons from them? some contribution by the man who knows most about the hadza, james woodburn, would have made this an even more excellent film. but the real stars are the hadza themselves. camilla power is senior lecturer in anthropology at university of east london. she has done field research with the hadza on women's ritual culture. © 2018 camilla power 1 resistance and insistence: studying identity through commodity trends review by sarah latham broken chains and subverted plans: ethnicity, race, and commodities by christopher c. fennell university press of florida, 2017 in broken chains and subverted plans: ethnicity, race, and commodities, christopher c. fennell presents two communities that resisted oppressive forces by creating new responses to dominant capitalistic trends. the book is divided into two parts: “ethnicity and commodity chains in nineteenth-century virginia, and racism” and “land and freedom in nineteenth-century illinois”. the book opens with an introduction exploring foodways and racial dynamics in the midwest, with the second chapter giving an outline of how his research and findings relate to current literature. fennell sets the scene by describing the ‘consumer revolution’ writing, “in this trajectory, more and more households of modest economic means invested in the purchase of diverse amenities, such as refined ceramic wares for serving tea and meals, refined clothing and fabrics, spices, clocks, and mirrors” (24). this broad change in consumer habits allows fennell, through the observation of historical material culture, to address the complexities of ethnicity and identity in the northeastern united states. chapters three through seven are a dense and highly academic review of historical and archaeological information about the commodity chains of frontier regions in nineteenth-century virginia. his central questions include, “did the establishment of a government-sponsored manufacturing town in this region spur an accelerating development of the surrounding region as a market for manufactured commodities?” (40). fennell’s methods aim to uncover to what extent social relationships and cultural identity disrupt or promote the consumer revolution. he does this by examining stylistic elements of ceramic ware. specifically, he relies on two data sets, 1) newspaper advertisements published by local merchants in the area, and 2) “surviving account books, daybooks, and ledgers maintained by local 2 stores” (73). fennell examines commodity supply chains beginning in britain, their competitors in north america, as well as the transportation and distribution resources available at the time. he then moves his focus from the town of harpers ferry, virginia to the surrounding countryside. fennell contends that comparing these two data sets reveals significant trends. “first, customers in more rural locations could purchase imported british ceramic wares from local stores if they wished to do so. those goods were made available at affordable prices, could be purchased on credit, and were not scarce due to transport problems. second, those rural customers nonetheless tended to purchase such imported goods at much lower frequencies than did their counterparts in the tidewater region” (97). his analysis is able to establish that the ‘ceramic revolution’ was not spreading as successfully in the upper potomac and shenandoah region as it was in the tidewater region. to address this discrepancy, fennell considers ethnic networks in the area by focusing on german log-cabin architectural styles. he establishes the close-knit nature of german immigrant populations in the virginia backcountry at this time in that “their use of material culture to convey their group affiliations was evident in several ways” (118). in chapter 5, fennell uses oral history accounts, archaeological excavations, and documentary evidence from the demory site in loudoun county to explore how ethnic, social networks can be consistent and well-established in a specific area for generations, and yet, as the result of a variety of environmental and social factors, then become porous, making room for new emergent identities. this portion of the book provides helpful photographs and diagrams for the reader to more fully understand the material culture referenced. here, fennell establishes, through the examination of symmetrical, central hall designs and frame construction, the existence of “a rather cohesive german-american enclave” (150), that dissipated by the mid-1800s. in the following chapter, he examines evidence of end-user waste from a variety of sites, including demory. excavations at demory provide few examples of discarded cream or pearl colored wares, even though it’s well-established that these were readily available to consumers who wished to purchase them. fennell closes chapter 7 by saying, “part one of this book has thus illustrated how concepts of ethnicity, trade spheres and commodity chains can illuminate past social and economic trajectories” (188). in part two, fennell completely shifts tone and style. the narration and quality of information become significantly less academic and almost follow a narrative style. part two of the book also shifts focus to free african-americans in the town of new philadelphia, illinois. new philadelphia was founded by frank (free frank) and lucy mcwhorter, two formerly enslaved people who managed to purchase 3 their manumissions. over time, frank and lucy were able to purchase the freedom of 14 of their relatives as well. new philadelphia officially became a town in 1837 “open for settlement by other free african-american families as well as european americans” (204). this town continued to grow through the 1860s. however, plans were made to construct a new railroad across pike county. due to what fennell refers to as “averse racism,” the town of barry, illinois (six miles west of new philadelphia) was chosen to have a train station instead; resulting in a slow and steady dwindling of residents from new philadelphia. today, new philadelphia illinois exists only as a state historical marker and a site for archaeological research. chapter 9 provides a mostly historical review of frank mcwhorter and new philadelphia, shedding light on the often-biased omissions of racial hostilities that characterize histories of illinois during the antebellum period. chapter 10 presents other case studies of structural racism during a similar time period in illinois. fennell includes archaeological and historical analysis of miller grove, brooklyn, and the short-lived settlement called equal rights outside of current day galena, il. he points out that his analysis contributes to the current literature by focusing on post-emancipation era communities. fennell concludes in chapter 11 by providing an extensive review of historical, archaeological research dealing with race and ethnicity in the us and abroad. he also advocates for projects committed to civic engagement. the two parts of the book feel and read like completely different monographs from two completely different authors. part one is incredibly dense and is written in the format of a very long academic journal article. part two is considerably shorter and is more easily digestible to scholars, like me, who are new to the field of historical archaeology. perhaps it was the author’s intent to present research in multiple styles to engage readers in different ways. overall, the book is a fascinating look into methods by which 19th-century ethnic groups were able to direct their economic power into their communities, and, in the face of often great racial hostility, also manage to take advantage of the broader capitalistic opportunities surrounding them. sarah latham is a masters student in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university. her research interests lie broadly in place, belonging, and identity. her current research involves plantation tourism, commodification of authenticity, and black diaspora identity. © 2018 sarah latham 1 fort san juan: the relations between spaniards and natives during the 18 months the fort san juan lasted review by ihintza marguirault fort san juan and the limits of empire: colonialism and household practice at the berry site edited by robin a. beck, christopher b. rodning, and david g. moore by university press of florida, 2016 from 2001 to 2010 excavations were conducted. ten years of digging, ten years of investigating and understanding, ten years on the berry site (in nowadays burke county, north carolina) to demonstrate in a definitive fashion the location of the fort san juan built by juan pardo, a spaniard explorer. built in 1566, the fort was completely destroyed in 1568. during the eighteen months it lasted, the relationship between europeans and natives from joara went from very friendly to the complete destruction of the spanish compound. this book, divided in six main chapters, revolves around one main question: how did these europeans and their native hosts at joara construct and maintain social relations through household practice? it is known that the fort only lasted for eighteen months, at first the spaniards were very welcomed, but eventually it was the very ones who welcomed them as friends that led the destruction of their fort. the question the authors try to tackle with these excavations is to understand what happened between them. to try and give an answer to these questions, the research conducted on site has been very precise, and the various authors of this book render a detailed description of their discoveries. maybe too detailed indeed; especially for someone who is not a professional archaeologist. through the analysis of several elements that constituted the daily life of both the spaniards and the natives from joara, such as what they ate, the material they used in housebuilding or hunting, fragments of the colonial encounter etc. the authors propose several hypotheses of the development of relations throughout these eighteen months that included pardo’s two expeditions. 2 in 1566, pardo was sent with 125 soldiers on his first expedition. his task was to explore the area, to claim its lands for spain while pacifying local indians, and to forge an overland road from santa elena to the valuable silver mines in zacatecas, mexico (p.5) and so he built fort san juan at joara. fort san juan was the first european settlement in the interior of what is now the united states (p.2). the relations with the natives changed after his second expedition, and it eventually led to the complete destruction of the site by may 1568. from the 31 soldiers still garrisoned there, only one survived after escaping and hiding in the woods. among the several factors that appear to have had a role in the natives’ decision to destroy the garrisons, two stand out: the spaniards’ demands for food and their improprieties with native women (p.15). at first the relations between the spaniards and the natives were based on trade, but by may 1568, the spaniards had fewer trade-goods left for exchange. from the spaniards perspective, it was as it should be, the natives were then subjects to the spanish crown, and as such they had to pay tribute or tax, in the form of food supply for the soldiers. from the natives’ perspective on the other hand, the spaniards were no longer fulfilling their end of the exchange relationship, hence they owed them nothing. besides, soldiers weren’t allowed to have women on the compound spending the night, and several complaints had been made about their bad behavior overall. bandera (1990a: 285) notes that pardo “commanded him [the corporal placed in charge of fort santiago] in the name of his majesty… that no one should dare bring any woman into the fort at night and that he should not depart from the command under pain of being severely punished” (p.16). this obviously led to tensions and improprieties. the focus of the first two chapters is on setting the scene. the more historical aspects are described there, using information collected from different documents from the archives in spain, thus told by different actors at different times and of different origins, to be able to create a first theory on where exactly fort san juan was built, and also on how the political relations were before, during, and after its construction, both with the natives and with the spanish crown. four contemporary accounts are generally cited (one by pardo himself, one by a soldier and two by pardo’s notary) (p.59). many scholars before tried to find the actual location of fort san juan. previously, they believed the site of joara may have been located near the qualla boundary in swain county, north carolina, or elsewhere in the appalachian foothills of north carolina or tennessee, between knoxville and the catawba river. another account, postdating the pardo expeditions by only sixteen years, remained effectively unknown by modern researchers until the mid-1990s, even though it contained important details not mentioned in any of the remaining accounts, and helped robin beck and his collaborators to pin the exact location of the fort. this account penned by a soldier, interpreter and notary domingo gonzález 3 de león forms part of a letter to the king of spain. perhaps in part because the letter was written in a remarkably miserable script, with numerous eccentric usages and outright grammatical errors, this document has never been used as a primary source relative to the pardo expeditions (p.59). nevertheless, thanks to the information it contains and to the new insight it offers, the archaeologists have turned their research to the berry site, which is now known to be the location of fort san juan. the next chapters revolve around understanding how relationships evolved between europeans and natives from joara. to do so, the different excavations and recovered materials as well as remains and all the processes used on the two most different of the site’s five structures are detailed, so as to be able to create theories and to try and relive the stories behind them. thus, the focus is given to the construction materials, to what they ate and the political relations this implied, the material culture and household practice, and what they left behind, the fragments of the colonial encounter. through the analysis of the burned remains collected on site, the archaeologists have been able to notice not only that all the buildings in the spanish compound were not built at the same time but also a shift in the relationship between the two groups, a straining that eventually led to the burning of the compound at the fort. indeed, as some of the constructions demonstrated features of traditional indian housebuilding, it was obvious that the others were built mainly if not only by the spaniards. another sign of the change in relationships is the type of food recovered from these different structures. the older structure for example would hold more bear bone remains, bear being usually served on very specific occasions or for honorable guests. the more recent on the other hand would display more of deer bone remains, and hardly any bear bone remains, the spaniards’ status seems to have changed on the eyes of the indians from joara. in an effort to romanticize or maybe to relieve the reading and immerse the reader deeper, some semi-fictional stories are added at the beginning of each main chapter, words that could have been spoken or thought by some of the main actors who played a role in this era and helped the archaeologists figure out the events. even though in the first two chapters they add an ethnological vision to the reading, these parts may sound a bit odd at the beginning of the four other chapters, as they are very scientific, and thus these stories break the pace of the reading and feel a bit out of place. the archaeologists' approach to excavations on the berry site was based on two key components. one component was the broad horizontal exposure of large areas to reveal the site layout by stripping the plow zone with shovels and dry-screening sediments through quarter-inch hardware mesh. another key component of their field strategy was the hand-tool excavation of intact architectural debris and floor deposits, as well as the hand-tool excavation of pit features inside and 4 outside of buildings, and the water-screening of all sediment deposits from architectural and feature contexts (p.87). they extensively analyzed all the elements recovered, both from the spanish compound and from the village of joara, resulting in a very precise and detailed knowledge of them all. they then proceeded to compare the results between these two locations but also among the different structures in the spanish compound, noting all the similarities and differences, making the understanding of these eighteen month-long relations possible. this extensive analysis of the carbonized pieces of wood, charred macrobotanical remains recovered by flotation, as well as the different pieces of stone or metal found on site, gives an interesting insight into the way every detail of history tells a story, although it may be too detailed and long to read, it could get sooner to the point. it becomes easy to read without really paying attention to what one reads, although this does not actually detract from understanding the account. the authors of this book used all their discoveries very precisely to travel back in time and to create an account of what had most probably happened. thus, using written documents found in archives in spain, they created the first theories and hypothesis, and conducted excavations in the same area for ten years to be able to substantiate them. set aside the first two chapters, the other chapters can almost be read separately, jumping from one chapter to the other without any specific order as they are organized in three main axes: house construction, house organization and food preparation and consumption. this is a well written book overall, aimed at one specific audience, the professional archaeologist or/and academic, with a quick description of the techniques used, and a bigger time spent on the description of the discoveries. there are, however, some openings and explanations to readers unfamiliar with the subject in general, thus a willingness to get out of its field and touch a wider audience. there is this idea of a reversed crescendo, starting from a broader view of the spanish compound to slowly 'entering' the buildings, and then into the lives of those living there, thus catching the attention of the reader, as it is, after all, a storytelling using actual materials and artefacts. thus, even though every chapter can be read independently, it would be better to read the entire book in order, as it takes the reader in a journey to a place that no longer exists. every aspect analyzed here eventually comes to support the same hypotheses, whether is it the house construction, the house organization or the food preparation and consumption aspect, they all corroborate the same theories. the book is mainly focused on the spaniards and one might find that the natives experience is a bit left aside, probably because it is hardly ever mentioned in the recovered documents. it’s interesting to see how a so-called “misunderstanding” with regards to trade relations could have evolved into such a devastating end for them. i doubt that the misunderstanding was actually a misunderstanding; i would 5 be surprised if the spaniards had been very straight forward in the terms of the trade and clearly told the natives of joara from the very beginning that they were subjects to the spanish crown and thus had to pay tribute. besides, there might be more to be discovered yet, as the site has not been completely excavated, some features might still hold elements which will shed even more light on the nature of the relationship between the natives and the spaniards. ihintza marguirault is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at université de montréal. her research interests include the contact period, transatlantic history, the anthropology of kinship and linguistic interactions. ihintza marguirault © 2017 1 energy complicity in trinidad review by sandra moore energy without conscience: oil, climate change, and complicity by david mcdermott hughes duke university press, 2017 throughout history, humankind’s energy sources have advanced from simple wood-fueled fires for warmth to complex extraction and development of deeply buried fossil fuels to fuel vehicles and heat homes. in energy without conscience: oil, climate change, and complicity, david mcdermott hughes, a professor of anthropology at rutgers university, aims to better understand “cultural dispositions and discourses on oil” (p.1). he also strives to understand why many are complicit about oil’s role in climate change. in this part-historical, part-ethnographic work, hughes focuses on the nonevent everyday workings of the oil industry, rather than the abnormal events, such as oil spills and pipeline leaks, that often evoke moral outrage. hughes questions why hydrocarbons (oil, coal, natural gas, bitumen) do not inspire moral outrage more often. he explores this question by looking at the non-event everyday workings of the oil industry in trinidad, the larger island of trinidad and tobago, a south american country off the coast of venezuela. it was on trinidad in 1859 where walter darwent drilled the first continually productive oil well in the world; today trinidad has “… the most prolific seep of petroleum in the world” (p.12). hence, trinidad’s abundant petroleum resources, lengthy oil drilling history, and lack of abnormal oil events make it an ideal location to explore how people view the everyday workings of the oil industry. it is also an ideal place to explore why hydrocarbons and their contribution to climate change have yet to become a moral issue for many people who are directly impacted by the hydrocarbon industry. 2 trinidad’s early energy economy developed to solve a technical issue and evolved into a moral issue. sugar plantations needed large amounts of labour and the global human slave trade supplied that labour. eventually, people began to question the moral issue of using human beings as slaves to produce goods. this led to an increased demand for other forms of energy and a transition into a hydrocarbon energy economy. energy demand continues to increase as global culture generates an ever-increasing desire for more hydrocarbon fueled vehicles, appliances, and large homes (ghosh, 2016), but there is a cost to the environment for producing and burning these hydrocarbon fuels. hughes asserts the main theme of this book is complicity. he compares trinidad’s slave-labour energy economy of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century with today’s oil economy. these two forms of energy relied on complicity from both producers and consumers who disregarded the immoral nature of these forms of energy. however, the slave-labour energy economy eventually encountered strong resistance, whereas oil has raised limited resistance among trinidadians over the last century and a half. divided into five chapters, and two sections, this brief book focuses mainly on trinidad’s energy history. hughes provides a comprehensive historical analysis in the two chapters of the first section. he details early suggestions for harnessing solar energy and discusses human slavery as the first forms of energy on the island. the first chapter delves into the island’s potential for growing crops. cacao was one of the first crops grown by spanish settlers on the island. five years after a dismal cacao crop year in 1727, visiting jesuit joseph gumilla envisioned landless settlers coming to the island and using the abundant energy of the equatorial sun to revive the cacao industry. no new settlers were sent, and a smallpox outbreak a decade later drastically decreased the number of settlers already on the island. by the late eighteenth-century, the crown installed a new governor, don josef maria chacón. he was instructed to implement the royal edict of 1783 encouraging planters and their slaves to move to trinidad. chacón knew the island’s sugar plantations needed massive amounts of human energy to be successful in the competitive caribbean sugar markets. shiploads of enslaved africans were brought to trinidad, but gradually shifting morality led to the abolishment of the sugar industry’s main source of relatively inexpensive energy – slaves. the second chapter explores the sugar industry’s transition away from slave energy toward oil energy. 3 hughes draws interesting comparisons of both slaves and oil as consumable energy commodities. he also discusses the complicity associated with the immoral nature of both slavery and the oil industry from both producers and consumers. however, unlike oil, within a short period of time people began to develop a strong conscience against working slaves to death as a consumable source of energy. as the immorality of using free labour from the human bodies of slaves became an issue, sugar plantations required new forms of inexpensive energy. trinidad’s most influential german immigrant conrad friedrich stollmeyer believed that harnessing the energy of the human body was immoral and he envisioned the work in plantations being accomplished by iron slaves, metal, solar-powered robots, rather than human slaves. in the mid-nineteenth century, stollmeyer and his partners came up with an alternative to using human bodies for energy. they developed a method for distilling the heavy asphalt found on the island into light, combustible oil. in time, stollmeyer’s views on humans and work shifted as he witnessed the idleness of many islanders. he believed that people needed work to be invigorated and he focused on selling his oil for lighting, rather than finding ways to decrease labour on the sugar plantations. in 1859, walter dewant drilled one of the world’s first oil wells on the island, but it was not until the mid-twentieth century that oil took an active role in trinidad’s economy. as the use of hydrocarbons were introduced on the island, trinidadians “…wavered between inspiration and indifference” (p.41). hughes refers to the second section of the book as an ethnographic analysis. comprised of three chapters, this section focuses on how the informed people of the island “… avoid reflecting ethically or emotionally upon oil” (p.2). in these three chapters hughes explores informant’s notions of plenty and how opportunism clouds their judgement on climate change. many of the technocratic informants that hughes engaged with included energy experts and oil company employees. however, he also engaged with informants who did not work in the industry, such as anti-industry activists, or climate change policy makers in trinidad. with these diverse informants he explored the discourses surrounding and/or obstructing a moral view of oil and how it contributes to climate change. some of hughes’ informants promote the oil industry or reap the benefits of the industry, some do not, yet he feels almost all his informants are complicit about the impacts of the industry on climate change. this complicity frustrates hughes as he, and many others in the world, advocate for an energy 4 transition away from hydrocarbons to increased clean forms of energy. globally, the impacts of nonrenewable hydrocarbons on the environment are frequently seen as a moral concern. yet, the common disdain, fear, and anger towards hydrocarbons are not as prevalent with hughes’ informants in the petrostate of trinidad. most understood that hydrocarbons impacted their environment and contributed to climate change, but many were apathetic, felt powerless to do anything, or viewed the impacts as minor irritants. hughes illustrates that as consumers we rarely see oil; we inject oil into our vehicles without seeing it or thinking about the long-term impacts this fuel has on the environment. he asserts that the oil industry in trinidad operates as it is supposed to every day with no abnormal events to encourage questioning the safety of the oil industry. abnormal events like the bp oil spill in 2010 from the explosion on the deepwater horizon drilling rig in the gulf of mexico cause people to look at the oil industry in a more critical manner. as freudenburg and gramling (2011) indicate, the oil industry has been cutting corners for years and an abnormal event like the deepwater horizon explosion was a disaster waiting to happen. however, when abnormal events occur, like the bp oil spill, we see the oil and the impact it has on the environment as vast efforts are dedicated to the cleanup process. abnormal events decrease apathy toward oil and encourage people, states, and countries to express moral outrage and question their energy choices. moral outrage towards the oil industry is minimal in trinidad due to limited abnormal oil events and “… open governance and technical competence” (p.13) that keeps oil associated violence and corruption low. hence, the people of trinidad see the problems the oil industry has solved (unemployment, economic development) more than they do the problems the industry has created (pollution, climate change). as hughes identifies, the people of trinidad have become complicit with the oil industry. he explores this complicity from the perspectives of his informants, but also from his own reactions to his informant’s complicity with oil and climate change. he explains that “i did not approach these men and women dispassionately, and i have not written about them with the usual ethnographic sympathy” (p. 4). he frankly states that he opposes his informant’s efforts and sees oil as an immoral industry on the verge of extinction. additionally, he affirms at the end of the book that the petro-geologists he interviewed “… are in the wrong and doing wrong” (p.151); they take credit for producing 5 hydrocarbons, but little credit for their role in contributing to climate change. many of the informants that hughes writes about are advocates of the oil industry, mainly because their livelihood depends on it. as his personal views promote the eradication of the oil industry, hughes recognizes that he is advocating for the demise of his informant’s livelihoods. hence, he claims to write about his informants with understanding and ethnographic nuance, while being “… prepared to reveal and criticize the wider harm that person may cause” (p.4). however, he is focused on the concept of morality, which is defined differently across cultures. as ghosh (2016) points out, conversations about morality and climate change are often confounded by differing categorizations spiritual, intellectual, political, philosophical associated with the word moral and different understandings of what climate change is and how it is created. many ethnographers and anthropologists advocate for researchers to take sides. most often the side they take is that of the people they are researching, the proverbial oppressed. hughes emphatically states throughout this book that he does not share the same views as many of his informants. his disdain for the hydrocarbon industry is evident and it shadows his presentation of a nuanced analysis of his informants and their cultural context. it is unfortunate that much of this brief book is focused on the history of energy in trinidad, and less so on an in-depth ethnographic analysis of his informants with greater detail on who they are and how they think. however, hughes has contributed greatly to an understanding of how climate change is viewed in locations outside of the modern western world. hughes affirms that complicity toward the oil industry in trinidad has created a narrow, obsolete politics of pollution and “one can no longer plead ignorance” (p.15). as he points out numerous times, the oil industry will not evoke disdain for many in trinidad until they are given a tangible, visible reason to fear and despise the industry. changing the narrative around the oil industry in trinidad will not occur overnight, nor will it take a lone abnormal event to spur trinidadians to moral disdain of the industry. rather, the commonly accepted narrative that hydrocarbons are necessary and vital to support energy demand, livelihoods, and economic development on the island needs to be challenged to move from complicity to conscience. references cited freudenburg, w.r. & gramling, r. blowout in the gulf: the bp oil spill disaster and the future of energy in america. cambridge, ma: the mit press, 2011. 6 ghosh, amitav. the great derangement: climate change and the unthinkable. chicago, il: university of chicago press, 2016. sandra moore is a current vanier scholar and ph.d. candidate in the school of environment and sustainability (sens) at the university of saskatchewan. she researches the social, economic, and ecological costs and benefits of oil and gas development in rural saskatchewan. with an academic background in anthropology and international community development, sandra has lived and worked in canada, ethiopia, and vanuatu. © 2017 sandra moore grid desires, or how to tame a three-headed dragon review by safet hadžimuhamedović yearnings in the meantime: 'normal lives' and the state in a sarajevo apartment complex by stef jansen berghahn books, 2015 hopes have histories – they may turn into yearnings. (p. 168) when the spatiotemporal anchors of daily lives begin to disintegrate, they may become the backbone of not only the structural, but also the moral dissatisfaction with the present. the emphasis placed on the absence of these life-frames, the desire for their return, congeals into a novel, affective and discursive, political request. detailing the qualities of such expectations in one sarajevo suburb, yearnings in the meantime confirms stef jansen’s position as the leading anthropologist working in bosnia. this focused and thoroughly researched monograph builds upon his earlier concerns with the temporality of home, nationalism, borders and migration. first and foremost, it reads as a convincing ‘critique from within’ of the contemporary bosnian political system, a never-ending transition rooted in the dayton agreement, which is said to have officially ended the 1990s war. from this vantage point, jansen is then able to raise important questions for the anthropology of the state, developing a case for a shift away from what he calls the ‘libertarian paradigm’, which ‘posits the state predominantly as an imposed externality’ and/or ‘documents people’s resilience in opposition to, or oblivious to, statecraft thus conceived’ (p. 105). dobrinja, the spatial backdrop of the book, is a neighbourhood of late-yugoslav apartment blocks in suburban sarajevo, built, for the most part, shortly before and after the 1984 winter olympic games. since the ceremonial ratification of the peace accords at the wright-patterson air force base in dayton, ohio, the suburb remained divided by the ‘inter-entity’ border, which imbued an ethnonational logic into the project of a ‘multi-ethnonational’ state. the experimental concoction followed the lines of the brutal ethnic engineering and resulted in ‘three largely nationally homogenised fiefdoms’ (p. 195), which jansen analytically distances from the remembered/expected ‘normality’, by referring to it as ‘dayton bih’. he locates the refusal of this ‘dayton bih’ in both the popular and elite political discourses, but demonstrates how they significantly diverge. the popular dobrinja position against it lies in the lament/request for ‘normal lives’ in a ‘normal state’. on the other hand, the political state structures are partly maintained, despite the popular dissatisfaction, by way of blaming the predicament of ‘dayton bih’ in which consensus is beyond reach (pp. 197-8). this critique, contextualised and nuanced, is a far cry from robert hayden’s contentious support for the dissolution of the state based on ‘what people are willing to accept’ (2002: 219). jansen shows how the same individuals who dismiss dayton bih structures may become co-opted into its perpetuation. the once olympic, now divided dobrinja was thus seen to represent the heyday of the old state and the troubles of the new one. to understand why its inhabitants diagnosed their lives as the abnormal, notquite-postwar dayton bih meantime (pp. 174, 183), jansen turns to several stations of dobrinja’s ‘emic histories’. chapters 4 and 5 discuss the diagnosis of the dayton affliction (also rendered as ‘daytonitis’) through two main ‘symptoms’, the lack of system and the lack of forward movement. the comparative frameworks for both of these absences are found in the ‘histories of hope’, the memories of ‘gridded’ and ‘forward-moving’ lives in the socialist yugoslavia, but also the resistance to the sudden dissipation of ‘grids’ during the wartime, a ‘will to grid’ as it were. jansen is careful not to portray the dobrinja yearnings for ‘normal lives’ as merely a nostalgia for socialism. they rather ‘shaped up on the intersection of the “ought” and the “was”’ (p. 163) … ‘the intersection of both histories of hope (i.e., futures once had, both thwarted and fulfilled) and projected normative paths’ (p. 49). the book is organised into three parts, the first two dealing respectively with the configurations of ‘normal lives’ and the ‘daytonitis’ affliction in dobrinja. the third part discusses the uncanny coexistence of yearning for a ‘normal’ state and the co-optation into the dayton political constellation. jansen does an excellent job of leading the reader through the everyday drama of ‘immobile’ dayton bih suburb, its bus stops, wages and pensions, schooling and local council meetings. the clearly written and organised manuscript makes every attempt to open this otherwise dense information to wider audiences. the ethnographic content is an illustrative argument in itself, and we are warned not to expect: stories of spectacular wartime suffering, resistance or revolutionary struggles. the nonspectacular, frustratingly unchanging predicament of living in the dayton meantime featured centrally in how people tried to make political sense of their lives. (p. 42) the most evocative and analytically valuable of these everyday situations, discussed in chapter 2, is the image of people waiting for the public transport whose erratic schedule becomes one of the many metaphors for the abnormality of the state. this allows jansen to discuss the discourse of normality and the affective positions that simultaneously draw on the socialist past and project a futurity beyond the ‘dayton meantime’. he links such small instances of waiting to a ‘form of meta-waiting for the movement statecraft was supposed to entail’ (p. 16). grid desire anthropology has recognised the importance of the ‘bottom-up’ understanding of the state and located governmentality in the mundane encounters between people and stately routines (cf. sharma and gupta 2006: 11-14). what happens when the ‘eyes of the state’ are not an obstacle to, but the main request of popular dissent? jansen introduces the notion of gridding, an orientation towards the various ‘ordering structures’ of the state in the dobrinja inhabitants’ references to ‘normal lives’. his concern with ‘grids’ speaks to the work of james scott, but makes a significant variation to the theme. rather than emphasising the governmentality of imposing state geometries and their evasion (p. 104), he locates in dobrinja a yearning for the return of the normalising effects that the state structures are seen to have had on daily lives and expectations from the future. i see this concept of ‘grid desire’ as the book’s central theoretical contribution, for which he notes: a decade and a half after the war, rather than displaying outrage against high modernist tendencies to ‘see like a state’, dobrinjci still desired more than the occasional eye contact with it. can we please see the state, they wondered, and, especially, can the state please see us? they were clamouring for legibility and thus called forth the state as a ‘hope-generating machine’ through desires for protection and possibility. (p. 154) this conundrum is developed into a critique of the anthropological project. jansen proposes that anthropologists of the state have ‘become experts in grid evasion’ (p. 107), under the umbrella of what he calls the ‘libertarian paradigm’, which is lodged between an approach to the state as imposed order and the parallel hope of counteracting it by highlighting bodies of knowledge not fully compatible with the state (p. 105). ultimately, he argues, it ‘facilitates the replication of people’s hope against the state in the search for our discipline’s continued relevance’ (p. 106). the example of dobrinja points to a seemingly paradoxical situation where a desire for the (‘normal’) state becomes a resistance to the ‘dayton bih’, which is, for better or for worse, also some kind of state. ‘dayton bih’ produces its own grids too, albeit ones widely perceived as deficient, abnormal and almost imponderable. the organigram of the government institutions (p. 140) partly reveals the labyrinthine body of this ‘threeheaded’ dayton monster. its grids also aim to standardise, particularly in ethnonational terms. jansen’s interlocutors then do seem to be resisting these ordering schemes, but they do it ‘with a barrage of language of stateness in cafés, at the barber’s and in trolleybuses’ (p. 130). ungridding (beyond the state) the remembered ‘normality’, as linked to the structural possibilities provided by the state, became obvious with the ‘shock of sudden ungridding’ (p. 114). chapter 3 discusses the wartime disruption of ‘grids’ and struggles to retain some ‘sense of normality’ by re-establishing them. here, jansen makes use of some very effective archival material, such as the wartime logbook of a local school (p. 118). as the grids came to a halt, the inhabitants of dobrinja ‘became conscious of the “temporal structure” that had – largely unnoticed – governed their mundane practices’ (p. 101). i should note that my reading of yearnings in the meantime is also a comparative effort, as the book was fresh off the press when i completed my doctoral thesis, which examined the practices of waiting in the field of gacko, a landscape in the southeastern bosnian highlands (2016). there, too, the temporal structures of ‘normal lives’ suddenly gained stronger affective and discursive dimensions. let me briefly introduce some fascinating similarities between dobrinja and gacko, which reveal the theoretical potential of ‘ungridding’ and ‘grid desire’, but also draw important lines of distinction to contextualise jansen’s contribution. the rural gacko, arguably, did not ‘see’ much of the yugoslav state, but it was torn out of a different ‘grid’ in the early 1990s. whereas the dobrinja inhabitants became aware of and yearned for the daily rhythms facilitated by the state and its provisions, the people of gacko turned to the traditional calendar, its rituals and festivals, as well as the communication and movement they enabled. in both places, this awareness first required what sara ahmed has called moments of disorientation – ‘bodily experiences that throw the world up, or throw the body from its ground’ (2006: 157). as in dobrinja, the absences in gacko affectively revealed the supporting structures of life, which were carefully idealised into a desired image of being in the world. normal lives, jansen notes, ‘appear only as an absence, as the affectively overcharged object of evocations of what “was” and what “ought to be”’ (p. 43). of course people waited for the bus in the yugoslav dobrinja (p. 79), just as gacko’s subsistence economy bore its own significant hardships. however, the past was remembered selectively to carve out a position against the present political predicament. recently, after our flights from the sarajevo airport were cancelled due to (yet another) prolonged period of severe smog, my friend belma remarked: ‘obviously, sarajevo always had a problem with smog, yet, while everyone is aware of that, they all somehow manage to blame the state and its corrupt politicians’. collective ‘selective memory’ is thus employed as a political argument, and jansen’s book speaks to this process. in dobrinja, the normality of yugoslav grids was summoned to destabilise the normalising process of ‘dayton bih’ gridding. although its unpredictable public transport became a routine experience, people still ‘insisted that this should be seen as “an unusual state of affairs”’ (p. 70). this alliance between the past and the future against the present was visible in the field of gacko too, where people anchored their ‘normality’ in the celebrations of george’s and elijah’s days, which were shared by the gurbeti, the muslims and the serbs. they waited to wait for george and elijah like they once did, just as the people of dobrinja waited to wait for the bus like they once did. the political qualities of such waiting and ‘nonresistance’ in dobrinja are examined in chapter 6. jansen does not attempt to draw conclusions pertinent to spaces other than this fieldwork location, which i do not see as a shortfall. the situation would be unduly complicated by the inclusion of a rural or a differently urban locale. he admits that gridding does not have to be linked with statecraft (p. 73), as well as that his approach privileges ‘secular spatiotemoralities’ (p. 186). for the people of dobrinja, he fittingly argues that the ‘[s]ocialist self-management had shaped the rhythms and trajectories of their lives more so than those of, say, many bosnians in villages or in the old sarajevo mahale’ (167). i have shown that the temporal structures in rural gacko were maintained through taskscapes, rituals, festivities, sworn kinship and household visitations (2016), while others have written on the importance of the neighhbourhood rhythms (see sorabji 2008). these different spaces were also tenanted by different ‘ghosts’. jansen notes the bodily movements through landscapes of ruination, ‘amongst such landmarks of yugoslav socialist forward movement’ (p. 182) and i would have enjoyed a more developed discussion of the affective potential of these remnants (cf. navaro-yashin 2012). another line of distinction between the different ‘dayton bih’ geographies is to be found in the approaches to identitarian discourses. jansen notes: ultimately, a lament of the demise of sarajevan multiculturalism and an insistence on its persistence are two sides of the same coin. likewise, an ‘orthodox’ focus on differences between people affiliated with nationality groupings and a ‘heterodox’ one on fluid, hybrid positionings that bridge those differences both remain within the identitarian doxa of dayton bih (bourdieu 1982: 133). in both approaches, a unidimensional emphasis on questions of (ethno)national ‘culture’ makes its inhabitants appear predominantly, or even exclusively, in the identitarian register institutionalised in the dayton configuration and consolidated in much foreign media reporting. (p. 11) most of the ‘ethnies’ constitutionalised through dayton have had well over a century to ‘brew’ through various political systems. the socialist yugoslav ethnic provisions in particular have been unevenly amalgamated onto religious communities. i have noticed that ethnonyms in rural bosnia have often been reworked into a shorthand for the religious communities. a ritual of one community often does not make sense without the other. elijah’s day, for example, is primarily known for being shared by serbs and muslims. it would be unfair to claim that their ‘fluid, hybrid positionings’ are simply confirmations of the dayton constellation. ‘syncretic’ and shared traditions, like the gacko calendar, can teach us that continuity does not always have to resist change. the dayton dragon the second part of the book explains the dissatisfaction with ‘dayton bih’, felt as an absence of a system and a spatiotemporal entrapment. its structural dispersion and elusiveness made petitions to the state extremely difficult (p. 137). the inhabitants of dobrinja felt that ‘they were collectively stuck in a dayton meantime’ (p. 161), without the grids needed to move forward. jansen shows that the dayton ruling class was reproduced through this elusiveness and a web of hegemonic dependencies. the ‘ordinary people’, the same ones who opposed dayton, were, willy-nilly, co-opted into its structures (see chapter 6). symbolically captained by the three-headed presidency, with each head claiming representation over one ‘constitutive’ ethnonational group, dayton evokes the most ominous indo-european cosmological threat, the three-headed dragon. it is difficult to subdue. if only one head is severed, another one will grow in its place. the successful act of slaying, however, is productive: it allows time to resume. with it, the annual cycle opens its doors to vernal fertility, to the reproduction of humans and their landscapes. in gacko, and throughout the balkans, the intricate rituals on the sixth of may used to mark george’s defiance of the beast. in jansen’s accounts, people of dobrinja perceived dayton bih as an obstacle to collective movement (p. 174). as an analogy to the dragons of the traditional calendars elsewhere, dayton was the reign of the (three-headed) presidency, which forestalled the progression of time. the time dobrinja yearned for was the advancement of socialist modernity instead of a cosmic cycle. jansen observes: it was living-in-dayton bih that constituted their predicament, they impressed on me, for it reduced people to ‘surviving’, entrapped in bih’s borders and suspended in the meantime. as opposed to ‘normal lives’, which would entail spatiotemporal forward movement, it was living in a waiting room, without it being quite clear what the waiting was for and how long it would last. (p. 185) suburban dobrinja should grasp the lessons of rural gacko. the demanding pursuit of taming the dragon, of whatever provenance, first requires a re-establishment of the basic temporal grids and a ritual invocation of the future. the chthonic being, however, needs to be slayed so that (normal, any) life may continue. fieldwork for yearnings in the meantime was chiefly conducted between 2008 and 2010, whilst the preface and epilogue also discuss the more recent popular uprisings and the establishments of citizen assemblies (plenums) across bosnia. a more comprehensive inclusion of latter developments would also have to reflect the growing demarcation of the political margins in dobrinja, as with the erection of gavrilo princip’s statue by the republika srpska officials to mark the centenary of the 1914 assassinations. judging by jansen’s prolific and consistent scholarship so far, we will not have to wait long to witness a further treatment of this matter. in the end, perhaps contrary to the author’s plan, the book does give hope for the anthropological project. its arguments are pertinent not only to the understanding of the spatiotemporal fractures so palpable in bosnia, but also to our engagement with the state and, i would argue, with a much more diverse world of ‘grid loss’ and ‘grid desire’. references cited ahmed, sara 2006. queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others. london: duke university press hadžimuhamedović, safet 2016. waiting for elijah: time and encounter in a bosnian landscape. phd diss., goldsmiths, university of london hayden, robert 2002. ‘antagonistic tolerance: competitive sharing of religious sites in south east asia and the balkans’. current anthropology 43(2): 205-231 sharma, aradhana and akhil gupta (eds.) 2006. the anthropology of the state: a reader. malden, ma: blackwell sorabji, cornelia 2008. ‘bosnian neighbourhoods revisited: tolerance, commitment and komšiluk in sarajevo’. in frances pine and joao de pina-cabral (eds.) on the margins of religion. new york: berghahn books, 97-112 navaro-yashin, yael 2012. the make-believe space: affective geography in a postwar polity. durham, nc: duke university press safet hadžimuhamedović is an anthropologist of religion with a broad range of interests in syncretism, landscapes, temporality, home, theories of affect, historicity and agency. his doctoral thesis waiting for elijah: time and encounter in a bosnian landscape (2016), discussed the post-war echoes of syncretic and shared seasonal celebrations in the southeastern bosnian highlands. safet obtained his phd in anthropology from goldsmiths, university of london, mphil in anthropology from the university of cambridge and ba degrees in history of art and sociology from the university of sarajevo and kenyon college. since 2012, he has taught various social science courses at goldsmiths, soas and goethe university of frankfurt. © 2016 safet hadžimuhamedović 1 west african non-migrant youth in the wake of migration and transnationalism review by serah shani bush bound: young men and rural permanence in migrants in west africa by paolo gaibazzi berghahn books, 2015 in the wake of unprecedented global migrations, and heightened concern in the countries which receive increasing numbers of immigrants, paul gaibazzi sheds light on what it means to stay in one’s country and not migrate. immigration research has mostly taken a binary view of countries of emigration and those of immigration. this view neglects the intertwined relationships and dynamics that exists between the sending and receiving countries. research on immigration has also mostly focused on people that migrate. however, bush bound focuses on those that stay, “stayers,” as an integral category of the whole immigrant phenomena, who are affected by both the country of origin and the country of destination. the book is based on ethnographic field work conducted in the gambia, in a village known as sabi, among the soninke-speaking youth between 2006-2008. the author focuses on local sabi men to elucidate how political, historical and ecological explanations influence people’s decision to migrate or to stay. according to the author, in a patriarchal society like sabi, men are viewed as bread winners and boys are socialized to hustle, to navigate “the bush”, and to prove their masculinity and prowess by acquiring monetary resources for their family. growing up in sabi, therefore, young men are socialized to view migration as the fastest and most viable means to social and economic mobility. young men are taught the ethos of hard work, self-reliance and perseverance virtues achieved through “hardship and frugality” (p.78). thus, as young adults, men are assumed to be able to vigorously navigate the 2 economic terrain. moreover, the author portrays mobility and immobility as being mutually intertwined and dependent on one another. for example, those who migrate to developed countries are expected to assist those left behind to also migrate and eventually join them abroad. due to difficulties acquiring visas and the unpredictability of travel, young men who one day hope to travel are forced to stay and be supported through remittances from the diaspora. these stayers, however, are not dismissed or in a static position. rather, they are continually engaged in planning, fantasizing, working, nursing ambitions, raising families and having symbiotic interactions with diasporic relations. those who manage to travel entrust stayers to care for their immediate and extended families making it easier for those who migrate. those who migrate act as constant reminders and role models of an ideal achiever, “young men openly admit that the houses and other investments of migrants give them the ambition (hanmi) to go and look for money so as to emulate their achievements” (p.70). consequently, the hopes and challenges of migration are central to young men's daily discourses, creating more ambition yet restlessness. thus, according to the author, the study of stayers illuminates the dynamics embedded in daily social realities of young men in sabi who while not moving are impacted by unpredictable broader processes. the complex situation between sabi stayers and travelers is also tied to their agricultural economic base. the fluctuations of world markets and the unreliability of subsistence from local agricultural production forces youth to diversify their sources of income in order to become admired bread winners. traveling is a prestigious activity and a person who has traveled is considered to be more exposed and knowledgeable especially when these activities are associated with economic mobility. children, especially male, are therefore socialized to understand the importance of travel--a quality that signifies their very masculinity. according to the author, while all children in sabi are socialized to work hard on the farms, gendered expectations make men more likely to think of alternative means of acquiring wealth, especially since agriculture may not be entirely reliable. the youth then focus on immigration which in turn becomes elusive. the author demonstrates the precarity involved in setting hopes on the economic benefits of migration--hopes determined by a plethora of gate-keeping blocks such as; the unpredictability of support from the diaspora to help relatives immigrate, ecological and political changes, and the 3 continuous push to excel in a masculinized economy. given these gate-keeping blocks, many youth negotiate their masculinities by remaining in their country, revitalizing youth groups, developing rural villages and taking part in political activities. from a historical perspective, the author shows that mobility is not new to the gambia or one of its local villages, sabi. according to the author, people move to many neighboring countries during dry seasons to supplement their agricultural activities and to earn more cash. therefore, migration to western countries is sometimes an end result of a stepped-migration to other parts of africa. movement to other african countries is less strenuous and more affordable than migrating abroad. moreover, the networks in africa tend to help the exchange of ideas, job search and accommodation. at a macro-micro level, this timely book exposes global transformations found in current capitalist global market economy and sheds light on the influences of these transformations as actualized at local levels. modern transnational processes such as technological advances, cyclical processes of borrowing, diffusion, inventions, and competition for resources all impact rural areas like sabi. being and becoming actors in these arenas means a person is capable of influencing deeply engrained tradition such as religion, in the gambia. travelers to the middle east, which is not a major or desired destination in comparison to western countries, can be seen as appropriating islam as it becomes a mechanism for legitimizing the actions and imaginations of those staying. men actualize their belief by entrusting their future success to higher powers which control their struggles and success. in sum, market and capitalist economies restriction on movement, fluctuation of markets in agricultural products and global marginalization of movement in western countries, exacerbates anxieties about relocating or staying. these precarious conditions, among others, create both stayers and mobile groups that revitalize social and cultural conditions in rural sabi, further creating spaces to stay and reproduce social and cultural norms for a continuous community. a community that is both local and transnational hence “organizing an agrarian life within migration” (p.8). this is done not only through imagination and efforts to migrate but through remittances and transnational travels by the diasporic community, development of new business in sabi that sustains the community even during economic hardships and reliance on higher powers. in the end, these experiences answer the question “how do people stay?” (p.13) in the midst of a precarious immigration and patriarchal economic ideals. 4 serah shani is an assistant professor of anthropology at westmont college. her research interests lie broadly in exploring the social life of cities, and more particularly the informal and innovative strategies by which different ethnic and racial urban residents claim their rights to the city. her current research looks at urban migration, transnational movements, identities and the sociocultural economic adaptation for recent african immigrants to the united states. dr. shani graduated from columbia university and did her fieldwork among african immigrants in new york city. her research has been published in harvard educational review journal and in a fourth coming book in 2018 with lexington books. her research in africa seeks to examine how market economies influence parenting strategies among marginalized and indigenous groups and how these strategies inform children’s future economic trajectories. dr. shani is also conducting research on elite formation among indigenous groups in east africa. © 2017 serah shani 1 liminal spaces within the caribbean plantation landscape review by anthony r. tricarico archaeologies of slavery and freedom in the caribbean: exploring the spaces in between by lynsey a bates, john m chenoweth, and james a delle university of florida press, 2016 archaeologies of slavery and freedom in the caribbean: exploring the spaces in between, co-edited by lynsey a. bates, john m. chenoweth, and james a. delle exemplifies the benefits of applying a postcolonial epistemology in archaeological research. bates et al. (2016) set out to examine the implications of liminal spaces across the landscape. archaeological praxis of postcolonial theory entered academic discourse towards the late-20th century. postcolonial perspectives from across the caribbean take into account the presence of differential transcultural influences of archaeological material assemblages. bates et al. (2016) encapsulates good and good’s (2008) argument that the construction of locally situated postcolonial practice is embedded in the unique culture histories of different areas across the caribbean archipelago. specifically, these culture histories reveal how both the “colonized” and “colonizers” influenced each other’s cultures (good and good 2008) and the manifestation of these relationships in the archaeological record. european culture was in a sense adopted and adapted by enslaved africans and that of the enslaved africans by european planters, “indigenizing” non-local cultural traditions (appadurai 2007). however, developing locally situated archaeological praxis of postcolonial theories as bates et al. (2016) attempts, necessitated the grounding of subaltern realities in place-based constructions of identity. the editors seemingly draw upon escobar’s (2001) argument that cultural realities and an individual sense of identity are embedded in place. archaeologies of slavery and freedom in the caribbean examined the construction and renegotiation of identity through the active construction of liminal spaces across the plantation landscape. the landscape was the stage through which to understand “…interstitial places [as] 2 contestation for identity” (meniketti 2016, 189). bate et al. (2016) seeks to capture the lived experiences of enslaved africans utilizing liminal spaces to exercise a degree of control over one’s life, separate from the potentialities of surveillance within the plantation core. caribbean islands, whether “…large or small supported european empires and formed the foundation for the economic engine that ran them, fueled by sugar, rum, and profits, squeezed from the blood and sweat of enslaved people (chenoweth et al. 2016, 1). globalization had fundamentally altered the relationship between place and identity (escobar 2001) for millions of enslaved africans forcefully transported to the caribbean. cultural construction of identity in the caribbean no longer relied solely on place, but on the fundamental basis of intra-island community networks fostered by the construction and use of liminal spaces (bates et al. 2016). archaeologies of slavery and freedom in the caribbean is divided into two parts. part one, “the spaces between and within” examines the socio-cultural implications of liminal spaces across the caribbean landscape. part two, “transition and postemancipation spaces” examines changes in lived experiences priorand post-emancipation within and between interstitial spaces. specific case studies from lesser studied islands were utilized by each of the 14 chapters, including the islands of dominica, st. lucia, the british virgin islands, and the dominican republic. chapters, which focus on more well studied islands, such as jamaica, or barbados, actively sought to reexamine the traditional epistemological foundations of prior research. throughout the archaeologies of slavery and freedom in the caribbean both postcolonial and landscape archaeological traditions were drawn upon, forming an epistemological foundation for exploring the social construction of physical spaces by subaltern populations. bates et al. (2016) was influenced by the legacy of scott (1994) those of little note and haviser (1999) african sites archaeology in the caribbean, building on these works by examining the influences of colonial racial and social structures on the mobility of enslaved africans. james a. delle explores this socio-spatial reality in chapter five, titled life beyond the village: field houses and liminal space on a jamaican coffee plantation. on jamaica, prior research had cast doubt on the degree of movement afforded to enslaved africans, citing that the construction of a plantation system that was specifically developed to keep structure, order, and discipline. “the plantation system that characterized the british west indies for most of the colonial history was a particularly violent and oppressive manifestation of colonial capitalism” (delle 2016, 111). however, delle (2016) argues that while surveillance may have been implemented on colonial jamaican plantations, their size limited 3 planters' ability to surveil every area. as a result, liminal spaces formed on the landscape, providing enslaved africans a measure of social and economic control over their lives. the site of marshall’s pen in jamaica exemplifies the early 19th century push by british planters to develop the interior of the island for coffee production. marshalls pen, owned by the absentee planter alexander lindsey, the earl of balcarres, came under production in 1812. the site was closely managed, but as with all sites within the interior, defined by ambiguous boundaries. historical analysis revealed the existence of two enslaved african villages, though these they did not house all enslaved africans. temporary houses were dispersed across the landscape, forming liminal spaces out of sight of planters. these areas provided a sense of sovereignty over one’s mobility, contradicting earlier epistemological constructions of structure, and order on plantation landscapes (delle 2016). delle (2016) argues that this proves the plantation landscape cannot be thought of in terms of socio-dichotomous divisions. sovereignty over one’s mobility on the plantation landscape was a product of plantation structures, but also the physical geography of caribbean landscapes. frederick h. smith and hayden bassett explore the implications of geography on the creation of identity in chapter two, titled the roles of gullies in escape, mobility, and the creation of community networks among enslaved peoples of barbados. smith and bassett (2016) argue that the archaeology of liminal spaces of plantation societies has traditionally been understudied, instead favoring the construction of subaltern lived experiences based upon limited culture-historical and bioarchaeological approaches. however, smith and bassett (2016) assert that caves and gully systems across st. peter parish, barbados are vital for understanding the private lives of enslaved africans on the island. smith and bossert (2016) further delle’s (2016) argument that these spaces afforded sovereignty over mobility, while also arguing that these spaces served as meeting areas for interstitial social interactions. social interaction between enslaved africans on different plantations across the landscape would have not only created a regional network, but places to learn about the shared conditions of others across the island. these gullies created “…conduits and corridors that connected communities in the plantation-dominated landscape of barbados, places that offered a temporary respite from the challenges of plantation life” (smith and bassert 2016, 31-32). these places fostered social and economic interaction among marginalized peoples, while also potentially serving as places of refuge for individuals seeking 'petite marronage'. smith and bossert (2016) reexamine and contradict delle’s (1998) assertion that the density of production on barbados contributed to a landscape devoid of private spaces. gullies served as the conduit of identity formation, and spaces embodied with localized knowledge of landscape mobility. 4 smith and bossert (2016) argue that these caves may also provide a link between the materiality of pre and post-emancipation caribbean landscapes. the materiality of space and place throughout the pre-and post-emancipation period was examined by marco meniketti in chapter eight, titled dimensions of space and identity in an emancipation-era village: analysis of material culture and site abandonment at morgan’s village, nevis, west indies. meniketti (2016) explored the social, economic, and cultural experiences of enslaved africans at the level of the village. specifically, meniketti (2016) explores the degree of agency visible in material assemblages across sites that were actively used preand post-emancipation. landscapes across the caribbean became places for the contestation of identity (meniketti 2016), the degree of which may be present in the use, and adaptation of material culture for various socio-cultural and economic purposes across historical contexts. space and place were active in constructing identity, resistance, and cultural continuity across the caribbean. the construction of identity post-emancipation was discussed by kirsten r. fellows in chapter 13, titled double consciousness and an african american enclave: being black and american on hispaniola. fellows (2016) describes the renegotiation of identity as a group immigrated to haiti in the 1820s. this group experienced the challenges of community formation and maintenance levied by a new diasporic identity. liminal spaces across the caribbean became places of refuge from the surveillance of the plantation complex and places through which enslaved africans could exercise a degree of sovereignty over their movement. these spaces serve as active places of identity construction and maintenance of community networks. bates et al. (2016) archaeologies of slavery and freedom in the caribbean encapsulates the lived experiences of enslaved africans through a postcolonial and landscape perspective, illuminating new directions for future research of previously overlooked and understudied archaeological assemblages. references cited appadurai, a. “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy”. theory, culture & society 7(2) (1990):295-310. escobar, a. “culture sits in places: reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization.” political geography 20(2) (2001):139-174. 5 good, b. j., m.-j. d. good, s. t. hyde and s. pinto “postcolonial disorders: reflections on subjectivity in the contemporary world.” postcolonial disorders (2008):1-40. haviser, j. b. african sites: archaeology in the caribbean. markus weiner publishers: ian randle publishers, (1999). scott, e. m. those of little note: gender, race, and class in historical archaeology. university of arizona press, (1994). anthony r. tricarico is a ph.d. student in applied anthropology at the university of south florida. © 2017 at the intersection of medical and linguistic anthropology: ethnographic insight into a catalan paediatric oncological ward review by letizia bonanno uncertain futures: communication and culture in childhood cancer treatment by ignasi clemente wiley-blackwell, 2015 uncertain futures is an emotional and ethnographic journey in the paediatric oncological ward at the catalonia hospital in barcelona. ignaci clemente offers a compassionate blueprint of what medical communication looks like when children with cancer, their families, and the medical staff struggle to make the trajectories of cancer and its treatment seem less uncertain. this ethnographic insight is offered through a captivating analysis of the communicative strategies that young oncological patients, their relatives and doctors engage in at the different stages of cancer treatment. using extensive conversation excerpts to sustain his ethnographic inquiry, clemente traces the dynamics and trajectories of the diagnostic process and the treatment children with cancer undergo and engage with on a daily basis. interestingly, clemente focuses on describing how the everyday commitment to optimism seems to respond to a moral obligation to protect children from both the present and future suffering which might derive from the diagnosis of cancer or of treatment side-effects. in this vein, the commitment to optimism becomes apparent here through opaque communicative strategies, among which the notion of disclosure figures as both the theoretical knot and challenge that clemente’s volume revolves around. as illness and hope may both be embodied through talking, clemente argues, chatting always implies and attunes itself to those moral discourses doctors and parents engage in with children on the necessity of their active and collaborative involvement in their treatment. indeed a collaborative approach may enhance the recovery, avoid relapse and make patients more aware of their condition. in this regard, awareness and compliant behaviors that patients are called to live through seem to resonate with the making of a neoliberal subjectivity, in other words, the moral making of future healthy adults able to care for themselves and increasingly able not to overburden the healthcare system. in this vein, paul brodwin (2012) and elisabeth a. davis (2012) have clearly highlighted how likely discourses on health are to blur with moralistic judgements on the patients’ conduct by doctors, while attempting to enhance autonomy and responsibility in patients by stressing how the moral responsibility toward their own health actually implies being responsible toward others and society as a whole. how this transnational neoliberal turn has impacted in different ways on care practices and discourses was investigated in depth by annmarie mol (2008), who has in fact drawn attention to the contrasting logics of care and of the patients’ choices, and has made apparent how the patients’ free choices and good care are rarely a good combination. although the author repeatedly hints at how moral responsibilities are performed and fulfilled when it comes to care, clemente does not broaden this perspective. a deeper grip on the anthropology of morality would probably have better enlightened how care is performed, enacted and experienced. in this sense, both kleinman’s hypothesis on care as a moral experience (2013) and mattingly’s concept of therapeutic emplotment (1991) would have provided clemente with a broader perspective on care as a moral experience, as a narrative effort to make sense of the complex realities that illness brings about, and as the fulfillment of a moral obligation to maintain hope on a daily basis. in this regard, hope figures as one of the main knots in clemente’s ethnography, although he fails to problematize how hope is experienced and thought out by patients, and it is alternatively described as an on-going negotiation of the present as well as a future oriented attitude, as zigon would put it (2009). nevertheless, by extensively interrogating the limits of verbal language, clemente takes into consideration what roles are played by silence and postures, which are both graphically reported and rendered into regular conversation transcriptions and illustrations. the use of illustrations enriches the entire ethnography, and helps the reader better contextualise where and how verbal and non-verbal interactions take place. at the intersection of medical and linguistic anthropology, clemente provides ethnographic cases throughout with which it becomes possible to critically rethink conversational dynamics occurring in medical settings and involving children. by relying on the methods of conversational analysis, the author contributes to implicitly challenge the axiom of power relations supposedly driving the encounter between patients and doctors. in so doing, an accurate perspective on how medical authority is constantly faced and challenged by patients is offered by providing the reader with ethnographic vignettes. in this regard, clemente defines the negotiation of information in order to highlight the different degrees of child participation in medical decision-making. whereas a certain asymmetry in power between children, their family and doctors is undeniable, medical authority is often contested through non-collaborative behaviors or the relentless questions that young patients and their parents constantly confront doctors with. as such, the dynamic process of communication results as not just the expression of meaning, but also as the enactment of power. as it appears from reported conversations, strategically doctors tend to give patients cloudy and partial answers when patients’ anxiety to know about their health condition mutate into a desperate need and search for certainties which are, however, beyond any medical predictability. indeed, within the peculiar clinical context, the speculative nature of diagnosis couples with the ambiguity and duplicity of medical language and concurs to produce a situation of increased uncertainty and instability on the patients’ side. nevertheless, symptoms and speeches together constitute a language of the body through which patients express a range of dispositions, conscience and critique towards the medical authority and knowledge. beyond linguistic analysis, uncertain futures also focuses attentively on how cultural factors, medical knowledge and emotional talks intertwine. taking full advantage of his proximity with the spanish culture and languages, clemente provides a unique perspective on making the hospitalization process for children with cancer as favorable as possible, and brilliantly depicts how life intersects in different ways with treatment at the catalonian hospital. clemente shows how the routinization of hospital life makes the paediatric ward look like a ‘small village’, a temporary microcosm of social relations which are daily negotiated, made and undone through friendships, love, reciprocity, shared perplexities and personal experiences which are always on the verge of becoming collective. worth noticing is how fear and negative emotions are stubbornly kept in the private sphere as they are felt to threaten children’s wellbeing and the parents’ commitment to optimism. as a consequence, the parents’ emotional bursts of despair, which generally happen far from the others’ eyes, parallel the apparent quietness of the paediatric ward, while signaling what clemente indicates as the process of becoming a parent of a child with cancer. in this sense, clemente’s argument seems to resonate with addlakha and das’ definition of ‘domestic citizenship’ (1998). although the feeling of togetherness stemming from the ward results from the proximity that the ward seems to forcibly enhance by its very nature as a place of confinement, children’s parents seem to take relief from their becoming closer to each other. whereas proximity contributes to the production of lay and practical knowledge which derives from sharing and exchanging experiences and helps parents to cope with their children’s symptoms and suffering, equally it allows parents to better cope with those changes that their children’s hospitalisation has brought in their daily lives. indeed, life is seemingly suspended in time and place: many of them have in fact quit their jobs to take care of their children, others have left their villages to move to barcelona so as to follow their children's hospitalisation more closely. in the effort of rebuilding a daily routine, proximity helps them redefine the terms of parenthood and personhood. uncertain futures definitely provides original insight on how patienthood and childhood are experienced when illness reshapes the terms and meanings of time and hope for both children and their kin. navigating the ups and downs of cancer treatment is mirrored in temporal discontinuities in the ordinary life of the ward – waiting for examinations results or for the side effects of their treatment to become evident – and changes the experience of time which is not only felt to be escaping them, but often experienced bodily through a slow but relentless deterioration of health conditions. from a phenomenological perspective, the body becomes the hinge of experience and through an attentive reading of symptoms and signs, coping strategies and predictions of diagnosis and treatment developments may be inferred as well. although clemente is well aware of the role that time plays in articulating the trajectories of illness and recovery, the texture of ethnographic and clinical time often results in a disjointed reading experience, and the potentials of ethnography do not seem to be completely scrutinized. furthermore, frequent theoretical digressions scattered throughout the volume render the whole ethnographic picture slightly fragmented. clemente’s work undoubtedly opens up broader margins of reflection about how medical diagnoses, and in general medical communication, are delivered and negotiated and provides the reader with extensive references with which the theoretical discussion is constantly confronted and challenged. uncertain futures is a complex text which actively engages with the legacies informing the author’s framing of the lives of young cancer patients and their relatives. in so doing, clemente is surely paving the way toward a more fertile and effective collaboration between medical and linguistic anthropology, which might mutually benefit from theoretical contamination. references cited addlakha, r. and das, v. (1998) disabilities and domestic citizenship: voice, gender and the making of the subject. public culture 13(3) brodwin, p. (2012) everyday ethics: voices form the front line of community psychiatry. university california press davis, e. a. (2012) bad souls. madness and responsibility in northern greece. duke university press mattingly, c. (1991) the narrative nature of clinical reasoning. the american journal of occupational therapy 45(11): 9981005 mol, a. (2008) the logics of care: health and the problem of patient choice. routledge paperback kleinman, a. (2013) from illness as culture to caregiving as moral experience. <em>the new england journal of medicine</em> 368(15): 13761377 zigon, j. (2009) hope dies last. two aspects of contemporary hope in moscow. anthropological theory 9(3): 253-271 letizia bonanno is a phd candidate in social anthropology at the university of manchester. she is currently carrying out her ethnographic fieldwork in athens, greece, where she is investigating discourses and practices of care in the social clinics and pharmacies of solidarity, informal and selforganized healthcare facilities that have spread through ‘greece under austerity’ since 2010. © 2016 letizia bonanno the plantation spaces in black and white review by catherine e. lavoy ancestors of worthy life: plantation slavery and black heritage at mount clare by teresa s. moyer university press of florida, 2015 with recent national events bringing to the forefront the still present problems of racism in american society, it is critically important to educate the public on the origins of our society’s racial divides and the structures that continue to propagate racism. to this end, teresa moyer’s new book, ancestors of worthy life: plantation slavery and black heritage at mount clare (2015), attempts to accomplish this, primarily by providing an alternative to the elite-centered narrative provided by the museum today. over a decade after eichstedt and small (2002) completed their study on the interpretation of slavery on plantation museums across the southern united states, moyer’s book reveals that the practice of symbolic annihilation of slavery is still a problem at plantation museum sites. mount clare is located in the suburbs of baltimore, maryland, a city with a large african american population. like other urban areas of the country, baltimore city has a problem of structuralized racism, which affects the economic potential of its african american residents. this economic inequality has been recently highlighted in litigation about unethical lending practices, which resulted in the high foreclosure rate in baltimore for african american residents during the recent economic crisis (elboghdady 2008). moyer’s work, while focusing on the history of mount clare, carefully draws the reader back to the very modern problem of the creation of racialized spaces. this is far from a modern phenomena; plantation studies have frequently pointed to the creation of racially segregated spaces as a tool of social control (delle 1998; singleton 2001). however, what is seen in the modern practice of mount clare is not simply a division of space, but a willful erasure of history and an unwillingness to engage with the surrounding predominantly african american community in its interpretation of the site. moyer’s focus in this book is to create a counter-narrative, to prove, despite the previous research that has been done on the site and its white elite owners, there exists a story that can be told within the physical structure about slavery. after providing the reader with a general introduction to slavery in maryland in the eighteenth century, moyer introduces the founder of the mount clare carroll’s family, dr. carroll, as a man whose wealth was built on slave labor, in particular through his ownership of the baltimore iron works. dr. carroll was not only personally responsible for using enslaved labor at the iron works, but recruited investors who also provided enslaved laborers. these investors, in turn, were required to provide provisions for the ironworks laborers, which enslaved laborers on local plantations cultivated. moyer successfully paints the picture of a life of wealth that completely hinges on enslaved labor for elite society’s production and survival. the book also discusses dr. carroll’s son, charles carroll and his wife, margaret tilghman, as dr. carroll’s successors and founders of mount clare. much of the discussion of charles and margaret carroll’s tenure is breaking down the idea of the genteel southern couple by focusing on their enslavement of increasingly large numbers of africans and african-americans for their own comfort and economic advancement on the plantation. throughout the book, moyer takes great care to list the names of the enslaved whenever possible, not only humanizing those enslaved, but pointing out the possibility of a counter-narrative rich in the same details that are given in the standard plantation tours, which are always rich in the owners’ families personalities. in several instances, she is able to trace the enslaved families past the point of their freedom. this connection to the free african-american community in baltimore in the past shows potential to engage the african-american community of the present. but moyer also goes to great pains to reveal the labor in the spaces of the plantation: the cache of ritual artifacts in the kitchen floor, pointing to african-american spiritual practice; the construction of buildings by enslaved laborers; and even the maintenance of the ornamental gardens as the result of african-american labor. in these discussions of spaces, the potential for an application to the current tour seems the greatest. as moyer subtly shows, the tragedy of the modern plantation tour is the creation of a false dichotomy of white and black spaces that simple did not exist in the past. the enslaved african-american community existed in all spaces on the plantation through their labor and the alienation of that labor only serves to broaden the painful racial divide within america. modern baltimore, with its poverty and economic segregation, is a testament to this continued trend. moyer teases the reader with what must be an interesting account of the politics of her historical research, explaining how several historical institutions denied her access to their materials for research, materials to which other researchers had been allowed access. though she touches on the connections to the modern world and racial politics, her focus on the historic record does not allow her to linger on these subjects as extensively as the reader might like. however, the parallels between the segregation of research and the segregation of race in the modern plantation museum are not lost on the reader. race is still a problem in the united states. though the racial practices have changed, masked by quotidian structures, recent events have helped to expose these structures to national audiences. in light of this, teresa moyer’s book serves as an important bridge between the work of history, archaeology and modern activism: it gives a structure of how to begin to change the telling of the past. references cited delle, james a. 1998. an archaeology of social space: analyzing coffee plantations in jamaica's blue mountains. edited by c. e. orser, contributions to global hisorical archaeology. new york: plenum press. eichstedt, jennifer l, and stephen small. 2002. representations of slavery: race and ideology in southern plantation museums. washington, d.c.: smithsonian institution press. elboghdady, dina. 2008. baltimore sues subprime lender over race. washington post, january 9, 2008, d04, january 9. moyer, teresa. 2015. ancestors of worthy life: plantation slavery and black heritage at mount clare. edited by p. a. shackel, cultural heritage studies. gainesville: university press of florida. singleton, theresa a. 2001. slavery and spatial dialectics on cuban coffee plantations. world archaeology 33 (1):98-114. catherine lavoy is a historical archaeology graduate candidate in syrcause university’s department of anthropology. her dissertation is on the changing landscape of a sugar plantation in pernambuco, brazil from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century and explores issues of slavery, historic preservation and tourism. © 2015 catherine e. lavoy microsoft word ce_193-603-1-rv.docx 1 why the world needs (medical) anthropologists: lessons from a (more than just a) handbook on medical anthropology review by cristina douglas the routledge handbook of medical anthropology. 2016. edited by lenore manderson, elizabeth cartwright and anita hardon. new york: routledge. xxix + 393p. isbn 9781138015630. key words: medical anthropology; global health; structural violence; structural inequality. medical anthropology is probably one of the fastest growing sub-disciplines of anthropology. over only a few short decades, medical anthropologists have increasingly become officially involved in global health programs. along with this they critically explore how biomedicine and its nomenclature are spread across the world, their benefits, and how they are resisted, negotiated or adapted by people into cultural, political or gendered norms. medical anthropology has also succeeded, as a discipline, to quickly adapt to accelerated societal changes and to respond in a timely manner to huge challenges brought on by medical crises (such as ebola) or biomedical technologies (such as genetic tests or assisted reproductive technologies). it is only sensible, then, that the discipline sets out more resources to illustrate its work foundation and its various approaches. the routledge handbook of medical anthropology, edited by lenore manderson, elizabeth cartwright and anita hardon, in spite of its apparently bounding title, exceeds the limitations of an educational resource for scholars or members of the public interested in medical anthropology. the book covers great geographical and cultural areas, with a tremendous variety of topics directly related to medical conditions/diseases, or which overflow into larger 2 contexts that potentially influence health statuses (e.g., life cycle, kinship, war, structural violence, environment and climate change/the anthropocene). the volume has a rather unusual format. each chapter is led by one of the editors depending on the topic, and includes case studies authored by other scholars. the case studies are extremely rich ethnographic vignettes, illustrating how a similar medically related topic or condition becomes variegated when looked at in context, rather than symmetrically approached as generally presumed in biomedicine. as the authors highlight throughout the volume, this diversity is paramount in understanding that global health projects need a deep comprehension of their multiple localities, as well as their ingrained and individually embodied subjectivities. manderson, cartwright and hardon introduce each chapter with a more general presentation and conclusion, sprinkling their observations between case studies. this relaxed format, while sometimes becoming slightly confusing for citation purposes, gives the book a more conversational character and adds coherence to each chapter by linking the different pieces together. something of a novelty is also that each chapter is preceded by a photo accompanied by an explanation of approximately 150 words, selected following a call for photographic contribution. the photos beautifully convey the temporal suspension of photographic encounter as a window into the complex entanglement between a medical issue, its embodiment, and its context. although the photos add value to the volume, they might, at the same time, feel unsettling as they are overwhelmingly from places generally associated with ‘exoticism’ (with just one exception out of sixteen, depicting homeless people living in oregon coming out of mobile showers; p. 260-261). this use of ‘exotic other’ in ethnographic photography for illustrating anthropological textbooks has previously raised criticism, despite increasing efforts to decolonize the discipline.1 one of the biggest merits of the volume, i believe, resides in introducing topics such as childhood to be explored in itself (some exceptions might be rita astutti’s (2011) research on how children learn about death in madagascar, albeit not necessarily directly related to medical anthropology). in this regard, the authors acknowledge, on the one hand, the importance of children as valuable contributors to culture-making and ethnographic knowledge, while on the other, aligning medical anthropology’s interest with other disciplines: pediatric medicine and 1 see tunstall and esperanza 2016 for a discussion on the use of photos for introductory anthropology textbooks. 3 psychiatry; development studies; cognitive and experimental psychology. the case study on children with diabetes (christine dedding chapter), for instance, epitomizes this attitude toward children as epistemic subjects of embodied disease, while the culturally specific expressions of the stress epidemic of children in suriname and swaziland (ria reis chapter) underscores the cultural way children articulate their struggles in a health/illness related manner. another excellent value of the volume relates to its capacity for encompassing a great array of topics from diverse geographical, social, cultural or political backgrounds. it is this range, i believe, that showcases the stark inequalities in health status, distribution and access that raise much global concern. take, for example, the case study on homosexual sex workers diagnosed with hiv in kenya (emmy kageha igonya and eileen moyer chapter), whose fight against the stigmas associated with hiv within their own community and their diagnosis, their sexual orientation and their occupation within society at large, becomes an everyday struggle of survival in unimaginably precarious conditions; or the case studies on the difficulties (if not impossibilities) of accessing health care when living in liminal immigration status on national borders (the case studies on mexican undocumented immigrants from mexico by heide castañeda, and on women war refugees from burma/myanmar in thailand by meagan wilson). however, while these cases are speaking about extreme vulnerability, all case studies unveil both how vulnerability becomes ever so present in terms of health all over the world, and how people find creative and compassionate ways of creating supportive and empowering networks. the volume offers very enjoyable and accessible reading. given its richly ethnographic case studies, the central conclusion of the book is then the necessity of paying attention to the particular contexts of health and illness across the globe and communities, and of understanding the complex entanglements in which they emerge and materialize. in other words, the volume speaks undeniably about the invaluable input that medical anthropologists may bring into important discussions on health and illness and their potential contribution to global health policy making. thus, the volume goes well beyond what a handbook entails, becoming a fabulous resource for addressing health (in)justices across the globe. 4 works cited tunstall, e. and esperanza, j. 2016. “decolonizing anthropology textbook covers” savage minds. (available at https://savageminds.org/2016/06/20/decolonizing-anthropologytextbook-covers/). astuti, rita 2011. “death, ancestors, and the living dead: learning without teaching in madagascar”. in children’s understanding of death: from biological to religious conceptions edited by victoria talwar, paul l. harris and michael schleifer. cambridge: cambridge university press. pp. 1-18. cristina douglas is a phd candidate in social anthropology at the university of aberdeen, uk. her research focuses on the relations between people living with a dementia diagnosis and therapy-animals. © 2018 véronique senécal-lirette 1 #stillhuman: re-imagining the ageing self review by zoe hatten ending ageism, or how not to shoot old people by margaret morganroth gullette rutgers university press, 2017 ending ageism, or how not to shoot old people, the latest book by distinguished age-critic margaret morganroth gullette, describes ageist ideology and its effects, and proffers an array of approaches to bring about change. in this artfully composed work, gullette focuses on the united states, the site of many of her personal revelations and case studies, while drawing on an interdisciplinary body of artistic and scholarly thought. ageism must be taken seriously, like other isms – racism and sexism – because it is, gullette argues, a category that is socially constructed in the same way, with equally dire consequences for humanity. the author argues that in order for ageism to assume the full weight of attention and critique it deserves, we must first acknowledge that ageism exists, and learn to recognize it. an increase in senicide and suicide amongst the elderly around the world, often administered by rifle in the us, are but symptoms of a tapestry of suffering that touches us all in some way. ageism lurks all around; in careless aphorisms – “make way for the young,” – and in the tacit connecting of aging with disability, mental illness, or unsightliness, amounting to ageist essentialism. we remain confused, trapped in this “peculiar netherworld” (p. 204), partly because our society, even in its efforts to do better, pursues mistaken agendas. we are told that we should fight aging, not ageism, for example; the former wrongheaded battle compounds the devastating effects of the latter. the idea of “positive aging” preaches perfection and health, much as “body positivity”, insists that there is a ‘correct way’ to go about the business of narrating ourselves. such is the complex nature of ageism, as gullette presents it. 2 gullette goes on to describe the nexuses of ageist ideology as it is magnified and transmitted. for example, an ageist “elite”, a small group of the tech-enthusiast ilk, are now dominant in terms of the way they colonize visual culture, disseminating “billions of images colossally swarming in public space” (p.30). none of us can escape the internet, where it does often feel like twenty-something instagram models outnumber almost any other depiction of humanity. in this consumer-focused online gestalt “food is often photographed more carefully than old people are” (p.31). perhaps the elderly, too, should seek to resemble twenty-something instagram models that tout similar nonsense to their age contemporaries? these observations are particularly resonant to me, as they address an important aspect of the way problems like ageism develop at this time. those who are, like myself, so-called “digital natives”, may not have developed the visual literacy to recognize ageism unfolding in our everyday lives. while technology is not to blame per se, it is often harnessed as part of the social apparatus that propagates ageism. this book reminded me that, like the photographic lens, it ought to be more thoughtfully utilized. throughout the book, gullette emphasizes that ending ageism requires an imaginative shift, deeply rooted in subjectivity. for at the heart of it, we fear aging because we fear the unavoidable other; our older selves. if all desire is desire of the other, and identification and desire are two sides of the same coin, then we need to re-examine our looking, our own intimate interface to the world. how might we reinvigorate an imaginary of desire that incorporates the elderly? turning to art for answers and solutions, gullette has searched long and hard for images that depict aging without employing the usual clichés – abject loneliness, facelessness, a lack of context – yet still achieve the “shock of desire”, “a subject that fascinates” (p.46). she finds some, but not enough. much of our contemporary artistic and literary output remains complicit in a careless or hostile portrayal of ageing. in the first few chapters, gullette illustrates how and why this is so, using images of artworks to map her observations, much in the spirit of sontag’s on photography. in later chapters, she elaborates on the dangers that confront literary and artistic portrayals of aging. empathy, for example, can override reason and objectivity. in michael haneke’s film armour, we empathize with a husband who kills his wife by suffocation. gullette argues that this response is strengthened through filmic device which overrides our capacity to clearly consider the rights and wishes of his wife. viewers and critics are not educated about ageism, so they are not equipped to question the social reality presented (p.153). in a similar vein to the process of misplacing empathy, the media constructs “burden” stories that transfer the term’s meaning from 3 caregiving work to the subject; “she is the burden” (p.143). the duty to relieve the “burden” becomes the duty to die, writes gullette. ultimately, such observations point to a complex poetics that underpins the language of ageism. one of the most compelling ways gullette illustrates ageism is by identifying and summoning the problematic personas we all sometimes embody. many of us have been, or have known “young judge”, an “assertive subidentity” (p.57) who is unwilling to relate to the slightly elder, who sometimes lurks within colleges, locker rooms, or at the helm of administrative systems that dictate others’ futures, who sometimes morphs into cyber gangs to propagate hate speech (p.57). when internalized, young judge becomes “the bully inside us” (p.169), the voice we use to tell ourselves we are not good enough, in various permutations. young judge needs to be educated, to learn to see beyond the fleeting place of youth from which he speaks. an array of educative scenarios and approaches are discussed throughout the book, and addressed most directly in chapter three, which includes case studies of classroom interaction and dialogue, and offers techniques to combat common obstacles surrounding ageism in the classroom. this is important, the author argues, because beyond institutions, in our lived experiences of knowing our ageing families, we are all students and teachers. while thankfully, not all of us are young judge, the author reminds us that we are most certainly all “eaters”. we need the food produced by our farmers, of whom a shockingly large proportion worldwide are elderly, and a majority women. in this way, gullette links her critique of ageism to wider critiques of neoliberalism and globalization, and still manages relevant suggestions for local change. the blind spot that allows us to fear aging is akin to the devaluing of labor needed to provide for ourselves; the denial of a natural process. recognizing ageism can help us transcend our netherworlds – be they a valley in northern california, a field in shandong, or an urban farm in havana – and “emerge to see the stars” (p.204). zoe hatten is a phd candidate in anthropology with the australian national university. her research focuses on marriage and commercialization in urban china. © 2018 zoe hatten microsoft word 169-499-1-rv .docx 1 to be or not to be arab in london dr. jack david eller becoming arab in london: performativity and the undoing of identity by ramy m.k. aly pluto press, 2018 key words: arab, london, autoethnography, performativity, ethnonormativity in an era of migration and anxiety, if not hysteria, about terrorism, it is useful to examine how arab people in the west understand and construct their identity. ramy aly undertakes just such a project in his becoming arab in london: performativity and the undoing of identity, which he acknowledges is something of an autoethnography based on his own experiences as an arab living in britain. as he explains on the first page, his position is that “arabness, like all other categorical labels, is best understood not as a form of authentic ‘being’ but as repertoires of ‘doing,’ achieved through the imperfect repetition of culture over time and space” (1). treating ‘arabness’ as a performance rather than an essence, his analysis is informed by judith butler’s work on gender performativity and on gender heteronormativity. the negotiation of ‘arabness’ in britain is naturally situated within british concepts and practices of multiculturalism and racial/ethnic identity; in fact, he notes that “arab” was added as an official category to the 2011 census. in britain—and to an extent in the united states—the effect of identity politics is the notion that racial/ethnic “communities” are real and that they “must parade their differences and showcase their foods, smells, clothes, traditions, colors and thus their distinctiveness in order to be recognized and incorporated into the consciousness of the nation” and consequently, “the idea of having or possessing an ethnicity, of being part of a group, is so embedded and naturalized that we see ethnicity and ethnic groups everywhere” (30)—even where they do not (yet) exist. this is what he regards as the discourse and practice of “ethnonormativity,” an obvious correlate to judith butler’s (1990) ideas on gender heteronormativity. aly begins in the first chapter by illustrating how and why such a settled and essential “arab identity” has never existed in london and perhaps cannot exist. he traces the history of arab migration since the early twentieth century, including the founding of arab associations and publications. of course, despite their own attempts to forge a pan-arab identity, arabs in london (and in the middle east) were 2 and are a highly diverse demographic, who come from different countries with different traditions. insofar as london’s arabs could be viewed “as fundamentally unified not simply by their culture but also by their politics,” such a simplification required ignoring the “divisive and contested nature” of the arab diaspora (41). the depth of the differences became apparent when wealthy gulf state tourists and investors descended on london after the 1970s, distinctly different in look and lifestyle from the previous arab-descended londoners who had been in the country, in some cases, for generations. more recently, waves of migrants escaping oppression and war in the middle east have further complicated the complexion of the community of arabs in london. “it is no wonder that i could find no coherent ‘arab community’ in britain,” aly concludes at the end of the chapter. throughout the rest of the book, he follows london arabs to three specific sites— british schools and universities (chapter two), shisha or smoking cafés (chapter three), and dance parties (chapter four). in each context he weaves in his own fieldwork observations, offering extensive interview quotations and theoretical commentary, invariably and inevitably linking “arab” identity with gender and class. accordingly, he also investigates not only the more visible male arabs but also women, who naturally have their own life-courses but whose gender and sexuality are especially significant sites for the contestation of arabness. in fact, he appreciates that “it would be difficult not to see how these heterosexualizing demands are inflected by ethnonormativity. together with class these are the building blocks of identitarianism” (96). however, he is quick to stress that local arabs do not perceive themselves as simply enacting an “arab identity”, rather, “becoming an ‘arab man’ or ‘arab woman’ is part of a project of cultural survival and social intelligibility, and […] arab identity is not an essence or a cause of behaviors and dispositions but an instrumental reaction to being hailed and subjected by social institutions, hegemonic gendered norms, national and international politics and media representations” (70). nor does islam offer a simple solution, not only because of differences in religious traditions and beliefs but also because of the presence of non-arab muslims in the region, such as south asians and somalis, whom london arabs—especially arab women—avoid. despite the fact that aly eschews concepts like identity and ethnicity as british multiculturalist categories rather than as naturally emerging from arabs, he cannot help but notice that, at least in arab student societies, “being arab […] was now about ‘arab ethnicity’ in britain” and not, for instance, about arab politics (135). he also grasps with his observation that london arabs cannot help but recycle and re-appropriate some of the western, indeed orientalist, impressions of arabness, often highly gendered ones like belly dancing. in the end, as one short-lived british-arab magazine stated, “we are hybrids…. we are not a race and therefore not easily identified. we must therefore identify ourselves” (176). yet aly rejects a “constructivist” approach to the question of arabs’ place in britain, preferring, as the book’s title indicates and as described here, a performative approach to “how one might become an ‘arab’ or do arabness in london” (195, emphasis added) that is, to “‘everyday arabness,’ a cultural identification experienced in everyday settings” and to “projects of social intelligibility and cultural 3 survival, rather than arab identity or identities” (214). for this purpose, he leans quite heavily on western cultural theory, including judith butler, derrida, bakhtin, and even freud and lacan. i am always a bit troubled when authors try to force ethnographic materials through such theoretical lenses. he also includes a fair amount of comparative references to other cultures and ethnographies, extending what is still a relatively short book (214 pages). despite these concerns, it is hard to imagine that any anthropologist would disagree with his fundamental claim, that arabness in london (or anywhere else for that matter) is neither an essence nor a finished project but an ongoing process of navigation and performance. since his work his, as he reminds us, the first such study of london’s arabs, it is an important contribution not only to the anthropology of arab identity but also to anthropological critiques of multiculturalism and liberal identity regimes. works cited: butler, judith. 1990. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. new york and london: routledge. jack david eller holds a phd in anthropology and conducted fieldwork in aboriginal australia. associate professor of anthropology at the community college of denver (retired), he specializes in anthropology of religion, anthropology of violence, and psychological anthropology and is the author of numerous books including cultural anthropology: global forces, local lives and introducing anthropology of religion. © 2019 jack david eller 1 new perspectives on surplus production and inequality: surplus as relation, strategy and agency review by martin loeng surplus: the politics of production and the strategies of everyday life by christopher t. morehart & kristin de lucia ed. university press of colorado, 2015 surplus: the politics of production and the strategies of everyday life provides numerous contextualised accounts of different social forms of production, storage and allocation of surplus across the world. it provides a provocative and varied contribution to archaeology, anthropology and the social sciences (especially economics, economic analyses, marxism, and economic anthropology) more generally. for those interested in engaging with surplus and economic strategies, as well as inequality and hierarchy’s connections to economic processes, this should be an extremely valuable volume. the central commitment of this volume is to complicate social evolutionary understandings of surplus. the introduction both sets the tone for the rest of the volume and engages with many theoretical presuppositions about the role of surplus (marxian, dialectic, classic economic), mirroring the concern for empirical contextualisation of substantivists like karl polanyi and george dalton. several chapters focus on surplus production and distribution as social strategies that must be contextualised historically, socially and culturally. for example, wells provides a provocative analysis of how modes of religiosity may have affected surplus production in sixteenth-century mesoamerica. these chapters thus open the notion of surplus to multiple, contextualised and processual understandings. t. l. thurston (chapter 5) describes how surplus production among farmers in småland, sweden from years 1000 to 1600 was a part of multiple, changing strategies to preserve autonomy and ward off 2 attempts by the vasa kingdom to establish political sovereignty. flexibility in production strategies and usage of surplus contributed to the relative autonomy of the småland area and thus provide an interesting account of how surplus can be employed in particular political, historical, social and economic contexts. such strategies were not only a means of building inequality and hierarchy, but also a way to retain other social forms. in a similar way to other chapters in the book, this research opens up the question of what role surplus plays in the development of societies. it shifts the question from what role surplus plays as an analytical object, in grand theories of society for instance, to one about how social forms of surplus are employed historically. in this way the volume explores a more actionoriented approach which could inform critical research on a wide variety of subjects. perhaps the more exciting possibility in this perspective against social evolutionism is how ‘inequality’ and ‘hierarchy’ stop sounding inevitable. there is a wealth of locations, historical periods, objects of interest, political systems and contexts discussed in the book, so much so, that it is impossible to summarise them all. the chapters employ diverse methodological strategies: some are ethnohistorical, others archaeological, some based in written records, others on oral accounts. yet all share a common focus on action and everyday life, social and contextual dimensions of surplus, and a critical and empirical inspection of the transformative dimensions of surplus – thus confronting the substantivist critique on many arenas. the concluding chapter by earle does a lot to contextualise the variety of studies in this volume, dividing them into the broader analytical categories “bottom-up” and “top-down” forms of surplus production. surplus thus moves away from transformation as such, and explores how different forms of surplus (social, material) play a part in continuous processes of materialising social structures (p. 315). in other words, actions and everyday strategies centring on surplus are here understood as relational forms of agency that reproduce and change such social structures. to quote miller (chapter 4), “…simply accumulating surplus goods or owed labor is insufficient to create hierarchical social relationships,” (p. 99). rather, surplus must be spent and it is in research on this relation between production and spending that this edited volume provides many provocative suggestions. on a more theoretical level, surplus confronts the debate on relative or absolute surplus. the conclusion seems to argue for an in-between solution, being for a substantivist appreciation of social and historical context in defining what surplus is (housing, land, people, labour, crafted objects, food), while also retaining some form of analytical ‘surface’ above which surplus is placed theoretically (see 3 p. 18-24). while this compromise begs further theorising on how different scholars define surplus, this open definition allows this edited volume to illustrate differently functioning systems. for example, bolender (chapter 6) traces the appearance of rent obligations, tenancy relations between bigger and smaller farms in viking age iceland that relied on surplus from land, rather than the previous surplus of land. he explores in detail how the emerging top-down system of surplus extraction, enshrined in property rights, altered the everyday contexts of action and political action through the concentration of land ownership. on the other side, de lucia and morehart (chapter 3) explore the changing economic strategies for pooling surpluses and diversifying livelihoods at the household level against possible economic failure in the context of pre-aztec central mexico. their focus is on the mixture of top-down demands from an imperial aztec state, and bottom-up changes in decisions on forms of production on the household level. the open definition of what surplus is allows this book to present us with provocative comparisons, and hopefully further theoretical engagement. the greatest value that surplus provides is that it expands your imagination when it comes to economic strategies ‘beyond subsistence.’ for many, this volume will open up a new space of analytical foci in research related to economy. as norman (chapter 8) shows in his example on palace politics in the bight of west benin, the social connections (wealth in people) and control of external trade through which elite statuses were achieved, manifested in palatial houses, also demanded feasts and social occasions of ritualised generosity. this kind of festive allocation of surplus goods acquired by elites from external trade relations could actually both have been the source of elite authority, as well as its downfall. surplus can cause changes in multiple directions (p. 215-216). thompson and moore (chapter 10) explore how predictable and anticipated surplus (such as seasonal harvests) grant huntergatherers in coastal georgia different contexts for action and inform the making of longer-term social relationships. thus, the agency and sociality of surplus is also contingent on its rhythms. this edited volume is a thoroughly researched, broadly appealing exploration into many aspects of surplus. it provides theoretical as well as methodological chapters. it will appeal to archaeologists as much as economists, anthropologists and other social scientists. for anyone with an interesting in economy, politics or society at all, this is a valuable contribution. for the activist it might even be considered an exercise in developing an appreciation of how complex societal histories can be. the intended audience is perhaps academic due to the methodological parts and complex language. but, after the introductory and concluding chapter, most readers should be well prepared to understand most 4 chapters and their impact. i therefore recommend this volume to everyone with an interest in the above subjects, and encourage the exploration of the different chapters, regions, methods and theoretical concepts. martin loeng is a ph.d. fellow at the department of social anthropology at the norwegian university of science and technology, norway. he is currently undertaking research, through an interactional and affective approach, on urban informal livelihood strategies in tanzania and their connection to relationbuilding and morality in the tourism industry. © 2017 martin loeng 1 redefining street vending as a global practice review by megan b. hinrichsen street vending in the neoliberal city: a global perspective on the practices and policies of a marginalized economy by kristina graaff and noa ha berghahn press, 2015 in the increasingly urban landscape of the twenty-first century, cities are becoming centers of cultural interaction and settings in which the challenges of future human and economic development are writ large. in street vending in the neoliberal city, the authors of the volume’s eleven chapters edited by kristina graaff and noa ha center on our increasingly urban lives and livelihoods though the lens of street vending. scholars of urban life have a long history of interest in the broader “informal sector” of labor that includes activities like street vending. broadly, street vending is typically cast as a traditional, or even regressive, economic activity of the developing world. the long-held assumption was that street vending would decline as countries in the global south went through the process of “development.” in the modern industrialized context, labor is synonymous with full-time, stable, and regulated (formal) work. the authors in street vending in the neoliberal city rebut this common conceptualization that sees street vending disappearing. indeed, they recognize that street vending persists and is growing not only in the global south, but in the “developed” world as well. this volume is an analysis of street vending from an interdisciplinary and global perspective looking at the dynamics of this informal, and often marginalized, activity in the cities of new york, los angeles, mexico city, rio de janeiro, berlin, calcutta, and dhaka. the themes that emerge from this volume include urban planning as a hegemonic project that “[amplifies] structural discrimination (95),” the use and (re)claiming of urban space, strategies of resistance to urban planning projects that limit or criminalize street vending, and new challenges and barriers that street vendors must contend with in the contemporary world. although focused on different vending activities among members of different ethnic groups in diverse urban settings, the chapters in this volume all add to the knowledge that street vending is precarious, urban spaces are contested, and that local lives are shaped by global developments. 2 like other research focused on the use of urban space for informal activities, several chapters in this volume focus on urban planning and policies as hegemonic projects that discriminate against marginalized peoples. patricia acerbi, the author of the book’s final chapter, gives a historical view of this project in her chapter on street vending regulation in rio de janeiro. in the early twentieth century, policies of urban renewal authoritatively declared that street vending was a “backward” practice (245). over a century later, the marginalization of street vending continues. writing about contemporary mexico city, veronica crossa portrays the rhetoric of revamping and revitalizing urban spaces by driving out vendors and artisans as a force of social erasure. rather than addressing the socioeconomic issues that bring people to engage in informal labor, government policies “push them into spaces where they are less visible, not heard, smelled, and felt” (74). in dhaka, benjamin etzold writes that street vendors face more overt forms of violence in addition to the “cultural violence of the hegemonic discourse” about street vending that adds legitimacy to discrimination against vendors (165). not only is street vending declared illegal and forced removal of street vendors disguised as ensuring public security, but the people who make their living through vending are also made illegal and vulnerable to direct violence and discrimination. other authors, such as noa ha’s chapter about vending in berlin, also demonstrate that the regulation of street vending is complicit in the structural discrimination. these regulations, often under the guise of promoting safety and hygiene, mostly target people who are already marginalized in their societies. another important theme that emerges from this volume is the use and (re)claiming of urban space. while street vendors across the world face the challenges of public declarations, policies, and scrutiny that further marginalize them, street vendors also engage in the act of using and claiming public space on their own. chapters in this volume document these actions from above, and also from below. laws and policies attempt to remake space. street vendors do, too. in his chapter about a vendor advocacy group in new york city, ryan thomas devlin demonstrates how the street vendor project uses neoliberal discourses of self-reliance and entrepreneurialism to skillfully argue against restrictions placed on vendors. devlin, however, notes that using the dominant discourse might reinforce the same structures they are challenging. devlin writes that vendors in this group do not “value public space outright for its open and inclusive nature” but as a way for them to reach their individual goals in a capitalist society (56). veronica crossa’s chapter based in mexico city goes against this approach. vendors and artisans there made strides to prove that their neighborhood of coyoacán is where “an alternative lifestyle is possible” (60). despite the disparate approaches and contradictory narratives utilized by the vendors in each city, they are actively involved in remaking the case for their use of urban space. both the hegemonic messages of urban planning and the contested use of urban space are well established lines of study. a contribution the authors of this volume make to take our understanding of informal street vending further is their documentation on the ongoing patterns of resistance that street vendors employ to protect themselves and claim their (rights to) space. one of the unique contributions of this volume is its focus on the united states where street vendors are involved in (re)claiming urban space through vending on their own terms. in a chapter by lorena muñoz, immigrant street vendors in los angeles use informal economic opportunities to create a sense of place as they reproduce “vending landscapes that remind them of ‘back home’” (101). also writing on los angeles, kenny cupers explains how the mobile strategies of street vending in this sprawling, car-based city not only allow vendors to adapt to the city but also actively shape the rhythms of life in the city. harlem is the setting 3 for kristina graaf’s chapter on street literature and mark naison’s historical account of street vending as community building. naison declares that street vendors remain on the “front lines of community struggles” and that street vendors in harlem should continue their historical role as activists for their community. other strategies of resistance include drawing upon social resources and working cooperatively instead of in competition, with other vendors like the vendors in kathleen dunn’s chapter on brooklyn. a final major theme, and particular strength of this volume, is identifying some of the new challenges and barriers that street vendors must endure in the twenty-first century. in brooklyn, dunn writes about the rise of the food truck as a legitimized form of street commerce and the associated rising costs of vending permits. graaf, writing about contemporary harlem, explains the competing claims for space and market saturation affecting vendors from different ethnic backgrounds. these two examples show how challenges in the lives of street vendors will continue to be in flux, especially in an urbanizing world. the varied contexts, interpretations, and theoretical views of each of the author’s in this volume show the strength of the accumulated knowledge on street vending as a global practice and show new directions that future research can take. indeed, many of the resistance strategies featured in this volume are ongoing. the volume is divided into four sections: responding to urban and global neoliberal policies, street vending and ethnicity, the spatial mobility of urban street vending, and historical accounts of street vending. i did not find these headings particularly useful, mostly because each of the eleven chapters brings in several of these concepts. most chapters involve racial and ethnic minorities and the use of urban space in the historical and contemporary context of neoliberalism. nevertheless, this interdisciplinary volume is a strong contribution to our understanding on the lives of street vendors. the authors featured in this book are from many fields including sociology, urban studies, history, public administration, geography, and architecture. although none of the chapters were written by an anthropologist, anthropologists interested in the topic covered will find compelling additions to our theoretical and conceptual understanding of life in the “informal sector” and how it is changing in the twenty-first century. megan b. hinrichsen, assistant professor of anthropology at monmouth college, is a medical anthropologist who has researched street vending, child labor, and malnutrition in quito, ecuador. she earned her ph.d. in anthropology from southern methodist university. © 2017 megan b. hinrichsen 1 the sociopolitical shaping of heritage landscapes review by caroline murray critical theory and the anthropology of heritage landscapes by melissa f. baird university press of florida, 2017 melissa baird, assistant professor in anthropology at michigan technological university, uses a comparative approach based on a variety of fieldworks and methods that focus on social, ecological and political impacts of resource extraction, especially in regards to indigenous communities. in her first book critical theory and the anthropology of heritage landscapes (2017) published by university press of florida, she offers surprising insights into the implications of cultural landscape as heritage. extractive activities in regions with significant heritage values seems to be globally on the rise. anthropology defines heritage as a social construction in everyday practices. baird explores how heritage is mobilized, for what purpose and acknowledges systems at play as well as the many relations and significations across time and space. she studies the heritage landscapes as sites of contestation in several contemporary contexts, including urban, post-colonial and indigenous landscapes, wilderness areas, archaeological sites, marine environments, and temple complexes. according to baird, heritage landscapes are scenes where issues of preservation are inserted in sociopolitical contexts. most analysis regarding heritage lack insights into local representations and social relations with regards to communities and their environment. the definition offered by the world heritage centre concerns natural values and land-use practices. this way of separating nature/culture is incorrect for communities that instead see a continuity. therefore, heritage professionals ignore indigenous systems of knowledge, and this underrepresentation can be seen in the colonial act of renaming. baird argues 2 that the contested contexts and histories are not only presented as resolved or ignored, but they are also reinvented. she questions the meaning of progress itself and argues it brings land alienation, along with environmental impacts and community disruptions. baird criticizes the models that prioritize biodiversity and sustainability at the expense of culture, thus placing management of landscapes within an environmental frame. this framework cannot adequately explore these tensions and intersections while at the same time accommodating indigenous people’s conception, meaning they provide only a fragmented and partial view (p.70). her work is relevant since people are being displaced from their traditional lands as extensive capitalist extraction and natural disasters increase in front of nationalism, globalization, urbanization and economic development. her position is that heritage is constructed through historical and cultural processes, transformed into resources and is entangled within sociopolitical dynamics. to overcome the lack of theory and methodology in these debates, the author uses the emerging critical heritage theory (cht). this comparative and multidisciplinary framework, based on postcolonial theory, includes insights from anthropology, indigenous, environmental, history, geography, cultural studies, public policy, rights, justice, ecology and theories of development. connecting the sociopolitical contexts of heritage, its implications, contradictions and consequences, it investigates how knowledge and power intersect with actual practices. thus, it can be used to address social, cultural and political dynamics and systems, along with a diversity of beliefs. as a larger hegemonic discourse that engages with issues of rights, neoliberalism, cosmopolitanism, identity and class, it focuses more on structures rather than individual motives (p.9). baird’s research includes a variety of case studies and methodologies, including ethnographic, archival, archaeological, participatory and historical work. her choices put different fields at play and illustrate how heritage is intrinsically linked with relations of unequal powers. her main fieldwork was conducted in alaska, mongolia and australia from 2000-2016. drawing from her work on the ulurau-kata tjuta national park, she describes how policies work in ways that force communities to make claims within bureaucratic systems that are incompatible with their philosophy, custodial responsibilities, rules, knowledge and subsistence practices (p.16). the reconfiguration of the historical and social conditions redefined their relationship to the land as they were forced to adopt the western land-use lifestyle. some practices, such as burning and gathering, are seen in ecological terms and were used for commercial interests (p.34). differences in worldviews 3 resulted in appropriation and misuse of indigenous knowledge, relating back to colonial legacies and histories of dispossession that constrained their participation in heritage decisions in australia. the state, which did not truly intend to protect, assigned values and meaning and restricted any other alternative perceptions. based on the examples of the oil spill at prince william sound in alaska which disrupted communities’ subsistence practices and caused a profound cultural loss (p.45), and the mongolian altai mountains where pastures lost to wildfires, shrinking glaciers, declining water resources, smog masses and insect outbreaks are real (p.51), the author shows how landscape intersect and is central to contemporary debates on environmental issues. in these cases, cultural resources were not a top priority in recovery efforts, and the separation of cultural and natural resources did not provide space for discussions about the real political, economic and social implications that go beyond cultural history. by studying only archaeological and environmental data, contemporary representations are silenced (p.50), making it difficult to hear various, hybrid and contradictory meanings in areas of transformation, loss and renewal. in the end, communities were marginalized, and their subsequent struggles overshadowed in the rebuilding efforts. moreover, baird calls “epistemologies of landscapes” the culture of expertise, and its multiple theories interfere with cultural heritage, preservation, and identities (p.14). institutional and expert knowledge applied in developing world heritage nominations affect communities, create inequalities and overstep how discourses are historically situated within a disparity of power. to validate social responsibility campaigns and their investment, extractive industries, mobilize the language of heritage, indigenous rights and sustainability (p.89). baird criticizes the strategies that corporations adopt for legitimization, away from social concerns. in other words, by cloaking a history of conflicts, human-rights violations and environmental impacts within a more acceptable story, “heritage is performed and industry is exempt from responsibility” (p.93). heritage landscapes are sites of ambiguous status, affecting how they are interpreted. how they are used to promote some values more than others reveal their significance in the industrial and globalisation contexts. in this sense, we must ensure far more equal management and sensitivity in determining importance, knowing that the lack of representation can transform into a lack of power. unfortunately, the past is in service of geopolitical agendas, mediated within systems of exclusion 4 (p.96). in anthropology, it is then essential to locate the sociopolitical, cultural and historical dynamics and extend the understanding of where colonial structures remain in heritage landscape practices, but more importantly, how they are neutralized, regulated, reproduced and absorb change. in order to bring transparency and elucidate the actual contemporary tensions, it is a necessity to question the modalities that guide research and its writing. after reading that book, one can only see that the models, theories and practices of heritage work through specific pre-existing systems and mechanisms that underlie sources of tensions, the creation of inequalities and construction of knowledge. baird recommends that engagements with landscapes should include emancipatory discourse, providing room for controversial topics and multiple understandings (p.101). personal experiences and stories related to her investigations and evolution of thought that are well connected and the well explained reasoning certainly make this book a pleasant read. moreover, the force of her arguments derives from the relatively new and more than suitable theoretical framework as well as a great diversity of methodologies and multiple worldwide examples that support her explanations. baird is very daring and raises fundamental questions about the ethics and objectivity behind the scenes and in the open of cultural landscape as heritage. comparative and critical ethnographic approaches are efficient in understanding how strategies and practices are plotting heritage discourse. within this framework stands a chance for all to apprehend the relationships between the past and the harsh contemporary socio-political realities. © 2018 caroline murray historical summary of anthropological thought on climate change review by sandra moore the anthropology of climate change: an historical reader by michael r. dove wiley-blackwell, 2014 as we begin the anthropocene, an era characterized by humans' “unparalleled dominion over the whole planet” (ackerman 2014: 9), there is a critical need to identify and understand the interconnectedness between human activity and environmental changes (folke, pritchard jr., berkes, colding & svedin 2007). in the anthropology of climate change, environmental anthropologist michael r. dove presents twenty-two canonical works spanning thousands of years. these works highlight the intellectual roots and historical development of anthropological thought on climate change and relationships between humans and their environments. as dove explains in the introduction, since the classical era “theorizing regarding the relationship between nature and culture, between environment and society, has been central to the development of anthropology as a field” (p. 2). this book begins with a comprehensive introduction from dove outlining the history of anthropological thought on the relationship between humans and their environments. he also summarizes each of the twenty-two works in this book, which are paired together under eleven thematic areas in four principle parts. the first part, “continuities,” presents works from classical (hippocrates), enlightenment (charles de secondat montesquieu), and contemporary scholars (francis zimmerman) focusing on themes related to climate theory, “…the idea that climate determines human character, culture, and the rise and fall of civilizations” (p. 2). part two, “societal and environmental change,” consists of works focusing on societal changes associated with climate change from late nineteenth century scholars (friedrich ratzel), mid-twentieth century scholars (betty j. meggers), and contemporary scholars (harvey weiss and raymond bradley). the third part, “vulnerability and control,” includes works from modern scholars (elizabeth colson) exploring how diverse societies are affected by and cope with climatic perturbations. the final part, “knowledge and its circulation,” includes contemporary works (kenneth broad and ben orlove) that address how extreme climatic events are interpreted and experienced by different social, cultural, economic, and political groups. in addition to spanning millennia, the works dove includes in this edited book are also diverse in their focus on specific geographic areas and climatic perturbations. the included works explore a range of geographic specific climate issues including: climatic regional divides in the maghreb region of northern africa (ibn khaldûn ) and india (zimmermann); the potential of the amazon to support civilization (meggers); the collapse of norse civilization in greenland at the end of the seventeenth century (thomas h. mcgovern); post natural disaster assistance in the solomon islands (james spillius); drought in the kalahari region of botswana (jacqueline solway); rain shrines in northern rhodesia (colson); gendered dimensions of flooding in bangladesh (rosalind shaw); glacial disturbances in peru (mark carey); social and political responses to hurricane katrina in the united states (nancy scheper-hughes); catastrophic effects of typhoons in micronesia (david m. schneider); colonial politics of climate in northern tanzania (todd sanders); and the consumption of northern climate science by brazilian scholars and policy-makers (myanna lahsen). dove’s efforts to include works that explore specific places and issues highlights one of anthropology’s main strengths, providing place based understanding of specific issues and concerns. many of the works in this book are place based case studies of specific communities or regions that directly, or indirectly, adopt a climate theory perspective explaining diversity among humans and civilizations as a result of climatic differences. the opening paragraph of the first article in the book, hippocrates’s “air, waters, places” affirms that those interested in studying the science of medicine must consider the geographic specific effects of seasonal variability, weather, and the environment on human health. geographic specificity is the focus of many of the included works to explain societal, cultural, and physical differences associated with environmental variation. the works dove included demonstrate a chain of development in climate theory over time. many of the included works also address the social impacts of climate change, such as jacqueline soloway’s “drought as a 'revelatory crisis': an exploration of shifting entitlements and hierarchies in the kalahari, botswana” exploring reoccurring drought in the early 1980s as a catalyst for social change. as soloway illustrates, societal change is rarely explained by individual factors; the timing of the extreme drought in the kalahari co-occurred with extreme social changes in the region including increased commercialization, class formation, and a rapidly growing national economy. similarly, the included work by nancy scheper-hughes, “the disaster and its doubles,” analyzes the impact of hurricane katrina in the u.s gulf coast and the social and political responses that followed the storm for the already disadvantaged populations living in this region. hence, extreme climatic events are often catalysts for adaptive or maladaptive social change as competition for scarce resources increase in the wake of these events. however, what we learn from the experiences of specific regions dealing with climate perturbations may not always have universal applicability. climate change is also a global issue and the universality of science as a discipline may conflict with diverse cultural perceptions and beliefs. one of the last articles in the book, myanna lahsen’s “transnational locals: brazilian experiences of the climate regime” discusses how the universality of science may disrupt or bias the discourse between transnational governments with diverse cultural and political realities. these diverse works are evidence of dove’s broad focus in compiling the works for this book. as with many edited works, dove most likely had an abundance of works to choose from to include in this book. although the twenty-two included works are all well-established works from classical or contemporary scholars, works from anthropologists focusing on cultural ecology would have been a valuable addition. in his introduction, dove does briefly refer to the founder of cultural ecology, anthropologist julian steward. he asserts that steward’s cultural ecology method for understanding how environmental adaptation impacts cultural change (1955) has had immense impact on the field of environmental anthropology and indigenous views of climate. however, specific reference in this book’s included works to cultural ecology is limited to a brief paragraph in rosalind shaw’s article “'nature,' 'culture' and disasters: floods and gender in bangladesh.” in conclusion, the works included in this book are interesting, memorable, and a timely contribution to the discourse in anthropology for understanding the various impacts of global climate change from multiple perspectives and contexts. due to dove’s broad historical orientation, this book provides a novel framework for introducing undergraduate and graduate anthropology students to climate change and climate theory from an anthropological perspective. dove’s comprehensive introduction combined with the pairing of relevant and related works under specific thematic areas is useful for class reading assignments and encouraging focused comparative debates. beyond its usefulness in the classroom, this well-organized book is a valuable resource for any reader who wishes to develop a better understanding of how climate change has shaped human history and how it will influence human societies in the future. references cited ackerman, diane 2014. the human age. toronto, on: harper collins. folke, c., pritchard, l., berkes, f., colding, j., & svedin, u. 2007. the problem of fit between ecosystems and institutions: ten years later. ecology and society, 12(1), 30. steward, julian h. 1955. theory of culture change: the methodology of multilinear evolution. urbana, il: university of illinois press. sandra moore is a current ph.d. candidate in the school of environment and sustainability (sens) at the university of saskatchewan. in 2015 she was awarded a three year sshrc vanier canada graduate scholarship and is currently studying the social, economic, and ecological costs and benefits of oil and gas development in rural saskatchewan. with an academic background in anthropology and international community development, sandra has lived and worked in canada, ethiopia, and vanuatu. © 2016 sandra moore an american obsession review by brittany brown the archaeology of smoking and tobacco by georgia l. fox university press of florida, 2015 for thousands of years, indigenous peoples across the americas cultivated and consumed tobacco. in some indigenous communities, tobacco was ingested by chewing, in others tobacco was consumed by pipe and cigar smoking (p. 19-20). native communities from the coast of south america to the north american chesapeake have, for the greater part of their histories, reserved the use of this crop for sacred rituals (p. 19-20). today, tobacco is one of the most highly sought after and commonly consumed stimulants in the modern world. within american society, tobacco smoking in particular has come to symbolize power, sexuality, and wealth. these associations have been constantly reiterated by widely celebrated public figures like audrey hepburn, albert einstein, james dean, tyga, and beyoncé (p. 133). whether its smoking pipes, black and milds, cuban cigars, cigarettes, or hookah, tobacco smoking transcends american categories of class, gender, ‘race’, and ethnicity while simultaneously connoting gender roles, social standings, and economic success (p. 2). despite the growing awareness of the health risks involved in consuming tobacco, smoking this “weed” remains one of america’s favorite obsessions. so how exactly did this sacred plant become a commercialized american cash crop? in seven chapters, georgia fox’s new book, the archaeology of smoking and tobacco (2015), charts the global expansion of tobacco consumption and explores the many roles this indigenous american crop played in shaping american social life, culture, and economy. the purpose of this book is to demonstrate how essential the field of historical archaeology is to the study of smoking and tobacco. moreover, the author seeks to demonstrate the ways in which tobacco consumption can be used as a catalyst for culture change and identity formation (p. 23). fox begins this book by providing the reader with a unique perspective: the idea that tobacco and pipe smoking has been embedded within the fabric of american social life, culture, and economy since the nation’s inception. according to the author, tobacco’s commercialization began with the arrival of europeans in the americas (p. 19). following indigenous american contact with europeans, samples of tobacco were brought back to europe and for a short period of time, tobacco was grown in england (p. 20). tobacco production was later moved to the english colonies in north america and the caribbean. however, cultivation in both england and the british caribbean was soon upstaged by tobacco production in the chesapeake colonies of maryland and virginia (p. 133). here, small scale tobacco production quickly snowballed into a major agricultural operation, turning unimaginable profits for england. in the new world, large scale production of crops like tobacco for export and distribution on a global market required captive african labor. the widespread popularity of tobacco in combination with england’s (and later america’s) participation in buying and selling captive africans firmly established tobacco and the chesapeake region in the pre-industrial global economy. these intersecting economic networks are the crux of fox’s study. collectively, the interactions between indigenous, african, and european communities during the colonial period laid the foundation for contemporary american social relations and uses of tobacco. the material culture left behind by these past communities has the power to reveal social and cultural interactions that are often missed in the historical record. as fox points out, historical archaeology is uniquely equipped with the tools necessary for investigating such material assemblages and capturing these interactions. rarely have historical archaeologists taken on the task of exploring the complex social history of tobacco consumption in north america and beyond, despite how frequently practitioners encounter the material remnants of tobacco production, consumption, and distribution in the archaeological record. colonial period smoking pipes are recovered from historical sites more so than any other materials indicative of tobacco use (p. 6). according to fox, the frequency with which smoking pipes are recovered from archaeological sites demonstrates the popularity of this particular method of tobacco consumption among indigenous americans, early euro-american settler, immigrant, and captive african communities. nevertheless, historical archaeologists have primarily used tobacco pipes as diagnostic tools for dating historical sites, burials, and archaeological features (p. 2). fox’s book has innovatively taken pipe studies beyond diagnostics adding to a rather small but growing body of anthropological literature on the cultural and global impact of pre-industrial consumable goods (p. 2). rather than restricting the contributive possibilities of smoking pipes to the field by using and viewing smoking pipes merely as dating tools, the author investigates the cross-cultural functionality of these objects. fox takes a multidisciplinary approach to examining the ways in which indigenous, captive african, and settler communities altered and adapted their customs in a post-contact new world environment. fox’s methodology primarily relies on historical archaeology and bioarcheology. the author also draws on art, advertisement, ethnohistory and historical documentation in order to explore identity formation and cultural change within these communities. fox frames this interdisciplinary approach using a unique theoretical orientation that combines consumer theory and world-system analysis, while viewing the “desire” to consume tobacco as the nexus between these two perspectives (p. 5). much of the analysis of cultural change and identity formation articulated in fox’s book also points to an additional theoretical influence, although the author does not state this influence explicitly. by employing the concept of transculturation, fox’s framework draws influence from anthropologist fernando ortiz’s early twentieth century study, cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar (1947), which both introduces and outlines the concept of transculturation (p. 105). transculturation as ortiz sets forth, describes culture contact and outlines the process of culture change that occurred between various ethnic groups in the new world including europeans, natives, and africans. for ortiz, this process encompassed cultural appropriation, cultural formation or neoculturation, and to some degree, cultural loss which he refers to as deculturation. furthermore, ortiz viewed these cultural exchanges as mutual transactions. the influence of this concept is illustrated throughout the text, but is most apparent in fox’s discussion of native and european interactions, specifically in chapters three and five. in chapter three, fox outlines the introduction of tobacco to european settlers by indigenous american communities as a result of culture contact between these groups in the fifteenth century. additionally, the author interrogates the appropriation of tobacco consumption by europeans for recreational use both in the colonies and europe. lastly, in chapter five, fox discusses tobacco’s commodification and “reintroduction” into indigenous communities “through trade and gift exchange” with european settlers, effectively outlining tobacco smoking’s transition from ritual to secular within native communities (p. 105). while native and european interactions are a central part of fox’s narrative, the author explores pipe smoking within a much wider range of social, cultural, and temporal contexts. some of these include seventeenth century swiss, dutch, and new england women, victorian women, american frontier soldiers, nineteenth century prostitutes, nineteenth century irish and german immigrants, captive africans, and chinese businessmen. within these brief case studies, fox explores a wide variety of topics including burial practices, consumerism, gender, gardening, class, and escapism (p. 27, 83, 69). the inclusion of such a vast breadth of literature helps to place the author’s own case study of seventeenth century port royal, jamaica, in conversation with a plethora of anthropological studies. this includes but is not limited to studies that center on tobacco, pipes, private and public space, culture contact, gardening, african diasporic burial practices, native burial practices, women’s studies, and economic studies. through these case studies, fox’s work demonstrates that tobacco consumption assumed many roles simultaneously that varied according to temporal, social, and cultural contexts. additionally, the author brings to the forefront the ways in which marginalized groups throughout history have actively participated in shaping their cultural landscapes. in essence, tobacco is a transformative substance that speaks to the varying degrees to which socially constructed categories are enforced, participated in, negotiated, and negated within american communities both past and present. by expanding the academic discourse on pipes beyond diagnostics and dating methods, fox’s book enhances anthropological understandings of the impact of tobacco on american social life and culture. the author contextualizes this study of tobacco consumption within the context of broader economic networks like indigenous trade networks, the transatlantic ‘slave’ trade, and the english economy. consequently, fox has couched the american evolution of tobacco consumption within a global narrative. moreover, by employing historical archaeology as her primary tool of investigation, fox makes clear that historical archaeology is particularly useful for examining the cross-cultural functionality of tobacco consumption in north america and the caribbean. fox’s work is in tandem with some recently produced studies that have focused on similar substances like sugar, coffee, and alcohol. her nuanced approach to the multifaceted history of smoking pipes and tobacco consumption successfully demonstrates that smoking pipes have far more to contribute to archaeological understandings of the american experience than previously assumed. fox’s study of tobacco and smoking is perhaps the most comprehensive study of its kind and would make a great addition to any syllabus. the variety of case studies that fox has included are both informative and entertaining which makes this book well suited for scholars and the general public alike. furthermore, fox’s expansive knowledge of tobacco and smoking pipes makes this a must read for anyone interested in tobacco consumption or smoking pipes. brittany brown is a doctoral candidate in the anthropology department at the college of william and mary. her areas of specialization include the british caribbean and the african american southeast. © 2016 brittany brown 1 musical power and the east-west international diplomacy review by anthony grégoire music and international history in the twentieth century by jessica c. e gienow-hecht, ed berghahn books, 2015 if the idea of interdisciplinarity is increasingly lauded as good scientific practice, the reality is more complicated and interdisciplinary research, in any field, is harder than it seems (borofsky, 2002). in the present case, jessica c.e. gienow-hecht (editor of music and international history in the twentieth century, published in 2015) highlights the same situation in the fields of music and history. within this book, she successfully establishes a dialogue between historians and musicologists with the idea that music – particularly classical music – is not only a musicological object but can even be a powerful tool for historians to understand and narrate the history of international relations in the 20th century. in this vein, contributors to the book were selected among both disciplines according to their respective interests within the related sub-disciplines of history and musicology, and also for their attention to particular concepts and theories the editor decided to highlight – genres (musical), cold war, manipulation, communication, and the state. this book is divided into two sections. the first one, music, international relations, and the absence of the state, brings together the first chapters. chapter 1 (the wicked sisters) explains how music can travel between europe and america without retaining its meaning. presenting the case of the barrisons sisters’ use of sexuality in their burlesque musical performances at the end of the 19th century, david monod demonstrates that even if the musical performance arises from a shared tradition, it is culturally bounded and not necessarily translatable. the author suggests that an international approach can provide a complete portrait of the history and the development of musical reception according to 2 different times and places. in chapter 2 (the international society for contemporary music and its political context (prague, 1935)), anne c. shreffler shows how the decision of the international society for contemporary music (iscm) to keep a neutral position in the particularly high-tensioned political situation between communists and socialists in the context of the rising of fascism is a political act in itself. in fact, the motivation of the iscm to provide an apolitical space of freedom and creativity for modern and contemporary composers obligated itself to “bound” its identity in a distinct social role to avoid the intrusion of party politics in its musical sphere. for the author, this decision of the iscm to take a strong neutral political orientation, articulating international collaboration and artistic freedom, permitted the society to resist party political pressures internationally. thus, shreffler suggests, the idea that music and political spheres could be distinct is not congruent with the reality even if disparities exist between both. the second section, music, international history, and the state, comprises six other chapters (chap. 3 to 8). chapter 3 (music and international relations in occupied germany, 1945-49), by toby thacker, discusses the importance of music in diplomatic relations between the allies in the paradigm shift from physical coercion to cultural persuasion after world war ii. if the focus of the text is on the german musical restructuration program of the allies, the core of the chapter highlights the duality of the program between cultural re-education and denazification which will come to define international relations between america, britain, france, the soviet union and germany. while almost all of the authors of the book examine classical music, thacker is the only one to accord a significant importance to both classical and jazz music, taking them as ideological tools to detach the german working class from its own culture. however, the author affirms popular music was the most powerful tool in germany with which to control people during the beginning of the cold war, an interesting assertion introducing, nonetheless, a potential bias against popular music, which is very difficult to define as the last chapter demonstrates. chapter 4 (instruments of diplomacy. writing music into the history of cold war international relations) is interesting as it portrays music as “soft power” (p. 118) because of its informational function – communicating ideas and values, and its capacity to affect the cultural preference of others and to build complex social relationships. taking classical music performances as a mediator of prestige and a vehicle of social aspirations, danielle fosler-lussier demonstrates that both top-down and bottom-up socio-political relations are involved in the process of constructing international 3 relations, which then accord agency to both citizens of host countries and, in that particular case, the united states. chapter 5 (“to reach… into the hearts and minds of our friends”. the united states’ symphonic tours and the cold war), written by jonathan rosenberg, examines how the united states’ blend of classical music idealism and national self-interest surpasses economical decisions in achieving its geopolitical objectives. although the american plan against communism was to demonstrate that liberal capitalism can be a fertile milieu for the creation of high caliber artistic institutions, it seems to be, the author suggests, more the belief in music’s universality and music’s power to establish a peaceful international order than any political leadership enterprise that was perceived by citizens. on this point, rosenberg mentions that more research into local sources would be necessary to understand the listeners’ experience and perception of the musical element in international relations at this level. in chapter 6 (music diplomacy in an emergency. eisenhower’s “secret weapon”, iceland, 1954-59), emily abrams ansari explains the military conception of music in eisenhower’s official communications to help both articulate cold war power and resistance to it. in this case, the necessity of safeguarding a positive image of the american air force base in iceland required the president to build up a public diplomacy which consisted of “image building” (p. 180), and sharing classical music perceived as non-imperialistic. while it was more the amount of money given to iceland and the timing with the soviets’ announcements that saved the situation for the americans, the use of musical public diplomacy brings the author to see these acts as “smart power” (p. 182), combining the power of coercion and seduction (stick and carrot?) in the same strategy. chapter 7 (intimate histories of the musical cold war. fred prieberg and igor blazhkov’s unofficial diplomacy) was for me the most interesting chapter because of peter j. schmelz’s originality: he brings us into unofficial and personal transnational networks that formed a formidable exchange of information about music thoughts and musical reality between the west and the ussr during 1960s. it is a history of “the inner life [that] both reframes and refines microhistory, while also sounding in counterpoint to grander public histories” (p. 192). in his chapter, schmelz considers actors’ privacy as a potent channel of interconnection for imports and exports of music materials, and a way to obtain a portrait of the larger sociopolitical and aesthetic assumptions in a given political context. here, as a model to observe dynamics at the intersection of music and society, intimate history, through the study of intimate correspondence, he shows that seemingly apolitical music “became politicized to the core, implicated in all sorts of international relations as it was constructed, framed, bought, and sold” (p. 215). 4 in the last chapter (“where i cannot roam, my song will take wing”. polish cultural promotion in belarus, 1988), andrea f. bohlman explains how the festivals of polish song orchestrated different types of international history, one of soft diplomacy behind the events themselves, and a common identity performed through songs. here, under the notion of musical universality were hidden geopolitical intentions and interests integrated in two successive phases of musical normalization between socialist countries (poland, belarus, and soviet union) that led to the redefinition of the different expressions surrounding the word “music”, and to reach musical publics “with a less hardened sound” (p. 234). this chapter shows how constructing a program and setting diverse musical resources across the borders for an international festival of this kind is an illustration of a “multinational understanding of an eastern europe rooted in multinational culture” (p. 245). in sum, while the three first chapters of the volume are not precisely oriented within the cold war context like the others, they do ground our understanding of the use of music as an instrument of diplomacy in an interesting chronological way which i think is very compelling. despite the fact that the book does not have a concluding chapter, the close links between the chapters give the book a general sense of coherence. in fact, the proximity of the different texts is remarkable also by the fact that the authors almost all cite each other, giving the impression of a kind of “collective-styled” monograph on the cold war. i would have liked to see more possibilities or more examples of the instructive use of music in international history in the 20th century which is seemingly not limited to the cold war, or that the book label itself as a consideration of a particular historical period. in this view, i think it is important to underline what gienow-hecht herself wrote in her introduction about ethnomusicologists doing the same kind of research since the 1960 or the like, and to ask, “is there other international relations in the world in the 20th century or so that could (or could not) be observed without focusing on the united states’ own international relations?” for ethnomusicologists’ desire to understand cultures of the world, and since bob w. white (2012) published about the dynamics of globalization, it is clear for me that a book illustrating international diplomatic relations without any word on or about peoples outsiders of the east-west dialectical view present a certain lack of integration of what the editor herself urges to do: “to consider music […] as an instrument of hegemony and resistance; a reflection of identity and protest” (p. 20). always focusing on east and west as the “bringers of international relations”, particularly when associating music and history of international relations seems to reveal a bit of ethnocentrism which is important to leave 5 behind. an interesting point to observe then may be our understanding of international relations in the 20th century as the equivalent of international diplomacy, a (mis)conception restricting the openness of searching fields. international relations can also be seen as a cultural contact that offers other point of analysis that can be missed by the study of diplomacy. notwithstanding this criticism, it should be said that the collective of musicologists and historians presented in this book is a beautiful example of interdisciplinary work “to examine to what extent music and musical events became targets of state control while, at the same time, contributing to the decentering of the state and the transformation of international relations since the 1970s” (p. 20). finally, explorations in culture and international history series seems to promise a great deal to our understanding of international relations, and despite the fact that the editor did not try to include an analysis of culture or of the specificity of western culture, the seventh volume of this series fits perfectly with the editor's intended goals. references cited borofsky, robert. "the four subfields: anthropologists as mythmakers." american anthropologist 104, no. 2 (2002): 463-80. white, bob w. music and globalization: critical encounters. bloomington: indiana university press, 2012. anthony grégoire is a phd candidate in anthropology at the université de montréal, and in ethnomusicology at the école des hautes études en sciences sociales (ehess), paris. his research focuses on the influence of musical symbols and practices of catholic missionaries in senegal and the appropriation of occidental musical practices by the serer-noon, an animist context. © 2017 anthony grégoire 1 heartfelt research review by eric baptiste kisisi (our language): the story of colin and sadiki by perry gilmore wiley-blackwell, 2015 perry gilmore's, kisisi (our language): the story of colin and sadiki, is a detailed investigation of the experience of two boys who, while playing in post-colonial kenya, made their own language. it is also so much more. the book stands in contrast to many of the prevailing theories at the time about the formation of new languages. throughout the book, the author looks critically at linguistic theories of language formation that were prevalent at the time and contrasts them the development of a language between her son colin and his kenyan friend, sadiki. this comparison is used to show how the field of linguistics developed to the point where language creation among children, with no outside help from adults, would be seen as possible. thus, her research adds to the scholarship on language development in children, a research area that is lacking in linguistics literature. although kisisi (our language): the story of colin and sadiki does little to push the field of linguistics further, it does provide a good example of child language creation, which could make the book attractive to introductory students of linguistics. it is unique in its consideration of anthropological concepts such as colonialism, which may make the book interesting to students of anthropology. perry gilmore was a master's student in education at the time of her research. her research focused on language acquisition and developmental psychology at the time that she recorded the interaction between colin and sadiki. since earning her phd, she has written extensively on language and literature acquisition. gilmore's extensive background in linguistics, education and anthropology are quite evident in the book as she refers to numerous well-known names in those fields such as chomski, vygotsky, piaget and others. the comparison of the research to theories at the time lends some 2 academic rigor to a book that takes on a highly narrative form at times. the early sections of the book take the form of recollections which are full of vivid descriptions of the setting and context of post-colonial kenya. the author continues to use a chronological narrative form to describe the kenyan countryside and the people who resided there. she gradually intersperses the story with linguistic analyses of the pidgin which developed between colin and sadiki. by the second chapter, the book takes on the form of a literature review, which compares and contrasts similar examples of spontaneous pidgin language creation among children to the example in the book. the example from the book is presented as an opportunity to pursue research which past scholars wanted to study through forbidden, language deprivation experiments. the third chapter contains most of the linguistic analysis of the language interactions between colin and sadiki and reads more like a paper on linguistics with written examples of spoken interactions between sadiki and colin where they speak their unique pidgin. what is distinctive about this chapter is the context in which the linguistic analysis takes place. the author presents examples of linguistic development through and during play, which speaks to the importance of play as a vehicle for creating language. the fourth chapter is best described as an anthropological and sociolinguistic examination of the context of the creation of the pidgin and how the boys overcame the legacy of a colonial past through the creation of their language. in this chapter, the boys’ confrontation with this legacy is described in detail. the unique bond between the boys is demonstrated through their willingness to remain together, even when the world around them would prefer that they remain apart. anecdotes from colin and sadiki's school life are especially illustrative of the bond between the boys and their struggle against the influence of the colonial past. the fifth chapter presents a more detailed description of the language with lists of words and examples of their usage. in this section, the author does not try to define what constitutes a language versus a creole, but rather, provides ample empirical evidence of spontaneous pidgin formation by children. as a story of life in the post-colonial kenyan countryside, kisisi (our language) is a poignant tale of loss, but also a celebration of a special life. when the writer lets the reader know that colin, the writer's son, is dead at the beginning of the book it is a sorrowful revelation. as the book continues and you see the painstaking details that the writer has kept for all this time, the grief of the situation really comes through. the attention to detail kept throughout the book exemplifies the writer's devotion to her son 3 and the interesting gift that he shared with not only his friend sadiki, but also all the people who got to interact with them. even though there are more recorded examples of language development and pidgin development by children, the way the book is written makes it very moving. kisisi (our language) stands as a good example of spontaneous pidgin formation by children and the author contrasts the work of jean piaget with her observations of colin and sadiki, suggesting that piaget was not correct in this instance and a new theory has to be considered. although the author doesn't really offer a hypothesis for more contemporary beliefs about childhood language development, the spontaneous pidgin formation of colin and sadiki is described in detail. the other reason why kisisi (our language) is a good example of spontaneous pidgin formation by children lies in the comparison of kisisi to other examples of spontaneous pidgin formation. the book does well to compare the events described in the book to other examples of spontaneous pidgin formation by children such as an event where deaf children in nicaragua, who were not receiving mainstream education for deaf children, developed their own pidgin version of nicaraguan sign language. the interactions are also reminiscent of other studies in hawaii where pidgin is sometimes used to resist the influence of an assimilating culture. the author is able to show how the examples are similar while also providing the opportunity for scholars to further explore language development. kisisi (our language): the story of colin and sadiki is not just a story of two boys in the post-colonial kenyan countryside. it is a story that includes language development, socio-linguistic interaction, and anthropological study. the book fits in many genres, which might make it difficult to read at times if the reader is expecting something which is not multi-disciplinary. the book’s descriptive style helps convey its vivid and emotional story – which is clearly meaningful to the writer. kisisi (our language) may not be as groundbreaking for linguists because of the many other examples of childhood language development and pidgin development available to current scholars, but it could be useful to current socio-linguistic scholars and anthropologists who are looking for data on post-colonial language development and the effects of colonialism on language. novice students of linguistics as well as anthropologists will certainly enjoy the mixed narrative style of kisisi (our language): the story of colin and sadiki. eric baptiste has an m.ed from the university of calgary and since earning his degree has been working in the field of 2nd language education. he has conducted research and presented at conferences on topics such as curriculum design and computer assisted language learning. for the 4 past 10 years, he has worked at several japanese primary and secondary schools and is currently a secondary school teacher at an international school in japan. © 2017 eric baptiste urban archaeology and foodways in south carolina review by t. cregg madrigal charleston: an archaeology of life in a coastal community by by martha a. zierden and elizabeth j. reitz university press of florida, 2016 charleston: an archaeology of life in a coastal community summarizes almost half a century of archaeological research in the south carolina city known for its historic buildings and vibrant, tourism-centered downtown. the archaeological program of the charleston museum, founded by elaine herold, began excavating many urban sites in the 1970s, and then, as urban renewal initiatives gathered steam, proposed a citywide archaeological research plan in 1981. the program was funded by the city, nonprofit organizations, private citizens, and federally-mandated cultural resource management projects. authors martha zierden, who succeeded herold at the charleston museum, and elizabeth reitz have excavated, analyzed, and synthesized at least 55 sites or site components in and around charleston, digging when and where opportunity presented itself, mixing small-scale salvage operations, privately funded digs, and large-scale compliance-mandated projects, into a cohesive story of a city. in this book, they envision the city of charleston as a single archaeological site and tell its story “through the lens of foodways” (p. 6) inferred primarily from the analysis of animal bones. the book includes 12 chapters divided into four sections: an introduction to the city and its ecological setting, and three roughly chronological sections spanning the city’s founding in the late seventeenth century up to the end of the nineteenth century. interwoven throughout the book are not only discussions of cattle size, butchery patterns, dinner party menus, and unusual archaeological finds like deer antlers, parrot bones, and horn cores, but also a narrative of how archaeologists and historic preservationists contributed to and benefited from charleston’s renaissance in the twentieth century. charles town was founded in 1670 and moved downriver to its current location ten years later, only changing its name to charleston in 1783. there were diverse settlers, including slaves, among the earliest colonizers. they grew rice and indigo and traded for deerskins and other goods with the native inhabitants. after the american revolution, cotton replaced indigo as a crop, and the number of slaves increased. the economic status of charleston declined after about 1800, as centers of activity in the south shifted. the american civil war began in charleston when confederate troops bombarded fort sumter in april 1861. a massive fire in charleston the following december, unrelated to military activity, devastated much of the city (the book incorrectly states that the fire occurred on “the eve of the civil war” [p. 67]), and later in the war, the city came under siege by union forces. charleston was a diminished city afterwards, and was periodically hit by other natural disasters, including a major earthquake in 1886. many of the city’s architectural resources were preserved through benign neglect, until a blossoming preservation movement in the twentieth century revived the city. now, charleston “remains at the forefront of a complex and evolving preservation movement, one that has embraced urban archaeology” (p. 70). two seventeenth century sites from the original charles town on the ashley river, as well as a nearby plantation, have been excavated, but no archaeological sites within modern charleston dating to the seventeenth century have been found yet. ceramics imported from europe, china, and barbados, and locally produced by native americans and africans ceramics are all present, while cattle, pig, and many wild species comprise the faunal assemblages. by the early eighteenth century, charleston had moved to its present location and constructed a wall to protect the british colonists from the spanish. the city quickly grew beyond the confines of the wall, however, and charleston became one of the wealthiest cities in the colonies by the time of the american revolution. a variety of sites dating to the eighteenth century have been excavated. the largest sample comes from townhouses, many now operated as historic house museums, owned by the wealthy merchants and planters of the city. these buildings, and the yards, outbuildings, and archaeological deposits associated with them, provide a window into life during the late 1700s – a prosperous time for much of charleston. more of the economic history of the city, especially that related to food procurement and distribution, has been revealed by research at parts of the now-buried city wall, associated buildings like the powder magazine, an early theater building, and a tavern. excavation of the beef market was conducted room by room in the basement of the current charleston city hall; the cramped indoor working conditions were alleviated by the availability of air conditioning and fluorescent lights. because different people lived closely together in charleston, it can be difficult to tease apart artifacts associated with specific groups. at the james stobo plantation outside of the city, artifacts illuminate the lives of the wealthy owner and both african and native american slaves who also lived at the site. architectural and landscape evidence at that site, and at the townhome of a slave trader in the city, is interpreted as evidence that some white homeowners modified their houses to incorporate defensive measures out of fear of a rebellion by slaves. artifact assemblages in town illuminate the tea drinking ceremony of the wealthy, the work that went on in the back yards of the houses, and the economic activities of enslaved african americans and others in the urban markets. the authors also draw connections between the charleston sites and mary musgrove’s trading post and cowpen, located in georgia, which supplied cattle and deerskins to the city. charleston’s economic growth slowed early in the nineteenth century. there were still plenty of wealthy planters, however, and archaeologists and architectural historians, informed in part by pollen analysis, have identified a reorganization of outside and inside spaces to segregate and control slaves, especially after the denmark vessey insurrection of 1822. in the first half of the century, water and sanitation needs were handled, often inadequately, by households. at the sanders house, an unusual floor paved with cow toe bones, possibly to promote drainage, was uncovered by archaeologists prior to construction of a swimming pool. brick drains, wells, and cisterns are found at most residential sites, and “a large part of yard maintenance involved keeping chickens and pigs out of the garden, cats out of the well, and rats out of the pantry” (p. 248). meanwhile, “charleston eagles” (i.e., buzzards) did their part to keep the city clean by scavenging refuse from the markets. after the civil war, the responsibility for road, water, sewer, and garbage was gradually assumed by the local government, resulting in improvements in sanitation but a reduction in the opportunity for artifacts to enter the archaeological record. the book is addressed to a general, rather than specialist audience, but will be most appreciated by historical archaeologists looking for an overview of urban archaeology in a southern context. site descriptions and details of finds are necessarily abbreviated, but the book is supplemented by six appendices, including artifacts and faunal remains summarized for the city as a whole (subdivided by time period, but not by individual site), which is consistent with the authors’ idea of thinking of the entire city as a single archaeological site. fortunately, one of the appendices is a list of published reports for each site, which should make it easy for other researchers to track down the original references (reports produced by the charleston museum can be downloaded from their website). while slavery and how it is manifest in the archaeological record is discussed throughout the book, the civil war itself does not get much attention, and there is no discussion specifically of reconstruction and its aftermath. overall, charleston: an archaeology of life in a coastal community is a very good summary of historical archaeology in the city up to a.d. 1900, with a rare emphasis on the animal bones. most fascinating is how the book documents how collaboration among professional archaeologists, the charleston museum, the city, nonprofits, and private owners, created a long-term, successful urban archaeology and historic preservation program that has been a major factor in charleston’s renaissance in the late twentieth century. t. cregg madrigal is a professional archaeologist who specializes in north american archaeology, zooarchaeology, and cultural resource management. he received his ph.d. in anthropology from rutgers university. © 2018 t. cregg madrigal 1 1 visions of care in a time of medical multiplicity review by emma louise backe medicine in the meantime: the work of care in mozambique by ramah mckay duke university press, 2018 ramah mckay’s ethnography opens on a demonstration—a group of doctors marching out of maputo’s central hospital protesting low wages and government malaise in the public health sector. the tableau of striking doctors in mozambique’s capital illustrates health as a fertile site of contestation in the country, one fraught by transnational flows of money, political instability, chronic illness, and differential social and economic investments in care across nongovernmental and governmental interventions. medicine in the meantime: the work of care in mozambique (2018) is concerned with the tensions embedded in mozambique’s health system across institutions, clinicians, volunteers, and patients. yet the contestations over care negotiated and structured between nongovernmental organizations (ngos) and public health platforms are rarely as visible as the picketing doctors in maputo. nor are the boundaries between transnational biomedicine and public health care easily parsed—instead, medicine in the meantime dwells in the in-between, the systems of medical multiplicity emblematic of 21st-century entanglements between the local and the global, and the shifting terrain of support amidst changing notions of governmental responsibility and humanitarian longevity. situated around two fieldsites—clínica 2 and the global children’s health fund (gcf)—under the auspices of the international center for health care (ichc), mckay’s ethnography traces the competing visions of care for patients in mozambique within a health system marked by institutional multiplicity, complicated political legacies, and economic uncertainty. mckay’s concerns with changing public health and transnational medical regimes will be familiar to those acquainted with critical medical anthropology in africa—the improvisational nature of medicine (livingstone 2012); the contradictory temporal dimensions of international assistance and prolonged illness; and the co2 constitution of diagnoses and patient-citizenship. the challenge and strength of mckay’s ethnography is situating care within such a mutable space, employing ethnographic mobility to analyze the various domains that health workers, clinicians, psychologists, and volunteers inhabit. medicine in the meantime is marked by edgework (nguyen and moyer 2017), the borders of biomedicine and care that bleed into one another. how does the co-existence of governmental and non-governmental health programming in mozambique create alternative mandates of care which account for one another’s shortcomings, while reifying exclusive categories of vulnerability and dependency? the introduction begins to map out the complicated history of international involvement in mozambique following a long period of conflict, after which time transnational and humanitarian actors inhabited crucial roles in restructuring the country’s economy and health system. mozambique’s status as “donor darling” helps to contextualize the out-sized presence of ngo global health investments in the country, as well as highlight the political legacies that continue to inform public health reform. the structuring force of mozambique’s history of colonialism, socialism, and humanitarian intervention is woven throughout the book, a seam that pokes through most evidently in chapter three when discussing food aid for returning refugees. chapter one starts at the global children’s health fund (gcf), a european development organization in morrumbala working on community and child-based health issues. while the ngo provides support to chronic illness patients and their families, the space represents a critical site for investigating entanglement, “how humanitarian and public forms of government come to be at work, together but unequally, in projects of making community health” (mckay 2018, 31). care in this context is contingent on exceptional circumstances and illness categories, a politics of inclusion and exclusion embodied by paula—the widow of a patient who recently passed away from hiv complications. one of the gcf volunteers advocates for the organization to provide a food basket to paula and her children, only to find resistance from his superiors due to the uncertainty of paula’s hiv status. the justifications used to provide assistance depend on particularized forms of vulnerability, rather than need, within the community. this dissidence between vulnerability as a medical category, and need as a matter of impoverishment or socioeconomic status is continuously negotiated by volunteers throughout the book as they encounter the limits of ngo assistance, as well as the technologies used to constitute the criteria for care. chapter two goes on to explore how communities of care are established and mobilized by ngos, relying on the labor of provincial volunteers. despite ngo dependence on community health 3 volunteers, the remuneration process for home-based care replicates cycles of exclusion. while volunteers are encouraged to build a sense of social cohesion and responsibility within their “therapeutic communities,” much of their work is unpaid. instead, volunteers are motivated by a desire to help their communities, learn the local landscape of aid, and develop connections that will hopefully lead to more professional opportunities. the system represents yet another edge in models of medical multiplicity, in which modes of reliance between volunteers, ngos, and communities, are rarely reciprocal. the transnational exchange through finances, social capital, and medication emphasizes care as a relational practice routed through ambiguously positioned actors. moving from the relationship between volunteers and ngos, chapters three and four address the ways that food baskets, as individualized aid, are instead redeployed for social and economic purposes within at-risk communities. diagnostic categories of vulnerability articulate with the metabolic demands of anti-retroviral treatment (arv’s), such that food assistance is available only to a select few who qualify under humanitarian criteria. the various indices used to determine eligibility for food support focus on medical hunger rather than incidents of poverty or unemployment, ignoring structural violence as an integral component of health. the short duration of food assistance is intended to decrease dependency, improve economic productivity, and reinforce the temporality of ngo support under a thoroughly neoliberal model of care. but mckay is careful to show how food basket recipients resist these restraints, elevating the importance of financial survival and collective hardship to rework nutritional benefits for their own needs. chapters five and six investigate the diagnostic and documentary domains provoked by nongovernmental involvement. the presence of a psychology office at clínica 2 further complicates patients’ hierarchy of needs—the practice of counselling serves as another dimension through which to monitor clients, improve clinic attendance, and ensure adherence. indeed, psychosocial support in an african context serves as one more node to illustrate the “micropolitics” of work in the clinic—the professional opportunities and hierarchies between psychologists, their patients, and transnational staff. psychologists and other clinicians conduct intake interviews and other documentary practices to standardize care and improve hiv treatment, with the result of increasing the managerial demands on clinical staff and complicating the treatment process for patients. while these additional administrative and affective armatures of care were intended to enhance transparency and surveillance, paperwork serves as yet another therapeutic obstacle patients have to navigate. 4 medicine in the meantime provides personalized insights into how individuals slip between the various subject positions elicited by transnational governance, exploiting moments of multiplicity while decrying the limitations of care such international aid provides. for all of mckay’s analytical and narrative artistry in the aporia of aid, the book would benefit from more careful definitional delineation of what is meant by public health, humanitarianism, and transnational intervention—both to highlight moments of slippage between the paradigms and inform readers still new to the occupational distinctions. the mutable landscape of health in mckay’s mozambican networks also serves to reflect upon the role of ethnography in public health practices, the techniques of listening and care that anthropologists can provide. ethnographic presence in global health spaces, whether through theoretical interventions or participant-observation, creates its own critical contours. this “social life of critique in the field” (mckay 2017, 197) leads to the very multiplicity, and differential production of knowledge medicine in the meantime investigates. works cited: livingstone, julie. 2012. improvising medicine: an african oncology ward in an emerging cancer epidemic. durham: duke university press. mckay, ramah. 2018. medicine in the meantime: the work of care in mozambique. durham: duke university press. moyer, eileen and vinh-kim nguyen. 2017. “edgework in medical anthropology.” medicine anthropology theory. http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/9840/edgework-in-medical-anthropology emma louise backe is a phd student in george washington university’s anthropology department. specializing in medical anthropology, with a certificate in global gender policy, her work focuses on practices of care among survivors of gender-based violence. emma has worked in the global health sector, focusing on chronic illnesses like hiv/aids and non-communicable diseases (ncd’s), with organizations like usaid, the international center for research on women, and the peace corps. © 2018 emma louise backe http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/9840/edgework-in-medical-anthropology 1 globalization of the local: agency, shifting identities, and a community that sticks together review by sarah leiter mixtec evangelicals: globalization, migration, and religious change in a oaxacan indigenous group by mary i. o’connor university press of colorado, 2016 like many other groups in latin america, the indigenous mixtec people of oaxaca, mexico have been catholic for centuries. and like many other groups in latin america, the mixtec people have become less catholic in recent decades. although an adherence to catholicism historically has shaped the mixtec system of governance, patterns of economic exchange, and social interactions in daily life, many mixtec individuals recently have converted to evangelical streams of christianity. mary i. o’connor’s mixtec evangelicals explores the socioeconomic factors influencing this trend, arguing that globalization and corresponding economically motivated migration have given rise to this religious conversion among members of the community. her multi-sited comparative study contributes to a growing collection of literature on ongoing religious change across latin america. o’connor presents a macrocosmic view of contemporary mixtec villages, situating them as nodes in a network of mixtec migration sparked by globalization. in doing so, she places the phenomenon of evangelical conversion in latin america within its broader socioeconomic context. she demonstrates that while the local consequences of conversion vary from village to village, its causes are closely intertwined with broad global trends. mixtec evangelicals thus provides a necessary analysis of intersections between global processes and local experiences that is highly relevant as the emerging effects of contemporary globalization continue to unfold. 2 the book begins with an overview of the “mixteca region” in oaxaca and highlights the established role of catholicism in what o’connor refers to as mixtec “traditional culture.” most mixtec villages are governed by the usos y costumbres system in which each resident family is required to contribute to and participate in civil and religious duties, including the sponsoring and planning of fiestas honoring catholic saints. it is this civil-religious system, o’connor argues, that allows the communities to stay intact. before mixtecs began converting in the 1980s, it would not have made sense to separate the civil from the religious in mixtec communities; being mixtec meant being catholic, and fulfilling responsibilities within the local system of governance often meant carrying out catholic practices. in more recent decades, many mixtecs who have become evangelical christians have faced rejection in and from their home villages. for these reasons, as o’connor points out, it is extraordinary that many mixtecs have moved away from catholicism yet have maintained both their mixtec identity and, to varying extents, their participation in village life. though these villages generally remain central to the lives of migrants even after they convert away from catholicism, the catholics living in the villages are often unwilling (to varying extents) to fully accept evangelicals upon their return. while the migrants continue both to recognize the villages as their ancestral homelands and to financially support family members still living there, local catholics often view the evangelicals’ rejection of catholicism as a threat to the perpetuation of their community. despite this conflict, when mixtecs move to other parts of mexico and throughout the united states, they remain rooted in their home villages both through processes of social identification and through financial obligations to their families. the book’s second chapter provides a convincing critique of contemporary thoughts about globalization. o’connor points out that although the phenomenon has introduced amenities such as cellphones to the communities and often has made potable water more accessible, mixtecs and many other groups should be conceived of as “victims” of globalization. because of international trade agreements like nafta, mixtecs can no longer profitably sell their agricultural crops and thus are forced to migrate elsewhere to find employment. of course, as is reflected throughout the entire book, globalization affects the lives of its victims in ways that extend far beyond available income sources. in the case of the mixtecs, it affects where they live, which affects their religious commitments. this, in turn, affects their social relations with their families and home communities, the ways in which they spend money, the social practices in which they engage, and, in some cases, the structural organization 3 of their home villages. in the same chapter, o’connor also challenges notions of indigeneity or the “traditional” as static. she frames mixtecs as inhabiting “selective modernities,” as able to maintain their indigenous mixtec-ness while simultaneously choosing to incorporate certain elements of modernity into their lives. because mixtec practices and systems, which are so integrally defined by catholicism, have persisted despite the increasingly common turn away from catholicism, mixtecs must be regarded as modern, adaptable, and agentive rather than as inflexible and stuck in a former epoch. the core of the book consists of a comparative study of different mixtec villages in which members have converted away from catholicism. it illustrates the varying reactions evangelical converts have faced in their home villages and emphasizes that each village has managed its newfound religious diversity in different ways. these varying reactions are presented as correlated with quantitative data: in general, greater numbers of non-catholics in a given village is correlated with increased amicability, while a smaller but still significant presence of non-catholics is correlated with increased animosity. through this comparative approach, o’connor importantly conveys the heterogeneity of mixtec villages, illuminating how a single current of religious change has had very different effects across villages. finally, o’connor argues that the newly transnational character of the mixtec population has produced a mixtec diaspora in other parts of mexico and in the united states. as such, the book provides a window into the ways in which a diasporic community sustains its cohesion and connection to its homeland in today’s globalized world. interestingly, the mixtec diaspora maintains its ties to the oaxacan villages in part through the use of cellphones, devices that index modernity-driven globalization—the very phenomenon that engendered their dispersion in the first place. o’connor acknowledges that the longevity of this diaspora will depend upon the extent to which future generations maintain a relationship with their ancestral villages in oaxaca; such a development, as she notes, would be an interesting subject for future study. o’connor places migration, caused by ever-changing global economic realities, at the center of her proposed explanation for religious conversion. while in the migrant stream, mixtecs encounter evangelical missionaries who offer gifts, free food, and religious leadership in a place far removed from 4 the structured catholicism of village life. however, beyond arguing that globalization-induced migration offers a setting ripe for conversion, o’connor does not provide an analysis of why, in fact, mixtecs might abandon what she presents as so integral to mixtec life. if being mixtec meant, until recently, being catholic, why have so many mixtecs rejected catholicism yet faithfully remained mixtec? beyond relocation to areas where evangelism has a more powerful presence than catholicism, what has inspired so many mixtecs to give up a religious adherence that seems so crucial to their identities? though o’connor poses similar questions, her answers rely heavily on macro-social trends and only minimally consider individuals’ experiences. she uses the intentionally broad label “noncatholic,” for example, as the term “protestant” is uncommon, but she does not address how newly evangelical mixtecs refer to themselves affirmatively. though it is useful to point to religious conversion as a broader trend, the ways in which it has manifested in individuals’ lives warrants a stronger focus than they are given in o’connor’s work. in addition, although o’connor argues that mixtecs select the components of modernity they wish to adopt, the actual extent of their agency in this regard should be called into question. if mixtecs are among the groups she calls “victims” of globalization and modernizing processes, as they are forced into the migration stream to find work, to what extent are they actually sovereign over their own relations to modernity? they can, of course, choose to use cellphones or to uphold non-modern forms of local governance, but the global drive toward modernity, as o’connor presents it, has transformed mixtec communities in ways beyond the control of the individual or even of village leadership. whereas mixtec life was historically built around catholic practices and village obligations that were fulfilled in person and without financial remuneration, the mixtec community in the contemporary globalized world has become religiously diverse, transnational, and increasingly reliant on money. thus it seems that mixtecs’ entire lives have been affected by modernity, regardless of whether they are “selecting” modern changes. in short, mixtec evangelicals presents an engaging macro-social analysis of some of the local effects of globalization. it ventures beyond a consideration of globalization’s socioeconomic consequences, drawing attention to its ripple effects on religious identification and intra-communal conflict. it is an anthropological work that would be of interest to, in addition to anthropologists, geographers and economists who study the effects of globalization on communities. as the religious makeup of latin america continues to shift, the book can help point to the causes underlying these trends. mixtec 5 evangelicals thus makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the ways in which global changes reshape communities both locally and transnationally. work cited o’connor, mary i. 2016. mixtec evangelicals: globalization, migration, and religious change in a oaxacan indigenous group. boulder: university press of colorado. sarah leiter is a phd student in the department of anthropology at the university of new mexico. she is currently a foreign language and area studies fellow studying brazilian portuguese. her research interests include language, religion, and emerging religious communities in brazil. © 2017 sarah leiter who “counts”?: how numbering defines who matters (and who decides) review by rebecca nelson who counts?: the mathematics of death and life after genocide by diane m. nelson duke university press, 2015 careful accounting has been used to implicate the vice president and president of guatemala in the activities of an embezzlement ring known as “la linea.” every day the number of protesters in the streets grows, and their sheer quantity has driven the vice president into resigning and provoked the business community into renouncing the president. the force of counting and accounting in (re)creating social worlds resonates powerfully in diane nelson’s new book, who counts?: the mathematics of death and life after genocide. nelson plays with the idea that if indigenous people could only “count more” (become numerate) they would “count more” (matter to the authorities). in addition to these differential valuations, the book also examines “who counts,” in the sense of the institutions that collect and utilize data, and the “counter counters,” those who use numbers to combat the dehumanization of victims. rather than viewing quantitative thinking simplistically as either factual or dehumanizing, nelson seeks to take a genealogical, epistemological, and institutional approach to the act of counting, which naturally raises questions of categorization and membership. a key concept for nelson is “adequation,” the act of trying to make abstract numbers commensurate with material reality. she links it to gayatri spivak’s (1987) term “super-adequation,” the process of defining people by their ability to produce more than they need for themselves. that extractable surplus can convert a group of people into a resource to be exploited, a process that nelson decries. this book is the third entry in what nelson calls her “genocide trilogy” (279), following a finger in the wound: body politics in quincentennial guatemala (1999) and reckoning: the ends of war in guatemala (2009), with each taking a more expansive ethnographic and theoretical approach than the last. it struck me as an interesting choice for a famously logocentric scholar like diane nelson to focus on numbers. while words are generally considered creative and personal, she notes that it is jarring to think of numbers that way. the book is divided into four sections. the first, “when you count you begin with 1, 2, 3,” comprises chapters minus one and zero (a playful affectation in the table of contents that epitomizes nelson’s iconoclastic style). here, “ethnomathematics” are defined as systems of calculation identified with a distinct ethnic group, the way we associate the classic maya with the independent discovery of the concept of zero. in an admittedly “quick and dirty run” (17) through history, nelson reviews literature suggesting that the mechanical model of the world as a set of interlocking parts that can be separated and reorganized coincided with the increasing individuation of society. the ability to note gains supported the growth of a culture of accumulation. in this section, nelson emphasizes that numbers are a human institution invested with meaning that are manipulated, invoked, and contested. the second section, “bonesetting,” refers to the etymology of the word “algebra,” which comes from the arabic word al-jabr for bone setting or, more generally, restoring broken parts. in the guatemalan genocide, the government targeted and killed non-indigenous people as individual units, whereas it killed indigenous people as aggregates. at the same time, the mass effect of indigenous groups’ numbers can also give them strength in protests. this section focuses on scenes from the efforts to prove that genocide occurred in guatemala, including la verbena, an ossuary in a public cemetery where forensic anthropologists are slowly reuniting the scattered bones of missing people and the national police archive, where calculations of the volume of messages are being used to make the case that senior officials had prior and constant knowledge of the acts being carried out in their name. math is used in defining whether genocide took place in projecting the percentage of the population that would have died naturally and determining whether the difference between actual and projected deaths is significant. this section veers into a discussion of traditional mayan counting systems, which are rich sources of information about social valuation. the count differs depending on what is being counted: adult humans are marked grammatically in a way that objects and preverbal children (foreign anthropologists) are not. mayan counting is also progressive, in the sense that rather than counting something already completed, they mark the next number to which the count is progressing. nelson argues that, just as algebra is meant to repair a broken equation, reparations for state violence are meant to rectify a situation of imbalance. however, the money from reparations is seen as blood money that absolves the government for its atrocities, stains recipients with the appearance of financial interest in victimhood, and imbues any use of the money with the stink of death. one woman took the government’s check as evidence, finally, that she was not guilty for allowing the army to forcibly take and murder her son, and kept it uncashed on an altar. rape reparations were particularly controversial because of the stigma of rape; nelson writes that accepting a payment in compensation for rape can “turn a victim into a whore. what else is a woman who accepts money for sex?” (114). her macabre sense of humor (for example, one section is entitled “it takes a pillage”) risks coming off as flippant – she recognizes that reckoning with something as unfathomable as mass murder can be “simultaneously horrible and funny” (102) – but her long-term commitment to guatemalan struggles for equality shines clearly through every anecdote. the most ethnographically rich section, for me, was “mayan pyramids,” which brings together the stories of two pyramid schemes: the multi-level marketing structure of nutrition brand omnilife and a classic ponzi con job. nelson struggled with her own discomfort at a long-term friend’s transition from working for a bilingual education advocacy organization, work that anthropologists find understandable and laudable, to hawking expensive vitamin supplements. skeptical of the claims she heard from her friend and other community members about omnilife’s spectacular curative properties, nelson nonetheless came to recognize it as fitting into the medical pluralism common to people who are marginalized within formal healthcare systems. her participants also viewed omnilife sales as very “maya” because the company’s complicated sales networks and motivational workshops reinforce the sense that health is social and provide a space for people to remake themselves in the aftermath of war. however, she argues that the exquisitely complex structure of percentage earnings based on hierarchical position within the organizational pyramid make it difficult for the vendors to calculate their earnings accurately, and that there may be other incalculable losses as vendors deploy their social capital to sell vitamins. the second pyramid in this section refers to the near-lynching in 2008 of a mysterious figure known as el millonario. his “mayan development project” (which he initially described as international aid and subsequently as a form of divine benevolence) provoked a cult-like bubble of unfettered investment that left entire villages in debt the final section, “yes to life = no to mining,” focuses on the accounting used in the public consultations for international mining projects, both by the proponents, who left many people lacking formal government identification out of the count, and the opponents, who repeat the calculation that “98% said no” in their anti-mining activism. quantification is also used to document the deleterious effects of mining, such as arsenic levels in the water. the chapter on mayan activism plays with the concept of “resistance,” which can be both electrical and social. nelson was nonplussed that, in the face of violent suppression of anti-mining activism, mayan activists testifying in the people’s tribunal of 2008 focused on the failings of the national electrical infrastructure. however, she rationalizes this claim for equal access to the new global “currency,” the electrical current that powers internet access, by relating it to the use of ancient mayan knowledge as a source of power. reading this book provoked the same question i often have with diane nelson’s work: is clever wordplay equivalent to advancing anthropological theory? i began maintaining a running pun count but i quickly lost track; a few notable words whose multiple meanings are teased out include: • count: “to number”/count: “to matter or have value” • mangle: “an antique iron used to smooth clothes”/mangle: “to deform or maim” • qualify: “antonym of quantify”/qualify: “to be eligible” the book flits restlessly from example to example, drawing tenuous connections between concepts and cases through (often coincidental) conjunctions in the meaning of terms. at times, these can become strained; for example, the page-long technical description of electrical resistance pertains to nothing but a slight metaphor for social resistance to oppression. this leads to my biggest critique of the book: ultimately, while who counts? is entertaining, nuanced, ethnographically grounded, and thought-provoking, any substantial contributions to the anthropological literature on guatemala or quantification it might make are frustratingly slippery. despite these concerns, i highly recommend the book to anyone interested in guatemala, post-genocidal reconstruction, environmental justice movements, or the social embeddedness of economic rationality. references cited spivak, gayatri chakravorty 1987. “scattered speculations on the question of value.” in in other worlds: essays in cultural politics. london: routledge, 212–43. rebecca nelson recently graduated with a ph.d. in cultural anthropology from the university of connecticut. her research focuses on volunteer tourism in guatemala and how it is opening up new avenues for tourists and hosts to develop more cosmopolitan understandings of the world (as well as creating new forms of friction over the circulation of knowledge). she is also examining how nongovernmental organizations encourage guatemalan women's participation in the public sphere. © 2015 rebecca nelson 1 pharmaceutical markets in india: questioning "monopoly" review by stefan ecks pharmocracy: value, politics, and knowledge in global biomedicine by kaushik sunder rajan duke university press, 2017 in pharmacracy, thomas szasz (2001) writes against the appropriation of medicine as a tool of politics. critical awareness should be fostered against all forms of medicalization and against state control of health. in pharmocracy, william faloon (2011) argues that the us healthcare market suffers from inflated prices because the fda approval system is inefficient and needlessly restrictive. a radically freemarket approach to pharmaceutical regulation and pricing would, he contends, lead to better health outcomes overall. in turn, kaushik sunder rajan's pharmocracy (2017) "coins" the same term to argue that multinational pharmaceutical companies should be prevented from establishing "hegemony": "pharmocracy is a term i coin to refer to the global regime of hegemony of the multinational pharmaceutical industry" (p. 6). the "appropriation by health by capital" (p. 7) should be stopped. the state should not retreat, instead he wants "democratic politics to seize the state" (p. 242; which "state" is not quite clear). despite the general subtitle ("value, politics, and knowledge in global biomedicine"), the book is focused on india, the world's largest democracy and one of the world's largest producers of generic medications. sunder rajan's rephrasing of "pharmocracy" is a critique of multinational companies (mncs) trying to establish market hegemony in india. pharmocracy is less an examination of political processes than a critique of monopoly capitalism. the great monopolists here are multinational pharmaceutical companies. by "multinational," sunder rajan does not mean any company that operates in several countries with strategies for global market reach, but only companies based in "euro-america." mncs 2 that are headquartered in india are not considered multinational. this is in line with how the term "multinationals" is popularly used, yet it sits oddly with the fact that most of the big indian pharmaceutical companies have also gone "multinational" in the past decade: ranbaxy, drl, lupin, and cadila have all expanded far beyond india. according to sunder rajan, indian pharmaceutical companies exemplify a different logic of capital altogether, one that is not focused on monopoly but on a "postcolonial nationalist free market" (p. 154). sunder rajan holds that the euro-american mncs' "end game" (p. 158) is eliminating all competitors within a particular market. securing patents is only a means to an end. however, it is quite clear that "monopoly" is not the final goal either, but profits and shareholder value. monopolies secured through patents are just one means to maximize profits, even in euro-american markets. recent high-profile controversies, such as turing pharmaceuticals' price hike of daraprim (a generic drug), show that pricing can be greedy without hegemony or patents (deangelis 2016). sunder rajan discusses the capitalist appropriation of health as if discovering a profit motive in a for-profit industry was a radical insight. striving for "monopoly" through patents is also hardly a new trait of the pharmaceuticals industry, yet the book does not deal in depth with changing legal, political, and regulatory opportunities for companies to be able to establish monopolies. sunder rajan has conducted a number of interviews for this book, yet most of the evidence for his two case studies (a clinical trial for a hpv vaccine and novartis' attempt to get a patent for its anticancer drug glivec) comes from published scholarship and grey literature, such as court documents. the hpv vaccine story on merck's gardasil has already been featured widely, both in popular news media as well as in major science journals such as the lancet, science, and nature (e.g., larson, brocard & garrett 2010; bagla 2013; kumar & butler 2013). however, sunder rajan's sources are not sufficiently referenced in the book. the vaccine trial story, while noteworthy as a study in how a clinical trial can fail, does not illustrate the "pharmocracy" argument well. what emerges is not the hegemonic rule of multinational companies in india, but a messy implementation of existing standards and, at worst, an attempt by mncs to get their drugs inserted into public health programs. sunder rajan repeatedly insists that there was a "scandalous" misconduct in the vaccine trial, leading to the death of a number of participants, but then deflates his allegations by saying that no clear links between vaccines and these fatalities had ever been established (p. 79). 3 the glivec story, which takes up two full chapters, has also been told before. that novartis' court case for a glivec patent in india was about anti-evergreening provisions in the indian patent law (section 3d), or that novartis' goal was not to profit from glivec sales in india but to protect its extremely lucrative sales in europe and north america, has all been said a while ago (ecks 2008). an interview with an indian hematologist adds details to how novartis' glivec patient access program (gipap) was implemented, but confirms what we already know about the glivec case. it is not without irony that pharmocracy attacks corporations for making existing products look innovative in order to win market hegemony. references cited bagla, pallava. "indian parliament comes down hard on cervical cancer trial." science, sep. 9, 2013. (http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/09/indian-parliament-comes-down-hard-cervical-cancer-trial) kumar, sanjay & butler, declan. "calls in india for legal action against us charity." nature news, september 9, 2013 (doi:10.1038/nature.2013.13700) deangelis, catherine d. "big pharma profits and the public loses." the milbank quarterly 94 (2016): 30–33. ecks, stefan. "global pharmaceutical markets and corporate citizenship: the case of novartis’ anticancer drug glivec." biosocieties 3(2) (2008): 165-181. faloon, william. pharmocracy: how corrupt deals and misguided medical regulations are bankrupting america and what to do about it. mount jackson: praktikos books, 2011. larson, h., brocard, p., & garnett, g. "the india hpv-vaccine suspension". the lancet 376(9741) (2010): 572-573. szasz, thomas s. pharmacracy: medicine and politics in america. westport, conn: praeger, 2001. 4 stefan ecks, ma, dea, phd, is a co-founder of the medical anthropology programme at the university of edinburgh. he has carried out ethnographic fieldwork on health, healing, and medicine in india since 1999. a focus of his work are pharmaceutical uses, psychiatric practices, as access to health care for poorer people. recent publications include eating drugs: psychopharmaceutical pluralism in india (2013). © 2017 stefan ecks 1 an ethnographic entrance review by christine sargent lissa: a story about medical promise, friendship, and revolution written by sherine hamdy and coleman nye illustrated by sarula bao and caroline brewer lettering by marc parenteau university of toronto press, 2018 lissa: a story about medical promise, friendship, and revolution does not resemble a traditional ethnographic publication, but it definitely qualifies as a page-turner. written by sherine hamdy and coleman nye, with illustrations by sarula bao and caroline brewer and lettering by marc parenteau, lissa is the first installment in the university of toronto press’s new series, ethnographic. utilizing the potential and appeal of the graphic novel, the series hopes to promote more collaborative, creative forms of anthropological scholarship. in his foreword, george marcus describes lissa as an act of transduction, conveying his own enthusiasm for the generative capacities of the project (11). lissa follows the intersecting lives of anna and layla, using their friendship to explore how individuals embody health, illness, agency, and chance in contexts of structural inequality and social injustice. anna’s father is an american oil executive stationed in egypt, while layla’s father, abu hassan, works as the bawab (doorman) in the building where anna’s family lives. the novel is split into three parts, cairo, five years later, and revolution. part i sets the scene in pre-revolution egypt, depicting an immensely urbanized and socially stratified landscape. we learn early on that anna’s mother has cancer, and by the end of part i she succumbs to the disease. as they mourn their loss, anna turns to her father and asks, “do you think it runs in our family?” (57). this lingering question sets up the central tension for anna’s story in the subsequent sections. 2 in part ii, layla is studying at university to become a doctor while grappling with her father’s diagnosis of end-stage kidney disease. her brother ahmed has also been deported from a construction job in saudi arabia due to his status as hepatitis c-positive. anna, who attends university in boston, reluctantly sits in on a genetics class that eventually leads her to a cancer and genetics prevention program. after arguing with her father about the merits of genetic testing, she pays out of pocket and receives confirmation that she carries a brca1 mutation. while anna contemplates the meaning and implications of this information, visiting a local “previvors” group to think through her options, the story switches back to layla. making the rounds, layla’s privileged medical school classmates denigrate the “ignorant peasants” for not seeking treatments quickly enough and refusing certain procedures (94-95). layla’s own parents reject their children’s offers to donate a kidney to the ailing abu hassan. their mother challenges the notion of a “low-risk” procedure in egypt’s toxic and insecure environment, and transplantation disrupts the proper flow of life “from the old to the young” (108). their father, in turn, argues that god creates the human body whole and complete. this means that a kidney is not something that one can choose to give away. anna returns to cairo and cannot grasp why layla’s family does not more fully embrace the transplant as a potential solution. layla, in turn, is horrified to learn that anna is considering a prophylactic double mastectomy. each friend, facing different circumstances and constraints, draws boundaries between healing and harm that the other struggles to understand. part iii begins with anna recovering from surgery and flying to cairo to mourn the passing of layla’s father. she curls up with her childhood friend, and they sit together, transfixed by the laptop screen as they read reports of an egyptian man setting himself on fire outside parliament in cairo. layla catches sight of ana’s scars and assumes that she is battling cancer, unaware she chose to pursue the preventive surgery. political events continue to ramp up, and layla solemnly tells anna, “we have to make sure that what happened to khaled said/ … never happens again” (165). layla goes to tahrir square on january 25, and the next eight pages are filled with sights and sounds from key moments and turning points during the first weeks of the revolution. the local and global politics of sickness and suffering are present throughout lissa, often represented through image and indirect reference. in part iii, the complexity of these embodied politics become more pointed. anna’s presence causes visible upset at a rally, and ahmed argues she has no right to 3 participate in the revolution, given the united states government’s role in creating and enabling the mubarak regime. the story also depicts various forms of injury inflicted on protesters, situating both the resulting medical crises and the actions of first responders within a broader political economy of state violence and unequal resource distribution. at its close, the narrative arc summons a hesitant optimism, but it also maintains a poignant lack of resolution to the characters’ stories and the issues they face. hence the fitting title of lissa, which we learn in the front matter is a colloquial arabic term meaning, “there’s still time, not yet.” lissa is an eminently teachable text, and it was clearly designed with the classroom in mind. the afterword, written by cartoonist and comic instructor paul karasik, discusses the relationship between artistic choices and character and narrative development. appendix one offers a helpful timeline of the revolution, while appendix two features interviews with hamdy, nye, and parenteau. appendix three provides instructors with group discussion questions and thought exercises. in addition to the timeline, appendix four identifies key readings and multimedia resources on the revolution, cancer and genetics, organ transplantation, and comics and medicine. the back matter is further buttressed by a website (http://lissagraphicnovel.com/) and documentary film on the production process. given its readability, lissa will generate discussions on both content and form at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and it can be used in methods courses across the board. in her critical discussion of “academic tourism,” for instance, nye explains their decision to use the names and likenesses of real people, in addition to the work of known graffiti artists, in order to recognize the efforts and labor of egyptian activists and intellectuals during and after the revolution (274). a fictionalized text that interweaves the long-term research engagements of both authors, lissa easily and compellingly transcends area studies and topical designations. lissa provides a bridge between different modes of thinking, doing, and representing anthropology. one need only visit the society for visual anthropology’s website to note that this is part of an ongoing disciplinary push to expand beyond the monograph and text-dominated forms of knowledge production and dissemination (errington 2018). the novel may also generate discussions in other disciplines about the contributions that ethnographic research can make to the wider world of graphic novels (singh 2018). lissa will start conversations in the classroom and beyond, among students and colleagues (the book has already generated several online forums and features), and i eagerly await the 4 next installments in the ethnographic series. works cited: errington, shelly. 2018. “lissa and the graphic novel form: an appreciation.” anthropology now: 9 (3). routledge: 136–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2017.1391040. singh, parismita. 2018. “lissa: a review.” second spear. http://medanthroquarterly.org/2018/03/19/lissa-a-review/ © 2018 christine sargent 1 following human hair to unexpected places: a review of emma tarlo’s engtanglement: the secret lives of hair review by jenn porter-lupu entanglement: the secret lives of hair by emma tarlo oneworld publications, 2016 “had i become a hair fetishist?” emma tarlo asks herself and her reader only eleven pages into her captivating, strange, exciting, and surprising new book, entanglement: the secret lives of hair. if you ask yourself that question, the answer is probably a definitive “yes,” but in tarlo’s case it makes for a passionately-written and extensively researched book that draws together ethnographic encounters in dizzying array of sites from a chinese wig factory, to a temple in india, to a hair expo in jackson, mississippi, to orthodox jewish wig shops in brooklyn, new york, also incorporating 19th and 20th century newspaper ads, chemical and biological structures of human hair, historic and contemporary photographs, and literature, among many other sites and sources. centering around the trade in human hair, entanglement follows anna tsing’s the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins, and gastón r. gordillo’s rubble: the afterlife of destruction, as multi-sited, interdisciplinary ethnographies centered around a thing or category of things. all three have received recent acclaim from the society for humanistic anthropology; both tarlo’s and tsing’s books have been awarded the victor turner book prize for ethnographic writing, tsing in 2016 and tarlo in 2017, while gordillo received an honorable mention. clearly a popular trend in current ethnographic writing, tarlo demonstrates the vast potential of such an approach by constructing a nuanced and complex, yet cohesive narrative that traces the commodity pathways of human hair (and sometimes also animal hair) into surprisingly intimate encounters. tracing hair trades from the 19th century to the present, entanglement follows a commodity that “mobilises hundreds of thousands of people around the world on a daily basis – collectors who scour poor rural and 2 urban areas in search of this much-valued human fibre, pilgrims who travel hundreds of kilometres to donate it, traders who transport it, workers who move to hair-processing factories in search of labour, exporters and imports who enable its global circulation and distribution” (359). unexpectedly, hair turns out to be a powerful interlocutor and guide, allowing tarlo to delve into questions around gender roles, racism, labor and political economy, and materiality, contributing insights to a broad range of discourses. however, while gordillo’s text has been critiqued for being “at times overly theoretical” (goldstein 2016, 190), tarlo leans toward the opposite end of the spectrum, missing an opportunity to engage more deeply with themes of invisibility, agency, affect, and embodiment that are hinted at but minimally discussed in the text. the resulting work is accessible to a public audience and a fun and dynamic ethnography that carries innovative theoretical implications, although with minimal direct discussions of the theoretical concepts on which it touches. the book begins at a breakneck pace, without a straightforward introduction that presents the rough organization and conceptual underpinnings of the text. the first three chapters, “strange gifts,” “invisibility,” and “harvest,” dive straight into ethnographic anecdotes in which tarlo is always narrator and central figure, moving through multiple places and historical moments on each page, while somehow tracing cohesive pathways through relationships and meanings that center these chapters. in these opening sections, tarlo introduces the hair trade, its historical roots, and its value systems. the next few chapters move slightly slower, centering on particular sets of locales or communities. rather than setting chapters in specific locations, each section is organized around a theme that touches many sites, histories, and sources. for example, the chapter “black hair,” begins at a black hair expo in jackson, mississippi, moves to investigate hair extensions and weaves in dakar, senegal, returns to jackson, and concludes at black hair salons in london. adding to these many locales are insights from youtube bloggers, photographs of 1960s and 70s nigerian hairstyles, and discussions of natural hair movements during the american civil rights era. connecting an astounding array of images and ideas, however, results in often frustratingly brief encounters with each interlocutor. we come to understand the broad networks around hair much more deeply than we do any of the individual places or people it touches. chapters are each organized around multiple meaningful ideas, resulting in themes that break out of the boundaries of their chapters, and loosely organized sets of connections and moments. although this can make the book feel at times disorienting and aimless, it overall creates a dynamic and multifaceted perspective on this vast, winding topic, held together by tarlo’s clear and detailed ethnographic prose. some moments are, for lack of a better phrase, deeply weird, such as in the opening anecdote in which tarlo 3 writes of her friend’s donated hair, “i let it out of the bag and stroke it with the reverence it deserves, but something feels wrong. i am caressing the disembodied hair of my friend and she is sitting opposite me, full bodied, tucking into chicken and vegetable soup” (1). beyond tarlo’s oddly intimate encounters with hair, many ethnographic encounters center around the different types of laborers who engage with human hair. tarlo visits rural myanmar, where hair is referred to as a “cash crop,” and many earn income by combing through and detangling piles of disembodied hair (234). the value of hair is perhaps best summed up by the supervisor of hair sweepers in a temple in india, who explains, “hair is more valuable than money… you can find money anywhere, but it is only on a woman’s head that you will find this!” (69). to the many people incorporated in this industry, the hair takes on a mystical quality as a valuable commodity that can be grown on the human body, but retains its value by obscuring and hiding the relationships and connections it creates. a beautifully written collection of moments, people, places, objects, and ideas, entanglement draws you in and takes you on an unexpected journey around a surprisingly rich topic. recent praise for the book is welldeserved; beyond being a well-written and enjoyable to read, tarlo’s book opens up exciting methodological possibilities for interdisciplinary and multi-sited ethnographic research. references: goldstein, daniel m. 2016. review of “rubble: the afterlife of destruction by gastón r. gordillo. durham: duke university press, 2014” american anthropologist 118 (1): 190–91. gordillo, gastón r. 2014. rubble: the afterlife of destruction. durham: duke university press books. tsing, anna lowenhaupt. 2015. the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton: princeton university press. jennifer porter-lupu is a current doctoral student in anthropology at northwestern university. she received her ma from university of chicago in 2015. her research interests include materiality, historical archaeology, and queer theory. © 2018 jenn porter-lupu what an event does/is (and what does/is not) review by marcelo gonzález gálvez in the event: toward an anthropology of generic moments by lotte meinert & bruce kapferer (eds) berghahn books, 2015 it has been a while since anthropology gave center stage to the debate on what the focus of its observations should be. socio-cultural transformations, shifts in theoretical paradigms, and the crisis of representation, to name but a few, are among the reasons for this loss of relevance. in the event: toward an anthropology of generic moments is a collective effort aiming to help this debate recover its former position through a renewed reading of the school of manchester’s (and fundamentally max gluckman’s) proposals, illuminated by contemporary philosophy and present-day social phenomena. the key contribution that in the event puts forward is an analytical discussion on what an event implies. in doing this, the contributors argue against considering events as mere illustrations of more general social issues, and thus as accessories – or adornments – of anthropological descriptions, positioning them instead as the axis of ethnographic analysis. contributors build on gluckman’s situational analysis in order to argue that events are critical circumstances that somehow produce some sort of spatio-temporal suspension, evidencing the social tensions existing in the contexts (between social balance and change) and being the source of multiple further potentialities that derive from the event itself. in this way, the contributors respect one of the main premises gluckman puts forward in order to criticize the stasis of structural-functionalism: stability in social life does not have to do with the shape a society may take, but with its perpetual fluidity and instability. from there, the contributors combine detailed ethnographic descriptions with sophisticated theoretical discussions in order to demonstrate the importance of thinking carefully about what an event could include, generate and do. the introductory piece, by bruce kapferer, magisterially summarizes the role that events have assumed – first through the school of manchester, later through a series of different scholars – in giving anthropology a livelier sense of what we loosely label as ‘society’. sharing, in fact, a critical view on the idea of 'society' as an integrated whole, kapferer shows how these different perspectives have historically employed the notion of event to underline dissonances over consensus, and multiplicity over singularity. discussing perspectives on events’ potential long-term effects, on how they become historical memory or how they are creative instances, kapferer points out that events consistently manifest contradictory principles, and are thus usually much more disturbing than functional in the social contexts where (and when) they occur. while doing this, he draws an outline of a general framework to understands events, beyond the specificity characterizing each one of them. the different articles comprising the volume are specific analysis of different events, which in turn could be comprehended as ongoing events in themselves, and whose reading may bear the potential of generative action on the thoughts of their readers. the first article, by thomas fibiger, is an insightful illustration of the intersection between an event and the memory of it, and further, of how the remembrance of the event may become an event in itself. focusing in ‘ashura, the commemoration of the death of iman husayn in karbala, by the shi’i muslims of bahrain, fibinger challenges the boundaries between the past and the present, religion and politics, and the anthropological distinction between emic and etic, revealing the complexity of trying to express a complete image of the commemoration. by focusing on the analysis locals themselves make of their participation in the event, this paper discusses a unitary interpretation of it by vividly manifesting its fragmentary nature, expressing myriads of different understandings of the situation and of the rationalities taking a part in it. in a similar vein, bjarke oxlund devotes his chapter to explore the multiple tensions and ambiguities encapsulated in an event taking place as a celebration of an electoral victory in a contemporary south african university. while doing this, he shows how the event manifests temporal bonds, encapsulating a long history of ethnic tensions that goes beyond the sequential distinction between preand postapartheid eras, and making explicit the configuration of current south african interethnic relations, in an interesting connection to gluckman’s classic piece on the building of a bridge in zululand (1940). from there he concludes that, far away from merely expressing these tensions, the event is a productive instance that shows the processual nature of social life, and the creative agency of the people involved in it. in the third chapter, jesper oestergaard makes an interesting argument by combining elements of skill, landscape, cosmology, and memory. this article, which connects to the previous chapters in terms of the importance granted to the biographic elements in the construing of an event, attempts to describe the process of an anthropological approach to the perceptions of a buddhist lama, who is able to distinguish the traces left by a mythological figure in a cave of western nepal. while doing this, oestergaard is able to conceptualize every encounter as an event – the encounters between the lama and himself, between the lama and the traces – showing how they give birth to one meaningful world from what previously were worlds apart. this happens as well with the encounter between geography and mythology, which ‘creates’ the sacred place where the guru and the pilgrims also meet. from there he proposes that encounters do not involve two or more parts trying to discover meaning, but trying to construct it instead in their mutual engagement. shifting the focus from the local implications of events to how they also express transnational connections, in the fourth chapter, jonas østergaard nielsen discusses the impacts climate change has had on a small village on northern burkina faso. explaining how people there have coped with weather variability employing a diversified economic strategy, it centres on how, since the 1970s, the appearance of international development projects has become the major strategy to do so. more specifically, the article focuses on the consequences of one specific event: the arrival of an international development expert. in doing this, it shows how the event suspends identities and statuses, which can be negotiated and reconstructed throughout its duration. this is especially critical, in this case study, regarding the dialectical construction of gender relations. in the event’s fifth chapter, by mikkel rytter, is also an exploration on how an event may make transnational connections evident. focusing on a devastating earthquake that affected northern pakistan in 2005, rytter shows the effects this catastrophe produced worldwide, and in denmark specifically, through the pakistani migrants' expression of an ‘intensive transnationalism’. the main effect this paper focuses on is the establishment of a medical organization aiming to help earthquake survivors. in doing so, rytter is not only able to show global connections in motion, but also the ethnic tensions existing in the core of danish society. in the sixth article, anja kublitz focuses her analysis on the massive pro-muslim demonstrations generated by the publication of cartoons of the prophet muhammad in a danish newspaper. in this context, the author shows how both events, the publication of the cartoons and the demonstrations, serve as creative instances allowing, on the one hand, the reconstruction of the hegemonic discourses on migrants, and on the other, the emergence of a context of muslim union to fight against those hegemonic discourses. from her analysis, kublitz proposes an interesting argument of how events may trigger changes at certain levels, but may leave others untouched, specifically referring to structural relations between the danish and the so-called minorities. later, in the seventh chapter, jakob krause-jensen attempts to prove the adequacy of gluckman’s analysis to the study of modern corporations, exemplified by a company producing home electronics for the global elite. doing this, krause-jensen sets up his analysis from a small meeting – the event – and engages with discussions previously addressed in the book, concerning transnational connections and the ambiguity of social relations, focusing primarily on how the corporation ‘discovers’ – and does not ‘create’ – the core values of its ‘culture’. in the event's last two chapters return to the initial emphasis on local articulations over transnational connections. chapter eight, by stine krøijer, focuses on radical left protests in the context of nato's sixtieth anniversary to propose a view of them as performances that somehow work as temporal incarnations of an alternative future. in doing this, instead of working on how the protest – as a ritual – creates a collective consciousness, following the classic lead opened by durkheim, krøijer focuses on the emergence of synchronicity and bodily affect that allows the appearance of another time in the present. in this sense, she draws on victor turner’s notion of communitas (1997), which considering the integrative role of ritual also underlines the transformative potential of liminal periods. in the last chapter, morten nielsen also examines the ruptures produced by the emergence of ‘possible futures’, starting from devastating floods that affected mozambique in 2000. in a remarkable exploration that could be extremely fruitful concerning debates on structure and agency, nielsen shows how confronting the incapacity of the state to fulfil their needs, people take an urbanization project in their own hands but deciding to respect the state’s urbanization regulations. following this argument, the author is also able to manifest the spatial and temporal connections produced by the flooding, and how the imitation of the state concedes legitimacy to the occupancy of the newly urbanized terrains, everything allowed by the generative capacity of the original event. in general terms, in the event: toward an anthropology of generic moments accomplishes several goals that make it a book extremely worth reading. for a start, it is an excellent introduction to the contemporary validity of the manchester school, particularly in terms of the exploration concerning the question of what an event is and does. furthermore, and following from this, the various contributions to this volume show a very thought provoking argument, inspired by deleuze (2002): the event is the seed to change, to multiplicity, to the unexpected, rather than merely the illustration of something that already exists. finally, every chapter of this book manifests something that is becoming increasingly evident for all of us: the translocal connections made visible by the occurrence of events. although it is essential that we consider what makes an event actually something particular (i.e., the place and time of its occurrence), we have to be aware that its occurrence may produce and activate global effects that cannot even be imagined by the direct participants of the event. isn't the fact that an anthropologist based in chile is writing the review of this book, concerning events located mainly in europe and africa, a perfect example for this claim? references cited deleuze, g. 2002. diferencia y repetición. buenos aires: amorrortu. gluckman, m. 1940. analysis of a social situation in modern zululand. bantu studies 14 (1): 1-30. turner, v. 1997. the ritual process: structure and anti-structure. new brunswick: aldine transaction. marcelo gonzález gálvez is a researcher at the interdisciplinary center for intercultural and indigenous studies, pontificia universidad católica de chile. he completed his phd in 2012 at the university of edinburgh, and currently teaches at the department of anthropology at pontificia universidad católica de chile, and at the departments of anthropology and sociology at universidad de chile. © 2016 marcelo gonzález gálvez 1 cayenne and the transatlantic world-economy. from interdependence to commercial self-organization? review by sarai barreiro argüelles approvisionner cayenne sous l’ancien régime. archéologie et histoire des réseaux commerciaux. by catherine losier sidestone press, 2016 guyana’s colonial history was shaped by 17 th century european trade interests. slavery decimated almost all native groups, so workforce issues were solved through a coercive trade whose exclusive goal consisted in providing profits for the french metropole. to understand the origins of the particular social groups that emerged from the systematic exploitation of forced labour, it is imperative to assess the european economic system. in approvisionner cayenne sous l’ancien régime. archéologie et histoire des réseaux commerciaux, catherine losier leads us towards this goal by highlighting the relationship between the colony of guyana and its french metropolis thereby revealing links established with the colonial sub-systems of north america. the author’s primary purpose is to elucidate the place and continuity occupied by guyana in the socio-economic system of the modern world. through an analysis of archaeological material culture, this research can be placed at the core of postcolonial studies and atlantic maritime history. the book’s first chapter provides a corpus of spatio-temporal landmarks of cayenne port as well as a chronological approach to the economic and political history of the site, from the early europeannative interactions, followed by colonization attempts, and ending with its establishment by the earliest french settlers. in this same chapter, losier provides an overview of the agricultural projects of the french metropolis. the initial products of interest were cotton and tobacco, and later, coffee, indigo dyes, and cocoa. in particular, sugarcane plantations and their derivative products became the main economic capital of the colony. further to this overview of the historical context, losier emphasizes the inadequate and underserved condition of the colony, expressed in most of the official documents between cayenne and the french metropolis. losier argues that the inadequate supply of provisions at colonial cayenne should be reflected in the archaeological record. by comparing and analyzing the ceramic collection with archival reports, losier reveals a large concentration and diversity of ceramic products exogenous to france. the core of her study consists in demonstrating that the commercial networks associated with guyana were not deficient, but instead, implying a more complex commercial situation than the one portrayed in historical archives. 2 the second chapter develops the historical context and provides a hearty but necessary corpus of data. it details guyana’s association with the circum-caribbean area since the end of the 17 th century. special attention is given to europe’s economic conjuncture and the conflicts which arose among france, spain, holland and england; which regularly affected the overseas colonies. one of the most relevant aspects of this chapter is losier's efforts in placing guyana in the atlantic commercial sphere. to achieve this, her research is based on data provided by official correspondence documenting the arrivals of ships, their home port and their cargo; unveiling a significant part of guyana’s commercial organization and external links between 1688 and 1794. the third chapter is dedicated entirely to the analysis of the archaeological collection of at least 17,480 pieces of ceramic and glass. this study highlights the dynamic regions of the european trade with guyana. the material culture examined in this chapter dates from 1664 to 1794, and provides an arduous analysis of the ceramic production of six workshops and their historical context. this chapter illustrates, in a very visual way through the inclusion of images of the artefacts, the crucial periods of each occupation. the study not only displays the techno-morpho-stylistic characteristics of these artefacts, but also reveals the geographical zones of european production and their places in specific supply networks. the fourth chapter summarizes three crucial moments in guyana’s colonial history. it begins with the founding period of the colony (1664 to 1725) and shows the isolation of guyana, which was limited to a single trading partner, france. in a second phase (late 17 th to the early 18 th century), cayenne is referred to as a territory without economic growth at a time when the other french west indies colonies were in full expansion. finally, the third period (second half of the 18 th century until the first abolition of slavery in 1794), testifies to the failed attempts of the crown to populate cayenne and a conspicuous mitigation of the mercantile economic policy. as a result, self-organization emerges as more concrete interactions increase trade with the other french colonies of the american east-coast in an attempt to respond to the poor conditions of their dense population. in the last chapter, losier takes a critical point of view with regard to guyana as a marginal colony in the atlantic commercial world of the circum-caribbean, but no less complex in its symbiosis with a parasitic metropolis. this argument convincingly demonstrates that unilateral discourses of the center/periphery dichotomy can easily fade away when means for interdependence are out of order. in the specific case of guyana, its peripheral status did not involve a complete exclusion from the french system. however, even though the analysis provided new insights into some episodes of autonomy in supply networks with the caribbean islands and north-american colonies, food shortages seem to be the achilles heel that oppressed the colony. embedded in postcolonial studies, this analysis accomplishes its goal by highlighting the many facets of the guyanese colonial economy, starting from the material remains left by the colonizing system. aprovisionner cayenne is a solid contribution to circum-caribbean archaeology. as was shown in the case of the colonial guyana, the survival of the servile society of the old regime was intrinsically linked to the colonial supply networks. therefore, the economic analysis of the colonial project as a means to understand the origin of a society overshadowed by power relations and interdependence is crucial. the referred analysis is the result of a work which attempts to recover historical memory, and which contributes to an attempt to seize the roots of the current guyanese society. this society remains as 3 alive and self-maintained as it is dynamic in its endeavor at constructing its identity and at reaffirming its legitimacy to the territory. the volume will appeal to a public that is interested in the economic history of the modern world, but it is also accessible to those interested in the colonial history of guyana. sarai barreiro argüelles is a phd candidate in the department of anthropology at the university of montreal. she is interested in the historical and maritime archaeology of the modern era of northeastern canada with a major emphasis in maritime cultural landscape and european supply networks. her research project focuses on the multicultural history of euro-native interactions in the gulf of st. lawrence. © 2018 sarai barreiro argüelles 1 of environment and genes: how to address bones’ morphological variability review by diane martin-moya reading the bones: activity, biology and culture by elizabeth weiss university press of florida, 2017 reading the bones: activity, biology and culture considers the study of bones’ features as a way to understand osteological variation – is the environment a suitable explanation? or genetic selection? is it possible to study specific markers to reconstruct past population activity pattern? the author’s approach to such questions, posed in this book, is original and supported by a large and varied selection of studies and an exhaustive glossary. this book considers issues encountered in bioarcheological studies (human and animal) and offers an overview of the methodologies that have been used on specific aspects of the bone (from traditional to the use of 3d imagery). through modern clinical and genetic studies, the author compares and correlates archaeological studies ranging from general analysis to specific material culture elements to understand morphological variations. this book includes a wide variety of examples from the late prehistoric to modern times, while also covering a vast chronology and corresponding relevant literature. these elements make the book of interest to bioarcheologists that are interested on morphological change and their relationship with genetic and/or non-genetic influences (biomechanics, disease, nutrition). the book succeeds in synthesizing a broad range of explanations of bone’s variation and how to identify and observe them to conduct an efficient and complete preliminary analysis. except for the first chapter, which is a concise but useful reminder of fundamental concepts in bone modelling and modification through ossification process and development -each chapter has a clear introduction, with all concepts clearly explained from the beginning (entheseal change, osteoarthritis, stress fractures). the first chapter, while aimed at informed, but non-specialist readers, is nevertheless interesting for 2 graduate students in bioarchaeology, professors, and undergraduate students. moreover, the author wrote the book mostly for educational purposes (initiation to a large panel of methodologies), but depending on the academic background and knowledge, this book is more addressed to a public that is engaged in bioarchaeological research for the field or the laboratory (archaeologist be warned). also, it is important to mention that this book is not for skull specialists, it is more oriented for those interested in post-cranial and especially long-bone analysis. which is unfortunate since, there are more and more research papers that highlight the plasticity of some areas of the skull (craniofacial mostly) and their link with environmental factors (betti et al., 2010; von cramon-taubadel, 2011, 2014; galland et al., 2016, katz et al., 2017). the chapters in this volume are well developed and complete, from a presentation on data collection strategies to new technologies (tomography, 3d models) and different methodologies developed by diverse specialized researchers. through examples and a critical argumentation, the book presents the positive and negative aspects of different settings and research questions. to illustrate, in chapter 3 about “entheseal change”, the author discusses the characteristic that offers three-dimensional methodologies and the advantages to access directly the geometry of the bones thought the collect of electronic data that record spatial coordinates (taken trough homologous landmarks). nevertheless, it is important to consider all the parameters that constitute the project and it suggests being cautious about the time it requires to collect the data which can be a real disadvantage depending of the context (in the field or other deadlines). moreover, each chapter offers a well-documented, complex and multifactorial perspective on clinical research contrasted with a variety of archaeological papers not only regarding the physical activity influence (hunter-gatherer vs farmer) but the impact of age, sexual dimorphism (social organization, hormones) and at to a lesser extent, climate. all those configurations presented through different angles offer an important background to formulate critiques by giving open perspectives on those subjects. aside from the comprehensible descriptions of the different aspects discussed in the book, there are very few illustrations (nine photos, five diagrams and two graphics for the whole book). even if the reading is very fluid, illustrations could give fuller representations of the subject treated. the illustrations of bioarchaeological studies are essential because they offer visual support, a semantic correspondence, with what the author wants to demonstrate. it is a necessary communication tool that meets the objectives of the book, especially when exposing pathologies, cellular processes, and new 3 methodologies. nonetheless, even if the osteological aspect is particularly well detailed, the genetic angle lacks in description. for example, when the environmental interpretation is not adequate to explain specific aspects of the problematic encounter, then it is hypothesized as being of genetic origin but most of the time it is not backed by genetic, cellular studies. thus, compared to the profusion of explanations for osteological questions, readers’ expectations are not fulfilled regarding genetic analysis. it is merely mentioned in the book, but the emergence of epigenetic research has allowed us to study this gray area between cell differentiation and phenotypic differentiation. recent advances in research in the epigenetic and paleo-epigenetic fields show that alterations in regulatory expression can lead to changes in phenotypic variation -or the study of how the causal interaction between genes and their products allow the modification of the genome expression. from my point of view, when the question “environment or genes” were presented i was hoping for a more balance view (as much as possible) of the connection between morphological, phenotypical, epigenetic and genetic discussions within the book. the book is useful for post-cranial and paleo-pathologist researchers, and it is an essential contribution regarding the interaction between environment, culture and genes when looking at phenotypic variation and adaptation in specific archaeological contexts. the clinical aspect is most relevant, and it offers some perspective to understand extrinsic and intrinsic conditions affecting osteological variation due to physical environment adaptation and biomechanical stress. also, one of the major beneficial approachs of this book concerns the presentation of various strategies to collect and analyze the data depending on the research considered, the archaeological origin and the material resources available. this book considers both genetic variation and a large spectrum of environmental aspects that has affected past human individuals -such as nutrition, diseases, social organization, physical activities, altitude, weather and other which is essential to understand the various interactions and shifts in morphological variation through time. in conclusion, this book helps to draw the most accurate portrait of past population’s ways of living and it expresses every necessary aspect through a critical review of what has been done and how those analyses and results interact, while also proposing an alternative point of view that pushes the reader to criticize his work and to elaborate proper hypotheses with which to conduct their research. 4 works cited: betti, l., balloux, f., hanihara, t., & manica, a. (2010). “the relative role of drift and selection in shaping the human skull”. american journal of physical anthropology, 141(1), 76-82. von cramon-taubadel, n. (2011). “global human mandibular variation reflects differences in agricultural and hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies”. proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 108(49), 19546-19551. von cramon-taubadel, n. (2014). “evolutionary insights into global patterns of human cranial diversity: population history, climatic and dietary effects”. j. anthropol. sci, 92(4). galland, m., van gerven, d. p., von cramon-taubadel, n., & pinhasi, r. (2016). “11,000 years of craniofacial and mandibular variation in lower nubia”. scientific reports, 6, 31040. katz, d. c., grote, m. n., & weaver, t. d. (2017). “changes in human skull morphology across the agricultural transition are consistent with softer diets in preindustrial farming groups”. proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 114(34), 9050-9055. diana martin-moya is a ph.d student in biological anthropology at university of montreal. her work focuses on the colonial period in quebec and examines genotypic and phenotypic processes and the influence of external factors on the cranial variability. © 2018 diane martin-moya 1 media, medicine, citizen, capital: theorizing the production of health and disease review by william j. robertson making health public: how news coverage is remaking media, medicine, and contemporary life by charles l. briggs & daniel c. hallin routledge, 2016 in making health public: how news coverage is remaking media, medicine, and contemporary life, charles l. briggs and daniel c. hallin engage in a collaborative interdisciplinary project aimed at illuminating the co-constitutive nature of media and medicine in the contemporary world. briggs, a linguistic and medical anthropologist, and hallin, a media and journalism scholar, have created a text that beautifully illustrates how health communication does more than simply convey biomedical knowledge to the public but actually takes part in ongoing processes of medical practice and knowledge production. building on their past work on biocommunicability (briggs & hallin 2007; see also briggs 2011), the authors introduce the concept of biomediatization to argue that biomedicine and the media are not two separate entities but instead work in tandem to produce bodies, medical spaces, and social relations more broadly. the text is divided into two parts, each with three chapters, bookended by introduction and conclusion chapters. the introduction succinctly and clearly lays out a map of the arguments and evidence that are presented in more detail in the main body of the text. it also provides some details about how the authors began working together and the bodies of literature they bring to bear on the project as well as a detailed explanation of the authors’ three methodological/analytical approaches. first, they compiled and analyzed a massive set of news content, primarily from the mainstream media, to better understand the role of media in the creation and circulation of public understandings of health. second, they have been engaged in ethnographic data collection since 2003, including interviewing 2 people in the media (e.g., reporters and editors) and health professionals (e.g., clinicians and health administrators) as well as engaging in participant observation in public health offices to observe how media shapes agendas and practices that inform the public’s perception of health and disease. third, they examined websites, polls and surveys by health organizations, and conducted focus groups to gauge the reception of health media among the public. each of these approaches supports and informs the others in important ways such that none of them alone would have been enough to support the claims the authors make. part i lays out the authors’ theoretical framework in a lucid and engaging manner. chapter 1 reviews the concept of biocommunicability, which refers to the ways biomedical knowledge is created, circulates, and is received. the authors discuss three types of “biocommunicable models,” which they use to explore the complex and interwoven issues of biomedical authority, patient consumerism, and citizenship. the ultimate argument of the chapter is that such models play a performative role in shaping and producing bodies and social relations, and they begin to theorize the specific ways this performativity occurs in chapter 2 by introducing the concept of biomediatization. biomediatization is meant to complement and extend biocommunicability in that biocommunicability tends to treat the media and medicine as two separate though interactional entities, but biomediatization draws attention to how the two are actually deeply intertwined to extent that they are both implicated in the production of medical knowledge, the practices of medicine and public health, and in the construction of bodies and social relationships. chapter 2 grounds this theorization in ethnographic data, and the authors share some of their own experiences to help contextualize biomediatization in quotidian life. shifting back to a more analytical tone, chapter 3 explores issues of genre and framing in health media, paying particular attention to how journalists deal with (and, indeed, reproduce) biomedical authority. far from simply engaging in representational and informational practices that present unbiased reporting on health and medicine, briggs & hallin demonstrate how health news is framed in socially, culturally, politically, and morally loaded ways. to do this, they analyzed health news on network television and coded each story as fitting into one of three frames: (1) a biomedical frame for when a story focused on biological causality or technological interventions; (2) a lifestyle frame for when a story emphasized an individual’s life choices; and (3) a social frame for when a story emphasized social causes (e.g., political or economic structures) outside of individual control. perhaps unsurprisingly, they found the biomedical frame was the most dominant. briggs and hallin thus argue that processes of biomediatization uphold and reproduce biomedical authority not just over health and 3 illness but other domains of life as well, though this happens in nuanced ways. part ii contains three chapters that each present a different case study where briggs & hallin demonstrate the usefulness of the framework laid out in part i. chapter 4 focuses on the 2009 h1n1 (also known as “swine flu”) pandemic and interrogates the roles reporters played in producing diseases as social objects, especially in relation to issues of the state and biosecurity. chapter 5 focuses on the pharmaceutical industry, paying close attention to the role of journalism in the merging of biomedicine and capitalism. chapter 6 explores the ways health journalists invoke “post-racial” thinking to produce normative models of citizenship that often foreclose racial and ethnic minorities from access to such citizenship due to “cultural barriers” and indeed are themselves complicit in processes of racialization. these case studies reveal the power of biomediatization by providing concrete examples of the coconstitution of diseases through both biomedicine and media in both past and ongoing biopolitical issues. the conclusion briefly re-summarizes their main arguments and provides a few parting comments about some of the authors’ concerns and hopes for the kinds of work this text might encourage. perhaps the most important take-away message from the concluding chapter is how biomediatization “involves neither the colonization of media by biomedicine, nor the other way around, but the creation of a complex field of boundary-objects and hybrid practices” (207), reminding readers that health news is an object that both journalists and biomedical professionals have in common, which is indicative of the entanglement of seemingly disparate social fields that include journalism, public health, biomedicine, consumerism, and citizenship. briggs and hallin have provided an important conceptual framework that can be applied in many different contexts using a variety of methods (as demonstrated in their case studies). while their methods are appropriate for the scope of their project (built on over a decade of collaboration), their methods could also be useful for shorter projects as well. their different areas of expertise have allowed them to create a unique text that is suited for a wide-ranging audience, which might include anthropologists, communication studies scholars, other social scientists and humanities scholars, clinicians, people in public health fields, journalists, activists, and the public. for anthropologists specifically, this text could be useful for those interested in biomedicalization, media and journalism, the sociocultural production of health and disease, language and communication, citizenship, biopolitics, political economy, professionalism and expertise, knowledge production, and performativity. the text’s engaging and accessible writing would make it a good fit for undergraduate and graduate courses alike. 4 ultimately, briggs and hallin have crafted a well-written and engaging text that provides a useful framework for studying health and disease in the 21st century. this book has the potential to inspire anthropologists to take more seriously the role of media in the production and circulation of medical and lay knowledge about health and disease. biomediatization is an especially valuable contribution to medical anthropology, and the concept could easily take a place alongside and re-shape understandings of many popular conceptual frameworks in medical anthropology such as biomedicalization, biocommunicability, embodiment, performativity/enactment, and pharmaceuticalization. references cited briggs, charles l. 2011 biocommunicability. in a companion to medical anthropology, eds. m. singer & p. i. erickson. new york: blackwell publishing. 459-476. briggs, charles l. and daniel c. hallin 2007 biocommunicability: the neoliberal subject and its contradictions in news coverage of health issues. social text 25(4): 43-66. william j. robertson is a phd candidate in the school of anthropology at the university of arizona. his research interests involve questions concerning how biomedical knowledge and practice are wrapped up in the production and reproduction of sex/gender and sexuality. © 2017 william j. robertson conversations about teaching food and culture review by andria d. timmer teaching food and culture by candice lowe swift & richard r wilk (eds) left coast press, 2015 with the increase in food studies academic programs and food-centric courses in higher education, teaching food and culture is both timely and relevant. this edited volume includes selections from scholar-teachers who have many years of experience in the field, and, as such, is a useful resource for anyone who is teaching food and culture or who wants to incorporate these topics into their pedagogy. as someone who has taught classes in food and culture for over a decade, i found many useful ideas in this volume. more generally, this book opens up a necessary and insightful conversation about teaching, one that should perhaps also take place in a format other than a printed text. although food studies is inherently interdisciplinary and food related courses are “often taught by the most creative and innovate faculty, who tend to disrespect the traditional boundaries between subjects” (pp. 9-10), it is appropriate that this volume is anthropological. as experts of what it means to be human, anthropologists have long recognized the scholarly significance of food. the contributors have an evident commitment to ethnography and bioculturalism. all anthropological subfields are represented, though the obvious emphasis is on cultural anthropology. the volume opens with an interview conducted by the editors with sidney mintz, one of progenitors of food studies in anthropology. although presented in a question and answer format, the editors explain that the final piece was the result of an ongoing back and forth, so what appears in the book is a thoughtful exploration of an admired scholar’s approach to a field. mintz’s ability to systematically think through complex issues is clearly evident here, and his insight gives a good overview to the field. following the introduction and interview, the remainder of the volume is divided into three substantive sections. the first of the three sections presents a biocultural view to the study of food. alexandra brewis, amber wutich, and deborah williams explain how they incorporate the topic of obesity as a learning tool into their classes. jeanne sept details how she uses food to introduce students to the concepts of human evolution. andrea s. wiley discusses the usefulness of the single-food approach using the example of milk. the second section, food ethics and the public, highlights how students can connect to the broader food system within which they function. by connecting with something they are familiar with, students can begin to make sense of how the bigger system functions. peter benson provides many examples of how he uses food-based assignments to get students to understand the industry standards, big business, and even existentialism. carole counihan describes an assignment she has used for many years of sending students to a farmers market which requires students to think critically about the mundane. finally, janet chrzan discusses the benefits and pitfalls to using service learning in food-based classes. the final section delves into issues of food and identity. david sutton and david beriss explain how they use restaurant ethnography assignments to get students to understand how food and identity are connected. the next two chapters, by brian stross and amber o’connor respectively, are written from the perspective of linguistic anthropology which makes this volume an almost a four field approach. (sept makes a brief connection to archaeology, but other than that it is unrepresented.) stross details his syllabus for the course anthropology of food with a clear topic by topic overview showing how food anthropology and linguistic anthropology inform each other. o’connor explains how food can be used to introduce students to language and culture and encourages them to think “of food as a semiotic system” (p. 181). the book concludes with a contribution by penny van esterik who “describes how i came to define myself as a nutritional anthropologist, to bring food issues into all my anthropology teaching, and eventually to focus most of my attention on food-based courses” (p. 193). teaching informs research and vice versa and in this chapter van esterik explores how her research translated into food-focused teaching. this volume is a valuable resource for anyone teaching a stand-alone course or wishing to use food as an example to open discussions about topics such as evolution, poverty, inequality, or environmental change. all the chapters are well-cited so the bibliography itself is of great value. many contributors have included full assignments in appendices and/or examples of successful student work. they reflect candidly on how students responded to each of the assignments. good teaching is collaborative; the reader can take these pre-tested activities and modify them for a variety of different teaching situations. all of these assignments and activities are complex and well-thought out. despite the name, this book does not just provide resources and insight from food and culture classes; instead, contributors discuss their experiences in a range of different types of classes, and therefore treats the subject of food as a tool for learning instead of a topic of study. food is a constant way for teachers to connect with students regardless of their background or educational interests even as “educational tides shift” (p. 10). no one volume containing only ten chapters can do justice to teaching food and culture. food studies is too vast, and food can easily be used as a vehicle to teach almost any core concept in anthropology. although the resources are useful and the assignment ideas intriguing, they represent only a very small sample of the current scholarship in food and culture. further, since this is a teaching resource, shorter chapters with more examples and resources would have been useful. it is unreasonable to fault a volume that brings together so many respected scholars to share their perspectives on teaching for not doing enough. however, this critique emerges from a larger issue that it is difficult to determine the target audience for this reader. individuals such as myself, who have been teaching food for years, will find inspiration in this work and will be able to take many of the examples and use them in constructive ways. that being said, there is little here that is new to a seasoned professor. i, and many food studies professors i know, take an evolutionary approach to the study of food (like jeanne sept) or use restaurants or farmers markets as advantageous locations for ethnography (like sutton, beriss, and counihan). through their writings, i have gleaned new insights on how to present these assignments and integrate them in the class, but the contributions are more inspirational than revelatory. conversely, someone new to teaching food studies courses is not likely to be able to use this resource to help them construct a stand-alone food and culture class. except for the late brian stross, none of the authors of this volume give a full picture of a course. rather they highlight certain assignments or discuss how they use food as an exemplar in non-food related classes. due to the current dynamism of food studies this volume can feel out of date even though it was recently printed. this speaks to the need for this or any other similar attempt to tap into continuing conversations about the teaching of food and culture in the form of future volumes or online forums. these conversations do happen on the society for the anthropology of food and nutrition (safn) blog, and while the book is a useful addition, i have to wonder if this traditionally formatted volume without connections to ongoing dialogues is the best means in this era to present a conversation about teaching. despite my concerns about the audience and format of teaching food and culture, i am excited to see such a volume available and will return to it often in planning my future courses. i would recommend it for any teacher of food, and i hope to see the conversation about teaching food and culture expand in the coming years. andria d. timmer is a lecturer of anthropology in the department of sociology, social work, and anthropology at christopher newport university. her research is focused on the manner in which individuals and groups work to enact social change, particularly in regards to food and social inequality. she has taught food and culture for six years. © 2016 andria d. timmer 1 living: on silence, speech and witness after hiroshima review by ellen r. judd the day the sun fell produced by aya domenig ican films, 2015 on the morning of august 6, 1945, internist shigeru doi (1914-1991) left his family home in the countryside for his daily seventy-kilometer commute to the red cross hospital in hiroshima. he did not return until ten days later, and he greeted his wife on his return as if it were any other day. in the early moments of this ethnographic film, kiyomi doi (1926-2013) recounts the apparent ordinariness of that day. she remarked as unusual only that her husband silently went to the garden to eat fresh tomatoes, adding softly that that had left a strong impression on her. it had otherwise seemed like one more wartime day of bombing, a day a returning neighbour had mundanely described as having a big bomb fall. in kiyomi doi's lifetime, she had known only war. shigeru doi never spoke of those days or of the ones that followed, nor did he write of them in his volumes of personal poetry. his granddaughter, visual anthropologist aya domenig frames her account: only once did i ask my grandfather what he experienced in hiroshima after the bombing. he answered that it was impossible to put into words. those who had not been there would never understand. i remember that he was laughing and crying at the same time. the day the sun fell is a probing metanarrative that weaves a path through the public history of hiroshima day and the remembered stories of the ethnographer’s family and of hibakusha connected with them to ask: given this, then what? the history is assumed known and appears as a series of film excerpts, most of only seconds in length, that are shown as a subject of discussion with survivors and family, both as remembrances and as part 2 of the texture and activity of their lives during the following decades. this is neither history nor memory as much as it is a window on and a discourse about living intentionally amid the immediacy and the ongoing destruction of the atomic bombing. it is an ethnography situated broadly in the engaged and creative work recently setting the pace in anthropology (wulff 2016, fassin 2017). more specifically, it is an ethnographic film that understands and assumes a larger or more abstract political and discursive space and explores it through personal encounters in resonance with innovative intimate ethnography in war and its aftermath (waterston 2014). domenig’s grandfather’s silence is arguably more of a rhetorical device than a literal depiction. among the opening film clips domenig selected is a very early scene of her grandfather identifying some of the atomic bomb damage done to a doorway. her grandfather returned only four years after the bomb to live and practice medicine in hiroshima and spent the last twenty years of his life with a debilitating illness that was quite likely a delayed consequence of radiation exposure. a fellow physician, shuntaro hida (1917-2017), who also lived through the bombing, comments on the choices people made to protect their children and grandchildren from the stigma of being hiroshima survivors, potentially suffering and transmitting the long-term effects of radiation. domenig’s grandmother directed her to search out and talk with nurses who had worked with her late husband. the movement back and forth between living witnesses and old footage, often viewed in their own homes on laptop screens, creates an interactive path through the earliest days and into the present. amid the diverse viewpoints of those willing to talk or who considered those days unspeakable, domineg connected with chizuko uchida (1923-) who, together with the dois and shuntaro hida, compose a tripartite counterpoint running through the film. the result is an unfolding exploration of silence, speaking and witnessing that tracks between these lives, with no route limited only to one life. overarching narrative coherence is provided by entwined evocation of the well-known dual strands of the devastation caused by the atomic bombing and of the actions taken by the survivors of hiroshima and nagasaki, the hibakusha. the foreground is taken by the survivors themselves as vividly whole human beings, in their own words. shigeru doi is prominently present, not only in recollections and photographs, but through his poetry and calligraphy, held and read by his wife. in his written words and her spoken commentary, there is a gentle, moving vision of life and a world without nuclear bombs or radiation, giving a tenderness and intensity that infuses the film as a whole. 3 chizuko uchida is recognizably an activist who carefully and explicitly reflects on her aspiration to serve the military cause that had taken her into wartime nursing. her path afterwards was one of personal healing, hand gardening of medicinal herbs and finding a voice to speak passionately against militarism, nuclear weapons and all forms of nuclear technology. in the latter portion of the film, as it engages with the fukushima nuclear disaster, she is seen personally harvesting, drying and delivering herbs she had found helpful for the effects of hiroshima’s radiation to those near the disaster, and opening her home to a mother and child evacuating from fukushima. it is not only her words, articulate and persuasive as they are, but also her presence and witnessing that speak forcefully and clearly. shuntaro hida had a path closer to that of shigeru doi, continuing in his medical work, and addressing the consequences of internal radiation for survivors of both hiroshima and fukushima, work he continued into his 90s. his contributions to the film extend and powerfully deepen its exploration of knowledge and of voice. his argument is not with the silence of protection and caring, but with the silencing of denial and suppression. this appears first in confronting the official denial of the effects of radiation in the years of the us occupation and the silencing of doctors and others who were working to understand its terrible and often mysteriously delayed consequences. his critique extended to the longer denial of recognition and care for those lost to or affected by radiation and what he denounced as the hypocrisy of political memorialization of hiroshima without adequate care or genuine commitment to denuclearization. as originally conceptualized, this ethnographic film began with an intimate focus on aya domineg’s grandfather and moved outward to a probing engagement of the lived experience of the first use of a nuclear bomb and of militarization. the immediate and long-lasting destructiveness is conveyed powerfully on the immediate human level of seeing the injured and dying in hospitals and in treatment. the weapon delivery in us bombers, the following military occupation and its suppression of adequate response to nuclear radiation all appear in personal and anguishing immediacy. this film goes further and excavates the preceding intimate experience of militarization in japan, presented in the same manner as with the atomic bombing—through use of early footage of military training together with reflexive commentary by those who lived the experience. this was primarily provided by the two women, both young enough in the war years to have never known peacetime. kiyomi doi spoke unhesitatingly of her knowledge of japan’s wars in manchuria and china in the 1930s and then with the us. chizuko uchida was penetrating on the militarization of her school years and the depth to which it had entered her aspirations, against which she has become an eloquent opponent. she, a nurse, 4 and both the doctors were all military personnel, further indicating the reach of the military into daily life. the recent turn toward remilitarization is foreshadowed by clips of abe at a hiroshima commemoration. this conception was broadened by the nuclear disaster at fukushima that occurred during the originally planned filming. the connections with the harm of radiation and the scale of the impact were immediately apparent. aya domineg extended her ethnographic approach and mirrored the earlier and longer portion of the film by combining fukushima disaster footage with the supportive engagement and commentary of both chizuko uchida and shuntaro hida. kiyomi doi was extraordinarily generous and present throughout as she endured her final days of terminal cancer. the extension of the film to fukushima carried the account beyond the violence of war to link it with the structural violence of nuclear energy and the mortal hazards of radiation, products of war and fixtures of a militarized world. toward the end of this ethnography there is the following passage: domenig: what kind of doctor would you be if you hadn’t experienced the bomb? hida: well, i guess that more than half of me would be kind of the same. i can’t really compare. but even if one hasn’t experienced the atomic bomb, seeing so many people struggling on the verge of existence gradually makes one see things from their perspective. the day the sun fell weaves these intricate threads into a story of steadfast presence and witness. this is traced in the exercise and expansion of specialist medical knowledge, and in the creation of critical, engaged knowledge about the human consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. throughout, it shows and embodies the strength of nurturance in the most terrible of circumstances. the film ends on a gentle but not an easy note. the vision is one of a difficult and dangerous world in which to find our way, illuminated softly and unpretentiously by the lives touched in this story. there are varied ways of caring and healing to contemplate, and pathways of intentional presence to inspire. there are no abstractions or prescriptions. there is instead a resolute, questioning focus on the personal, and on each survivor living in such days. the living spurs thinking and action, with the unvoiced question in every frame: what is required of each of us now? references cited fassin, didier, ed. 2017. if truth be told: the politics of public ethnography. durham: duke university press. 5 waterston, alisse. 2014. my father’s wars: migration, memory, and the violence of a century. new york: routledge. wulff, helena, ed. 2016. the anthropologist as writer: genres and contexts in the twenty-first century. new york: berghahn. ellen r. judd is distinguished professor and professor of anthropology at the university of manitoba. she is currently working on the political economy of access to health care and on pathways to mutuality. she is co-editor of a forthcoming volume on cooperation in chinese communities: morality and practice. © 2018 ellen r. judd 1 stumbling on/in evaluation anthropology review by imola püsök evaluation: a cultural systems approach by mary odell butler left coast press, 2015 culture and international history series seems to promise a great deal to our understanding of international relations, and despite the fact that the editor did not try to include an analysis of culture or of the specificity of western culture, the seventh volume of this series fits perfectly with the editor's intended goals. “throughout my career i have told people that i landed on my feet as an anthropologist when i became an evaluator.” (p. 76) in the phrase that seems to be not only the summary of her life and career, but also the leitmotif of her book, mary odell butler expresses all that evaluation is about: the meeting of the two disciplines on one hand, and their entanglement with her career path. in its eight chapters, the book ambitiously aims to introduce evaluation to anthropologists, anthropology to evaluators, and to map the difficulties, controversies, challenges and possible rewards of what doing evaluation anthropology means. in her endeavor to fit together the two disciplines and introduce evaluation anthropology to beginners in either one of the two parts – evaluation or anthropology (p. 22) – the author gives all the details to understand the overarching picture. the eight chapters follow a clear order, where several threads (what is evaluation? what is anthropology? who are the evaluators, and what do anthropologists do?) are woven into the re-emerging web of what evaluation anthropology is, how it can be done, and what important aspects to take into account, should one consider a career – academic or not – in or with evaluation anthropology. the “figure in the carpet” is re-emerging, after the author skillfully (albeit perhaps necessarily artificially) delimits the two approaches: the one of the anthropologist and the one 2 of the evaluator. the book, in its clear linear structure can, thus be separated into two parts. the first part, which can be summarized as “understanding evaluation and anthropology”, comprises the first four chapters. it is a theoretical-introductory part, with some overview of the history and paradigms of the two fields, careful definitions and explanations of how she uses and defines the core concepts, such as evaluation, ethnography, culture, community, system and contexts. it is admirable that in her writing butler maintains a reflexive stance and allows for the many other possible approaches, while in the same time is able to provide a conceptual and theoretical framework for beginners to work with. she thus stresses the necessity for evaluations to be scientific, but also opens paths for young researchers to find their own methods and theoretical stances through learning and unlearning some of the disciplinary certainties anthropologists (or, in fact, evaluators) might be biased towards (p. 19). the next four chapters are within the framework of “how to do evaluation anthropology”, and discuss very practical methodological and ethical perspectives, while providing the reader not only with the know-how of doing research, but also that of building a career in evaluation anthropology. these general guidelines become especially lifelike through the author’s candid accounts of her own career experiences. evaluation being defined as “a study that seeks to scientifically determine the value of something for some kind of utilization” (p. 25), and anthropology as the “study of culture and its role in articulating what humans do as members of societies” (p. 72), the overlap that evaluation anthropology becomes (p.71), is inevitably a discipline laden with ideas and relations of power. the two chapters on ethics and methodology raise important questions that anthropologists and evaluators have to engage with throughout their research. whose interests are served? how do we protect vulnerable groups and people from being compromised by our research data? when do we have informed consent and how do we honor the trust of our informants? what are the conflicts between the necessity for scientific objectivity and negotiating through the needs and wants of stakeholders or participants? how do we deal with these? who decides about how to use the data and about the consequences of research? perhaps one of the most important statements in the book is that ethics “are not common sense. it requires training, experience, and judgment to make ethical decisions” (p. 108). indeed, our professional training is (still) lacking in engaging discussions, seminars, and informative courses with regards to ethical guidelines, something the author also laments. the need for such discussions is, however, there – demonstrated by the multitude of online forums and conference discussions. one of 3 the greatest merits of evaluation is the way it further invites conversation about the relationship of the discipline and the solving of social problems, of evaluators and stakeholders, of decision-making and scientific research. good research in evaluation, as in anthropology, depends on building trust with stakeholders (p. 12), and evaluators “have ethical obligations to stakeholders seeking scientific ‘truth’ or verisimilitude” (harklau and norwood 2005, 279). it is, therefore, vital to reflect on how subjectivities change in the evaluation process, how and with whom power-relations are negotiated, and the role and influence of the evaluator-anthropologist in decision-making processes, considering that “program evaluators hold the power to affect the very nature and future of the phenomena they investigate” (ibid., 278). considering all this, why evaluation anthropology, though? what new does it bring to the table? the author herself questions in the introduction the necessity to create a subfield by merging the two disciplines. why not just evaluation? or why not anthropology? her answer is, that evaluation anthropology is stronger than its parts (p. 18), as academics and practitioners from both disciplines come together to mutually share and learn from each other’s expertise. qualitative and quantitative data are both necessary for research that is on the one hand scientific enough to serve as the base for policychange and to influence stakeholders in positions of power to make decisions in the right directions. on the other hand, such research is attentive to the sensibilities of wider social contexts and advocates for the needs of vulnerable groups. it is in this sense that there is a necessity for the two disciplines to converge, and bring ethnography as much as possible to the forefront of research. constantly being in positions of negotiation not only with vulnerable research participants, but with powerful stakeholders as well, evaluation anthropology becomes one of the rare subfields that not only hold the possibility to investigate social problems and the effects of government and ngo programs on marginalized populations, but it also has a “playing area” that allows for researchers to “study up” (hopson citing nader 2005, 293), i.e. to study and ask questions of the groups who hold power, who make the allimportant decisions. in reading butler’s work, one gets the feeling that this tool and focus of evaluation anthropology is not yet applied. practicing evaluators, and in most cases academic anthropologists also, depend on governmental or non-profit agencies for their research. in evaluation, the author somewhat balances this moral dilemma in expressing her views on ethical best practice. given, that “our work is neither scientifically, nor politically neutral” (harklau and norwood 2005, 281), picking up the thread of conversation on this matter is necessary in order for future practice not to end up compromising the needs of vulnerable groups, or indeed, researchers. 4 compared to the 2005 napa bulletin special issue, creating evaluation anthropology: introducing an emerging subfield, which she co-edited with jaqueline copeland-carson, in evaluation butler focuses somewhat more on program evaluation – the area she has most experience in. in both cases, however, we only read about evaluation and evaluation anthropology done in the us or as commissioned in the us. as it turns out, the reader learns more about american society, programs and policy-making, than about the applicability and usefulness of doing evaluation anthropology to assess government and civil programs anywhere. the strong focus on us evaluation anthropology alone leaves the reader wanting more, even though this is a somewhat understandable bias, given the history and context of emergence of the subdiscipline. however, is there really no need for such research, or are there no similar endeavors elsewhere? is evaluation anthropology not applicable outside the american social and political contexts? perhaps being more concerned with ethics and methodology, rather than a complete review of the theories and history of the discipline, there is no room for such detours in evaluation, it would, however, have been interesting if the book entered into conversations on this level too. mary odell butler proposes her book to be “about how to link evaluation and anthropology into a dynamic and flexible approach that brings out the vitally human nature of the ways people organize themselves to accomplish their goals” (p. 9). while an ambitious objective, she does manage to shed new light on how the two disciplines can inform and challenge each other, even subtly suggesting that evaluation anthropology is a necessary, but necessarily evolving transdisciplinary process. she does not intend to give a complete theoretical overview of the two parent-disciplines, or their hybrid, nor a complete methodological or ethical guideline, yet, through mapping possible approaches and career paths, and – often painfully honestly – narrating her own experiences, she provides the reader with the necessary starting points to understand anthropological and evaluation theory, and to develop their own methodologies. in doing so, she also advises about very practical issues, such as agencies, organizations, websites and tips on how to move on in their career. all in all, evaluation is both an interesting and a useful read, where one is able to enjoy the personal narratives, gain an understanding of the basic conceptual tools and frameworks, and come back to the useful links and tips whenever they are needed. 5 references cited butler, mary odell, and jaqueline copeland-carson (eds.) 2005. creating evaluation anthropology: introducing an emerging subfield. napa bulletin 24 (1). berkeley, ca: university of california press. harklau, linda, and rachel norwood. 2005. negotiating researcher roles in ethnographic program evaluation: a postmodern lens. anthropology and education quarterly, 36 (3), pp. 278-288. hopson, rodney k. 2005. reinventing evaluation. anthropology and education quarterly, 36 (3), pp. 289-295. imola püsök graduated from the university of aberdeen and the babeș-bolyai university in cluj napoca. her areas of interest are educational anthropology, ecological anthropology and anthropology of post-socialism. © 2017 imola püsök new outlooks in paleoethnobotany review by angelina perrotti method and theory in paleoethnobotany by john m. marston, jade d’alpoim guedes and christina warinner (eds) university press of colorado, 2014 method and theory in paleoethnobotany is an excellent volume that is the first of its kind to be published in over 25 years. the editors sought to complement the existing body of literature (i.e. hastorf and popper 1988; pearsall 1989, 2000), rather than compile a replacement reference by discussing topics that have been adequately discussed in previous publications. instead, john marston, jade d’alpoim guedes and christina warinner discuss technological advancements, such as dna and isotopes and apply postprocessual theory to paleoethnobotanical data. the various contributors also emphasize formation processes in paleoethnobotany (used synonymously with archaeobotany). the first section, “formation processes,” includes three chapters that provide excellent overviews of formation processes of macrobotanicals, starch granules, pollen and phytoliths. both daphne e. gallagher’s chapter on formation processes of the macrobotanical record and deborah pearsall’s chapter on taphonomy of pollen and phytoliths provide clear, concise reviews on the topics. pearsall compares and contrasts the formation processes, sampling techniques and identification of pollen versus phytholiths, which is sure to be helpful to many readers. amanda henry’s chapter on the formation and taphonomic processes affecting starch granules presents information on a newer line of microbotanical evidence. henry discusses formation of the starch record, and elaborates on the applications of starch analysis. not only can starch granules represent the ancient plants from which they were produced, activities such as cooking, sprouting and grinding can be evidenced by the morphology of the granules. henry also discusses the susceptibility of starch analysis to contamination, which may minimize just how problematic contamination can be, given the pervasiveness of modern starches (laurence et al. 2011). the second section, “recovery, identification and data management,” is primarily focused on macrobotanical analysis, and contains concise overviews of the paleoethnobotanical process from sampling, onto processing and recovery, followed by laboratory analysis and identification. d’alpoim guedes and robert spengler head up this section with a discussion of sampling strategies. they emphasize blanket sampling and encourage collecting large samples to allow for additional analyses such as soil micromorphology. chantel white and china shelton proceed with a chapter about recovering macrobotanical remains in field. this is an abbreviated set of instructions for someone interested in how flotation works, though anyone looking to construct a flotation system would find more details in pearsall’s (1989, 2000) manual. a chapter by gayle fritz and mark nesbitt on laboratory analysis and identification of plant remains follows and covers analysis after recovery in the field. last, a chapter about digitizing the archaeobotanical record by warinner and d’alpoim guedes discusses advances in digital forums to store and share data. section three, “quantification and analysis,” provides an easily comprehensible guide to what kinds of statistics can be used in archaeobotany, and which are most commonly used today. the material covered in the section begins with an explanation of commonly used simple statistics such as ratios and concentration values. it is followed by a discussion from alexia smith about the uses of multivariate statistics, including identifying plant remains and understanding spatial distributions within a site. next, a chapter by amber vanderwarker et al. discusses the analysis of intrasite variability. this section is concluded by a discussion by chris stevens about intersite variation within charred plant remains. these chapters are a great place to start for someone who is trying to review statistics or is new to statistical analysis, as each chapter presents case studies to help clarify concepts. the fourth section “the integration of paleoethnobotanical data,” focuses on interdisciplinary approaches in paleoethnobotanical research. the first chapter in the section by timothy messner and gary stinchcomb urges collaboration between geomorphology, paleoclimatology and sociology to aid in interpreting paleoethnobotanical remains. the authors also emphasize the applications of paleoethnobotany to environmental science today. a chapter about isotopes by christina warinner follows and provides an explanation of the proxy and its uses. the subsequent chapter by nathan wales et al. discusses the use of ancient biomolecules (adna, rna etc.) in paleoethnobotany. this chapter reviews formation and taphonomy of an adna record and would be very helpful to many archaeologists, as it explains the differences between plant, animal and human dna. the last chapter in the section, by jesse casana, gives a history of aerial imaging in the discovery and mapping of archaeological sites and outlines of the benefits and drawbacks of different techniques, ranging from aerial photography to lidar. the final section, “interpretation,” includes three chapters on theory behind interpreting paleoethnobotanical data. the first chapter by kristen gremillion seeks to clear up some misconceptions that many paleoethnobotanists have about human behavioral ecology. though she does not “mount a full-fledged defense of hbe” (p.341), she gives a fair assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of this theoretical perspective. gremillion stresses the value of models, claiming that they are intentionally simplified, and when they fail to make accurate predictions, one can examine the points at which they are vulnerable, “revealing unexpected relationships or raise new questions to be pursued” (p.342). she also discusses various models rooted in human behavioral ecology and how they relate to paleoethnobotanical inquiries such as plant husbandry and decisions surrounding crop choice and processing methods. next is a chapter that discusses documenting human niche construction in the archaeological record by bruce smith. he outlines difficulties identifying this behavior in the archaeological record, including teasing apart anthropogenic and climatic disturbances in an ancient landscape, such as the appearance of more fruit and nut bearing trees or fires. last, a chapter by shanti morell-hart, adopts a unique approach, applying linguistic models to the interpretation of paleoethnobotanical material. morell-hart does an excellent job of explaining how she takes material remains and places them in the sociological setting of the every day lives of the ancient people who used them. overall, this book is an excellent volume that accomplishes its goal of complementing previously published paleoethnobotany manuals (hastorf and popper 1988; pearsall 1989, 2000). however, given the current curation crisis (see manquardt et al. 1982), it is disappointing to see that a discussion of curation was not included. a dialogue about conservation practices of these fragile, perishable materials would have been appreciated. additionally, a discussion about designing a collections based paleoethnobotanical project would have been valuable, given the existence of ample paleoethnobotanical material that remains under analyzed or unanalyzed, gathering dust in storage. despite this flaw, method and theory in paleoethnobotany will surely become a staple on any paleoethnobotanist’s bookshelf as it addresses new topics that are more relevant today than ever, such as technological advances and current theoretical approaches. in addition to providing an excellent starting point for any novice or seasoned paleoethnobotanist, this volume would be an excellent selection for a graduate seminar on paleoethnobotany. while pearsall’s paleoethnobotany (1989, 2000) is an irreplaceable reference for anyone looking to perform a paleoethobotanical analysis, students may find it too detailed for a seminar or classroom. method and theory in paleoethnobotany provides discussions of history, methodologies, current theoretical perspectives and case studies that are tied together by an extensive bibliography to allow for further in depth exploration of a particular topic by an interested student. the chapters within this volume are in a logical order and consider the paleoethnobotanical process from the first steps of developing a research design through interpretation of data. though this volume will certainly become a fixture for paleoethnobotanists, any archaeologist will find it a valuable reference for understanding plant use by ancient humans. references cited hastorf, christine a., and virginia s. popper, eds. 1988. current paleoethnobotany: analytical methods and cultural interpretations of archaeological plant remains. chicago: university of chicago press. laurence, andrew r., alston thoms, vaughn m. bryant, and cassandra mcdonough 2011. “airborne starch granules as a potential contamination source at archaeological sites.” journal of ethnobiology 31(2):213-232. accessed july 17, 2015. doi: 10.2993/0278-0771-31.2.213 manquardt, william h., anta montet-white, and sandra c. sholtz 1982. “resolving the crisis in archaeological collections curation.” american antiquity 47(2):409418. pearsall, deborah m. 1989. paleoethnobotany: a handbook of procedures. 1st ed. san diego: academic press. pearsall, deborah m. 2000. paleoethnobotany: a handbook of procedures. 2nd ed. san diego: academic press. angelina perrotti is a ph.d. student in the department of anthropology at texas a&m university. her current research includes the application of coprophilous fungi to archaeology and terminalpleistocene extinctions and environmental change in the southeastern united states. she is also interested in the application of electron microscopy to archaeology. © 2015 angelina perrotti transformation and rehabilitation: ethnographic encounters with sex offenders review by molly a. sardella cruel attachments: the ritual rehab of child molesters in germany by john borneman university of chicago press, 2015 john borneman’s cruel attachments: the ritual rehab of child molesters in germany is an ethnographic account of fieldwork among men who had been accused and convicted of child molestation. in much of the west, individuals who have been found guilty of sexual offenses against a child are viewed as irredeemable predators. they are placed upon a legal registry, often for the rest of their lives. they are ostracized from certain arenas of life including any public place where children may be present. at times, they are forbidden to interact with their own children. all of these actions serve to emphasize their status as dangerous criminals, incapable of ever fully rejoining the wider society. in germany, however, sex offenders, regardless of the severity of their crime, are typically provided with therapy. in fact, the approval of a therapist is often required before an offender can be released from a prison sentence. these therapeutic treatments represent a belief among germans, grounded in a long history of social policy and practice, that people are capable of profound change if they engage in introspective practices. reflecting upon one’s actions privately, in cooperation with therapeutic professionals, and through interacting with various publics, can lead to radical transformations of one’s very self. furthermore, according to borneman, the treatments are designed in order to enact social change through the process of reforming individuals. borneman’s text is ambitious. like many works that can be categorized as “psychological anthropology”, cruel attachments attempts to paint a picture of the self, or selves, in the process of becoming. through tracing the multi-step course of individual actors coming to be child molesters, borneman wishes to show how a person’s conception of self, or even multiple selves (p.53), and his lived experience (p.32) is continuously shaped through “interpersonal investments” (p.31). while the subjects of this text experience particular types of interpersonal investments, such as emotional transference, legal labeling, and clinical analysis, it is clear that borneman views these kinds of relations as being generally significant. building off of habermas (1989) borneman describes selves being developed, defined, and transformed, through negotiating with others within the public sphere. attempting to approach this topic from multiple angles, borneman has written an ethnography that deviates from the norm stylistically. the text is divided up into three rather distinct sections: a detailed and lengthy prolegomenon, a more classical ethnographic study of child molesters undergoing therapeutic treatment in modern day germany (chapters 1-6), and a concluding chapter (7) entitled “loose end” (p.191). borneman describes this final piece of the text as “a series of odds and ends…” which should be viewed as “…openings to further research” (p.191). both the prolegomenon and final chapter allow borneman the freedom to link his ethnographic study to the broader topics of anthropological methods and ethics. this unusual structure can be seen as either valuable or detrimental to the text depending upon the objectives and positionality of the audience. someone hoping to follow borneman’s arguments about sex offenders in germany specifically, particularly those with practical end goals related to public policy, may find it difficult to navigate between these vastly different sections. for instance, it is easy to get caught up in the narrative of the prolegomenon which focuses on the complex relationships between one “offender” named marquardt, his psychiatrist, lemke, and borneman himself and lose sight of the more traditional research project. on the other hand, anyone with an interest in debating the processual nature of anthropological research, or the ethical implications of undertaking certain sensitive projects rather than others, would benefit from closely analyzing how borneman weaves together his case studies and personal reflections on the role he himself played in the process of shaping “selves.” from a research standpoint the main substance of the text can be found in chapters 1 – 6. throughout these chapters, borneman utilizes case studies from research he conducted within group therapy sessions. he traces the movements of sexual offenders through the process of what he calls “ritual rehab” (p. 59). borneman describes how between being arrested, admitting guilt, receiving treatment, and attempting to reincorporate into society, sexual offenders are categorized and transformed within the public sphere, through their interactions and relationships with different groups. a compelling example of this process, the story of “konrad,” can be found in chapter 3. konrad was arrested for sexually assaulting a 14 year old boy. subsequently, he was viewed as a molester in the public sphere. he was stigmatized and labeled as a sexual offender. this changed konrad’s perception of himself as a member of society and he became withdrawn and depressed, initially unwilling to participate in mandated group therapy. konrad did not recognize his imposed identity as an offender, claiming he believed the boy to have been in love with him. for months he would technically accept that he was “guilty” for having committed sexual acts but tended to feel sorry for himself and little empathy for others. however, once his therapists and group mates began to express compassion for konrad’s personal history of abuse and past losses, his depression lessoned. he felt less stigmatized and was able to obtain an apartment and employment. he opened up more and began to verbally express formerly repressed desires and explain his own past actions without self-pity. his sense of who he was, his “self” transformed from a man in love, to a societal outcast/abuser, to a former victim of abuse on the path to self-understanding and rehabilitation. this form of rehabilitation borneman classifies as a modern “secular” ritual. drawing on classical anthropological theories on liminality and rites of passage (turner, 1967), borneman argues that modern ritualistic practices, like rehabilitation, are different than traditional rituals associated with life stages. this is because, rehabilitation is not merely designed to guide a person from one phase of life to another. rather it is intended to fundamentally reconstruct the “self” or interiority of the individual in question (p.62). the larger goal, according to borneman, is to enact social change through transforming particular people in accordance with moral imperatives (p.63). this section of the text is convincing. borneman supports his arguments with a substantial amount of ethnographic data derived from direct observations, participatory observations, and a number of interviews conducted over a five year period. his conclusions are well grounded in theoretical work from anthropology, sociology, and psychoanalytic research. furthermore, he utilizes historical and policy documents, as well as life histories and detailed case studies, such as that of konrad, throughout the remainder of this section of the text. it is more difficult to state whether or not borneman is “convincing” in the other two sections of cruel attachments as neither the prolegomenon nor “loose end” revolve around research questions, goals, or arguments per se. however, borneman does make a couple of interesting and debatable claims that are worth investigating. in the prolegomenon, borneman compares the role of a therapist to that of an anthropologist in the field. both are participating in “intimate events” (p.25) with their patients or subjects. both attempt to remain professional and (ideally) objective, yet by necessity they become an “audience” for the people they work with. by acting as audience, anthropologists become a part of the story their subjects tell about their selves and their lives. according to borneman, this will always have some sort of impact, typically an unpredictable one. as such, borneman does not feel anthropologists can accurately imagine and plan how they will engage with subjects prior to entering the field. claiming we can do so is, in his view, less ethical and more dishonest than an anthropologist forming close emotional ties with fieldwork subjects would be – because the latter anthropologist is at least refusing to reduce her subject to a “use-object” (p.30). in “loose end,” borneman further develops this idea and uses it to critique the processes of designing research projects for funding agencies and review boards. these ideas are interesting and potentially significant for anyone hoping to carry out fieldwork, particular on sensitive topics such as child molestation. however, these are questions that require sustained investigation and debate, and whether or not borneman is convincing will likely depend upon one’s own perspectives on the ethics of fieldwork. personally, i found this section of the text compelling but not sufficiently developed. i would look forward to reading more from borneman on this topic were he to pick up these questions in future projects, as he hinted he would. cruel attachments is a compelling yet at times difficult text to reflect upon. it is both a classical work of psychological and sociological anthropology and a reflexive piece, meditating upon the ethics of fieldwork, and relationships between anthropologists and subjects of study. borneman’s non-traditional style prevents me from critiquing cruel attachments in a conventional manner. while this ethnography may be frustrating for readers who prefer a more straightforward account, i feel that it is an important contemporary work and essential reading for anthropologists grappling with the question of how to carry out fieldwork in western locales. i would also highly recommend this book to both graduate students of anthropology and working professionals. borneman’s honesty and clarity of thought regarding the tangled relationships that occur between anthropologists and their subjects forces us to consider our own choices when conducting research, and is certain to spark debate. references cited habermas, jurgen. 1989. the structural transformation of the public sphere. cambridge, ma: polity. turner, victor. 1967. the forest of symbols: aspects of ndembu ritual. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. molly sardella is currently a graduate student within the anthropology and education program at teachers college, columbia university. she earned her ma in anthropology and mat in social studies education from binghamton university in 2011 and 2012 respectively. her research interests include identity formation, interpersonal relationships and communities, material culture, and social dynamics among youth groups. © 2016 molly a. sardella 1 overheating, or “what happens when we rub our hands without a built-in thermostat” review by imola püsök overheating: an anthropology of accelerated change by thomas hylland eriksen pluto press, 2016 in the title of the first chapter, thomas hylland eriksen cites lévi-strauss: “le monde est trop plein”. in a very illustrative picture, this sentence summarizes overheating, which according to the subtitle, is an anthropology of accelerated change. it is a book about climate change and the environment, about urbanization and improvisational survivalism, tourism and migration, waste and inequality, excess and deprivation, based on the assumption that these “rapid changes characterizing the present age have important, sometimes dramatic, unintended consequences” (vii). a focus on contradictions is at the heart of the investigation – contradictions that are underlying the crises of globalization. when studying these crises, we are “confronted with a series of clashing scales which remain poorly understood” (viii), rather than with malevolent intentions or any evil conspiracy. in this book, the author looks for paradoxes, contradictions, clashes of scale and runaway processes, in an attempt to account for the recent failure of the standard modern narrative about progress and development (ix). we live in an overheated world, a world that is too intense and too hot due to the frictions and tensions resulting from global neoliberalism, the fossil fuel hegemony and its accompanying environmental problems (132). we live in a world of accelerated growth (of population and energy use), and – despite prophecies that stated otherwise – history did not end with the fall of the iron curtain, but rather, it too accelerated. there are continually intensifying and vibrating tensions between human needs and ecological downfall, between growth and lack, and between those with and those without access to energy and resources. the consequences of large-scale decision-making have to be dealt with on a local 2 level, and local actions may have impacts on a global scale. we are no longer far enough from the other side of the world, nor small or large enough to evade the benefits and burdens of the globalized world. we have, therefore, become more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. this does not mean, that the world has become (or is becoming) homogenous. instead, globalization “highlights a tension, typical of modernity, between the system world and the life-world, between the standardized and the unique, the universal and the particular” (7). the book is composed of eight chapters. chapter 2 is a conceptual inventory, where the author defines the analytical terms (double-bind, flexibility, runaway processes and treadmill syndromes, and reproduction), the descriptive terms (anthropocene, neoliberalism) and the sorting device (scale) through which this study of contemporary modernity took place. the next five chapters are tuned to the primary sources of the current crises of globalization, namely energy use (chapter 3), mobility (chapter 4), urbanization (chapter 5), waste production (chapter 6) and the unmanageable flow of information (chapter 7). eriksen calls these markers of the anthropocene overheating processes, i.e. processes that have a series of unintended (and often unwanted) consequences, and which produce an incredibly varied range of local responses. in my reading, not only are these overheating processes interconnected, but they are themselves constructed as elaborate sets of multiple structural oppositions, where the divides usually lie along the lines of access, influence, and the north-south opposition. it is perhaps self-evident, but a striking commonality of all these overheating processes is, that they can be described with the help of a growth curve. we talk of growth in energy use, growth in international tourist arrivals, the growth of cities, growth in tones of yearly waste per capita, and growth of digital pictures taken per year. they are all exponential, unmanageable, and unsustainable. they are all in motion, pointing upward, accelerating. what the curves do not show, but the author so insightfully points out, however, are all the instances where actors on varying scales are obstructed from participating in the overheating processes. although theoretically, through the increasing interconnectedness globalization has the potential to standardize, there are parts of the world, communities, groups and individuals who stagnate, who remain stuck in transitory states. “overheating processes tend to imply the cooling down of places, activities or domains.” (59) in other words, increasing automation means jeopardizing certain livelihoods, heightened mobility means traffic jams and – in more extreme cases – being contained in refugee camps, growing cities produce shanty towns and experience infrastructural insufficiencies, and the speeding accumulation of information creates an overload. 3 whereas the middle chapters discuss the individual overheating processes, the first and the last ones tackle the big questions, namely the central double bind of economic growth and ecological sustainability, and the problem of clashing scales (i.e. life can only be lived locally, but has to be understood globally), and the anthropological inquiry (i.e. how this overheated world can be studied). interconnectedness and scale are key to our modernity both on an empirical and on an analytical level. on the one hand, overheating is not merely about climate change and global warming. it is also about the uncontrollable proliferation of all the interconnected runaway processes, such as the growth in world population, and the simultaneous but more rapid growth in energy consumption, the politics of waste production and waste reduction, growing cyber and physical interdependence, and the increase in mobility. not only does ‘overheating’ have consequences for the climate, it also has social implications, determines and is determined by power relations, defines the market and democracy, and inspires ideological and ecological movements (groups engaged in alterglobalisation). yet, all these aspects are linked to the central double bind of economic growth and ecological sustainability, to the fact that everything is measured in growth curves. on the other hand, overheating is about scale. instead of speaking about a clash of civilizations in an attempt to understand the contemporary world, it would be more instructive and versatile to make sense of the clashing scales (132). this also has consequences for analysis. it is necessary to explore how the crises of globalization are being dealt with in local contexts, “what strategies for survival, autonomy and resistance are being developed” (16). the author argues that due to our dependence on social and economic networks on a transnational scale, it is no longer useful or meaningful to distinguish between smalland large-scale societies, but instead, it may be more instructive to distinguish between systems or activities operating on different levels of scale (45-46). alternative, green communities are, for example, absorbed by global capitalism, without capitalism changing its course, despite both global and local discontent(s) with regards to the effects of the neoliberal free market (“the iron grip of corporate power”) and of high-scale politics (49). as eriksen points out, globalization also has significant consequences for our discipline and our methods. the world has, “almost in its entirety, been transformed into a single – if bumpy, diverse and patchy – moral space, while the anthropologists had been busy looking the other way” (5). cultural relativity can, therefore, no longer be an excuse for not engaging with the world in an era where professed neutrality “becomes in itself a political statement” (5). for an anthropological study of accelerated change this means, that we need to transcend the limitations of studying only the local, but 4 without falling on the other side of the horse. the author suggests that we “build the confrontation between the universal and the particular as a premise into the research design (6). anthropology as a discipline, and we, anthropologists as (social) scientists must allow for new, transdisciplinary theoretical approaches, and supplement our key method – ethnography – with sufficient contextual knowledge (historical, statistical, macrosociological) in order to fully understand the complexities of the globalized world. although the text is defined only as an “overture and an overview” in the preface, as a reader and reviewer, i was impressed with (and startled by) the clarity and meticulousness with which it is presented. the concepts are well-defined, the overarching narrative is clear and consistent, and the clashes of scale and runaway processes that underlie the current global crises are thoroughly explained. in reading, one does not feel the burden or liberty of interpretation but is flooded by the multitude and layers of information that so aptly contour the concept and project of overheating. could – apart from the writing style of the author – this change in the mode and scope of producing anthropological narratives also be subtly linked to the rapid changes in the world we study? are the writing (and reading) aesthetics of the “good old days of widow burning and cannibalism” not suitable for capturing and understanding the accelerating dynamics of the twenty-first century? in this book, thomas hylland eriksen tackles not only the small places and large issues anthropologists encounter when studying the effects of globalization but also addresses the methodological and theoretical dilemmas they are faced within the process. references cited eisenstadt, s. n. 2000. multiple modernities. daedalus. 129 (1), pp. 1-29. imola püsök is a phd student at the university of pécs. previously she has studied at the university of aberdeen and the babeș-bolyai university in cluj napoca. her areas of interest include knowledge and knowledge production, environmental anthropology, anthropology and education, youth and adolescence, and post-socialism. © 2018 imola püsök 1 rites of participation: popular encounters and democratic ritual in brazil review by joseph jay sosa the limits to citizen power by victor albert pluto press, 2016 political anthropologists and ethnographers often address the limits to citizen power, in terms of the material and symbolic barriers ordinary people encounter in their attempts to have a say in the rule of the state. victor albert's recent book, the limits to citizen power: participatory entanglements and the state (pluto press) invites readers to consider the question from an additional perspective. albert examines not just the limits to power, but the limits of citizenship, one that may be immanent to citizenship itself as a social form. albert's ethnography of three different participatory democratic institutions in the brazilian municipality of santo andré shows both the extrinsic and intrinsic factors for why these institutions premised on citizen access often fail to translate into citizen power. while noting the opposed interests of organized citizens versus representatives of the state (although these social roles become flexible in practice), albert instead concentrates on the ritualized form under which citizen-state interactions take place. the result questions many of the ideological assumptions of unmediated spontaneity in democracy theory's traditional treatment of participation. participatory democracy has become quite a hot topic in political science and political anthropology of south america. while many variations exist in implementation, the basic supposition of participant democracy is that it multiplies citizens' points of access to decision making and gives 2 citizens an institutionalized form to co-craft public policy and governance in collaboration with state officials. participatory institutions exist on a number of scales and in a variety of formats--from local participatory budgeting (pb) where neighborhood residents decide which development projects take priority to national councils (on women, youth, health, etc.) where social movement representatives review federal policy in a given area. in the 2000s, the so-called "pink tide" of leftist governments won presidential elections in south america. many of those administrations set up participatory institutions in a variety of formats. the institutionalization of participatory democracy principles has not only changed mechanisms of governance; they have also contributed to a certain experimentalist ethos on the left. ethnographers hailing from sociology, anthropology and political science have been keen to study the democratic procedures and political cultures that have emerged from these new institutions. but participatory democracy also has its critics, even those committed to the emancipatory and empowerment goals it presents. some argue that participatory bodies become co-opted by the administrators who organize them, becoming a captured voice of the people. others suggest that participatory institutions are an end-run around legislative practices. thus, the general question framing most ethnographic studies of participant democracy have centered around whether participant democracy can live up to its promise to bring ordinary people into the state, or whether the will-tobureaucracy throughout liberal democracy and modern life more generally will ultimately undermine the participatory project? victor albert's book fits well within this general question framing most scholarship on participatory democracy. limit to citizen power interweaves the story of four different participatory "councils" in santo andré: the housing council (hc), municipal budget council (mbc), urban development council (udc), and welfare management council (wmc). these four councils have different purviews and manage citizen input in different ways. albert's observations, however, demonstrate how all the councils are concerned in one way or another with questions that continue to 3 vex the inherent paradoxes of how democracy is exercised in daily practice. he begins his analysis in the first chapter by contextualizing some of the tensions in participatory democracy historically, showing the paradoxical forces around pd that made it what it was. chapters two, three, and four turn to participatory institutions as ritualized spaces of encounter. in his schematized reading of speaking orders, modes of address, the organization of bodies and architecture, albert shows how decisionmaking processes symbolically recapitulate the legitimatizing practices of representative democracy. chapter five provides narratives from the participants themselves--both citizens and state representatives--on how they mediate conflicting ideas about the process. titled "backstage," chapter six offers a glimpse of various interactions outside of the participatory meetings themselves. in viewing these side conversations outside the primary ritualized sphere of action, albert considers how other political forms, such as clientalism, also inform the participatory process. the first chapter explores central paradoxes of participatory democracy in the context of broader historical factors in brazil's democratization. here the site of the councils, santo andré, becomes crucial to the narrative. santo andré, a 600,000 resident municipality in the greater são paulo metropolitan area that occupies a special place in the brazilian political imagination. the city was a site of a metal-workers' strikes in this region in 1978 that became a symbol of resistance to brazil's military dictatorship and launched the career of strike leader luis inácio da silva (lula) on a trajectory that eventually included the brazilian presidency. after the success of the strikes, lula formed the worker's party (or pt) in 1982 (shortly after the dictatorship allowed a return to political parties). envisioned as a "movement of movements" rather than solely a political party, the pt aggressively instituted participatory democracy institutions in municipalities after they won local election. santo andre had a progressive mayor, celso daniel, a martyr-like figure whose figure looms large in not only the history of participatory democracy but in the living memory of the politicians and citizens whom albert interviews. drawing on the santo andré municipal plans filed under the daniel administration, albert 4 reports on daniel's ambivalent feelings towards the participatory institutions he helped create. daniel, himself a member of the original generation of pt organizers and socialists, lamented that the citizens he wished to empower did not understand how participation worked. while pt activists like daniel wanted to use participatory institutions to remake the structure of power, the citizens they brought into the process had more focused goals--using the process to make specific demands rather than broad governing changes. albert, here, touches on a fascinating question: what is the disjuncture between the potential for structural change that the activist founders of participatory democracy envisioned, versus the often specific (and, to recall the title, limited) demands that citizens place on it? placed within the history of santo andré, this question acquires an additional intimate layer of meaning as actors see themselves as continuing a line of democratic and populist tradition that extends to the fight for democracy in brazil. this shared feeling in the importance and fragility of democracy appears in ethnographic accounts of citizenship throughout the brazilianist literature, and albert's interlocutors seem attentive to this as well. chapters two, three, and four focus on structural features of the participatory meetings themselves, showing how interactions construct not only the meaning but the efficacy and legitimacy of the participatory governance sessions. albert borrows here on sociological insights on the institution, anthropological frameworks on ritual, as well as semiotic anthropology approaches to the interactions. distinguishing his analysis from previous ethnographies that have treated elections and induction ceremonies as aspects of the participatory governance process secondary in comparison to demand making and negotiation, albert shows how the physicality of the space creates a cosmology of the governance session itself. in the description, albert recounts ceremonial aspects of brazilian meeting structures that will be familiar to any one who has sat through a government or even scholarly presentation. in a close ritual analysis of the action of "composing the table," albert offers an incisive reading of the political significance of seeming arcane formalities. composing the table consists of 5 inviting roundtable participants up to the table one by one, announcing their position and credentials. albert's close reading of the honorifics applied (reminding the reader that the 'his excellence' title adjoining the names of even minor politicians symbolically recalls the imperial portuguese tradition) shows how composing the table is truly performative act that instantiates state authority in a room so that constrains citizens' efficacy in exercising their power. other factors--from the architecture, to the scheduling, to the staging of bodies--collude to frame the interaction as one where the state frames the relationship it will have with its citizens. the clinical eye applied to the meeting spaces contributes to the ethnographic approaches to participatory democratic institutions--as they tend to follow the experiences of a set of a cohort of participants. focusing on ritualization, albert hits upon the scripted sociality of participatory meetings that might not have been obvious had this simply been an account of competing interests. while initial ethnographic analyses tended to be overly laudatory of the process, subsequent analyses have focused on the ruses of citizen access, how such access is limited by bureaucracy, the competition of interests, etc. these corrections to the initial wave of uncritical praise have been a welcome addition to the record, but they have been fairly uncreative in the way they have treated power. scholars have mostly analyzed the flaws of participatory democratic institutions in terms of the possibility for subterfuge or cooptation. such analyses show that no process is invulnerable to the manipulation of interested actors. albert demonstrates plenty of this kind of external pressure on participatory institutions. the focus on the ritual of participation shows an additional set of limitations, this time not due to external pressures but to the immanent contradictions of symbolizing democratic power itself. this is the true limit of citizen power, that in cannot manifest itself in the abstract or in utopic unmediated fashion but rather it needs a form, a ritual to fashion it. will the cultural aspects of power itself undermine the prospect of radical democracy? that is, ultimately as albert documents, not just the limits to citizen’s power but the limits of power. 6 in these middle chapters, the focus on the structure of the encounters makes albert's ethnographic reportage appear removed from the people themselves, which is both a strength and weakness of his reading here. while albert captures the unspoken rules that structure the encounter, his method misses what brazilians call jeitinho––the clever and roguish ways in which rules can be negotiated. surely, there are performative misfires in the ritual: people who speak out of turn, who roll their eyes at the pronouncements of the politicians attending, or in other ways resist the roles that the state carves out for them. had albert become more embedded with a particular group, he might have been pulled into the particular views of a subset of actors, privy to another set of motivations, interpretations that would have obscured the formal analysis of the social field that he schematizes. while he gets offhand comments from the crowd, describing chaotic meetings as farcical (palhaçada) and 'nonsense' or a mess (bagunça), what is missing is a sustained voice from within that crowd. a greater attention to the ideological, interpersonal disputes between supporters of edu and ronaldo in elections for citizen representative in chapter two, for instance, might have missed the fact that the election itself reinforces the legitimacy of the process regardless of who wins. yet albert’s constant insistence on the procedural view risks an overly clinical gaze, where precisely what is missing from this ethnography of citizen politics are the citizens themselves. the strength of albert's study emerges over the course of the book to show how participatory democracy is layered into, shapes and is shaped by existing patterns and structures of institutionalized power. one of the central questions of the book: how to balance the participatory ethos of social democracy and the inefficiency of that model for the administration of developed life. this is not an abstract or suppositional question. the foundation of brazilian grassroots activism (grupos de base) was centered on procuring resources from the state, such as water and resource collection. albert suggests that these infrastructure services, which propelled dispossessed people into politics and eventually participatory regimes, are precisely the kinds of projects that do not work well by 7 committee. has brazil's participatory turn generated its own conditions of ungovernability, and if so, are oppositional politics actually necessary within the participatory model? in exploring these questions, the author hits on one of the most important contradictions of a (post?) liberal society. if liberalism offers citizens the promise of not having to care about politics (berlant 2011), then does the demand to participate violate a norm of modern global life? might not caring also be part of the efficacy of administration? albert's analysis is, perhaps appropriately, ambivalent about these very provocative questions that he raises. after all, democratic public assemblies can have their determinations thwarted by an inefficient bureaucracy, by interfering elites, judicial prohibitions and complexities and so on. yet, if citizens are not actively influencing the decisions and conduct of the public administration rather than merely being offered a formal opportunity to do so, then an ideally liberal bureaucracy and an ideally efficient administration cannot salvage their democratic promise. bibliography berlant, lauren. 2011. cruel optimism. durham, n.c.: duke university press. joseph jay sosa is assistant professor of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at bowdoin college. he is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on sexuality, statecraft, and public culture in são paulo, brazil. his current book project, participatory desires, examines how demands for lgbt political recognition in media, protests, and government institutions have served as a catalyst for broader shifts in brazil’s ideological spectrum. © 2018 joseph jay sosa 1 "no longer far from the ruler:" a "then and now" portrayal of the indigenous lisu of mainland southeast asia and southwest china review by micah f. morton, ph.d. the lisu: far from the ruler by michele zack university press of colorado, 2017 like other indigenous peoples the world over, the lisu of mainland southeast asia and southwest china have experienced profound changes in their lives during the past twenty odd years. the lisu, a tibeto-burman speaking group of some 1.5 million people, are adapting to those changes in ways that, while leading to new and emergent ways of being "lisu," nevertheless maintain a uniquely "lisu" disposition or habitus grounded in a strong sense of being "independent," "egalitarian," "hard working," and "self-employed." situated across the borders of three nation states undergoing dramatic political, economic, and sociocultural transformations namely china, myanmar, and thailand lisu, regardless of where they reside, are being strongly impacted by and adapting to situations in which they can no longer live "far from the ruler." in each of those national contexts, lisu are adapting to a situation in which the state is exerting an increasingly significant presence in the form of expanding transportation and telecommunication infrastructures and direct rather than indirect control. along with restrictions on land use, land scarcity, and population pressure, lisu increasingly find themselves in a situation where they can no longer follow their age old tradition of "voting with their feet," the quintessential means by which they have maintained their "independent" and "egalitarian" nature. lisu are further engaging in new and emergent forms of global connectivity, which have spurred a trans-regional lisu identity movement. in short, the lisu are a people that, while "no longer on the move" spatially, maintain a migratory outlook or ethos that helps them adapt to and make the best of the many changes occurring in their everyday lives and surrounding environments. through it all, they have asserted and will continue to assert a distinct lisu identity grounded in a fiercely independent, egalitarian, and hardworking mindset that can be found among lisu regardless of national context and religious affiliation. these are the main arguments made by michele zack in the lisu: far from the ruler. zack is a journalist that first began studying the lisu in the early 1990s, initially in north thailand, and later in north myanmar and southwest china. during that period, zack argues, the lisu were able to follow their "traditional live-far-from-the-ruler playbook." following a roughly twenty year hiatus from "lisu country," she returned in 2014 to find that lisu had undergone dramatic changes due to their 2 increasing entanglements in both the "state-dominated worlds they (now) inhabit" and today's increasingly globalized world. in brief, zack argues that due to those changes, the lisu are no longer able to "live far from the ruler." her accessible and engaging text offers a "then and now" look at the lisu that is variably travelogue, memoir, and ethnography. it will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers interested in mainland southeast asia and southwest china, indigenous peoples, cultural change, religion, the state, and globalization. zack frames her "then and now" thematic focus in relation to the burgeoning scholarship on "zomia," arguing that "lisu custom.....provides an alternate road map to living together cooperatively that clearly privileges egalitarian and individualist values over hierarchical ones" (p. 224). "zomia" refers to a "non-state" space traversing the mountainous borderlands of mainland southeast asia, southwest china, and south asia inhabited by supposedly anarchic ethnic groups, such as the akha, hmong, and lisu, that have, until recently, actively avoided being burdened by and incorporated into lowland states. in terms of structure, the text is divided into two parts that largely adhere to the theme of "then and now." the first part offers a portrayal of "the lisu" in classical anthropological style with each subchapter covering different aspects of lisu culture, such as "mythic origins," "migration," and "childhood: learning by doing." in those sub-chapters, however, zack relies heavily on the earlier scholarship of a number of anthropologists, missionaries, and colonial officials. as a result, part one at times reads like a dry secondary report on "the lisu." in addition, lisu from thailand figure prominently in part one. this is due to the fact that most english-language scholarship on the lisu to date focuses on thailand. zack claims, however, that she has written the first ever english-language book focusing on the larger lisu country of north thailand, north myanmar, and southwest china. while she achieves that goal in the larger text, zack's heavy reliance in part one on scholarship pertaining to lisu in thailand is problematic. first, the lisu in thailand today are a small minority on a regional scale, comprising roughly 50,000 people compared to 400,000 in myanmar, and 700,000 in china. second, most lisu in thailand are non-christian "animists," unlike lisu in china and myanmar who are largely protestant christians. the impact of christian conversion on lisu culture is a major theme in the text. last, the lisu in thailand today have migrated the furthest and the most when compared to other lisu in the region. this leaves me to wonder if zack's emphasis on the lisu in general as a people on the move forever seeking to live "far from the ruler" applies more to lisu in thailand rather than lisu as a whole. zack's incredulity upon learning of a 400-500 year old lisu village in southwest china suggests that her representations of lisu history and culture may be skewed more by her observations in thailand rather than in the greater lisu country. the latter finding further complicates zack's portrayal of the lisu as the quintessential "zomians." part two of the book, entitled "the lisu by country: contemporary sketches," offers a richer, more intimate portrayal of lisu culture via a string of vignettes and ethnographies of the particular drawing on zack's experiences in the multi-sited field of lisu country. my favorite chapter in part two is the one on thailand, not because i know that particular context the best, but because in its pages zack and her interlocutors really come alive. the range of individuals whose life stories are featured in that chapter vividly illustrates the diverse issues facing lisu and other upland minorities in thailand today (i.e. citizenship and land rights, drug addiction, poverty, discrimination, and cultural loss) as well as the strategies they are pursuing in grappling with those issues. in addition, the chapters on myanmar and china shed much needed light on some of the ways in which certain lisu in those countries perceive of 3 and are positioning themselves relative to the dramatic economic, sociocultural, and, in the case of myanmar, political changes taking place locally, regionally, and nationally. one limitation i found with the text, however, is how zack deals with the issue of the relationship between culture and religion, given that the vast majority of lisu today are protestant christians. she argues that for lisu christians, "culture is bigger than religion," and that religious conversion has only impacted some aspects of traditional lisu identity as (protestant) christians no longer raise pigs for feasting but rather for the market, and no longer consume alcohol and cigarettes. zack overlooks earlier scholarship on highland southeast asia arguing that for many upland minorities "religious" conversion is understood and experienced as an "ethno-religious" conversion process involving the adoption of a new collective identity grounded more in practices than beliefs. a few "animist" lisu from thailand featured in the text express the latter view via their assertions that christian converts "no longer do as we do." i also find zack's claim that christian lisu are doing more to preserve lisu culture than nonchristian "animists" troubling and am uneasy with her use of the label "animists" for lisu traditionalists. micah f. morton is an associate fellow at the institute of southeast asian studies (iseas) in singapore and an associate researcher in the center for trans-himalayan studies at the yunnan nationalities university in china. his research and publications focus on transnationalism, stateminority relations, social movements, religion and politics, ethnicity and nationalism, and the politics of indigeneity in mainland southeast asia and southwest china. he recently published an article in american anthropologist entitled "reframing the boundaries of indigeneity: state-based ontologies and assertions of distinction and compatibility in thailand." © 2018 micah morton 1 living in a rio de janeiro favela review by lucas carneiro de carvalho living with insecurity in a brazilian favela: urban violence and daily life by r. ben penglase rutgers university press, 2014 in the early 1900s, rio de janeiro had gone through a massive urban transformation that inspired the writer and politician coelho neto to coin the term cidade maravilhosa (marvelous city) to describe the new urban space. a few years later, in 1934, andré filho composed a carnival song also entitled cidade maravilhosa, and the term became emblematic to describe the city of rio. in the verses of his song, andré filho describes rio de janeiro as a “(…) birthplace of samba and beautiful songs; that live within people’s soul; you are the altar of our hearts; which happily sing; (…) flower-filled garden with love and saudade [1]; land that seduces all; may god cover you with happiness; nest of dreams and light; (…) marvelous city; filled with thousands of enchantments; marvelous city; heart of my brazil.” in living with insecurity in a brazilian favela: urban violence and daily life, by r. ben penglase, we are presented with the other side of the coin. we read about the rio of the hillsides, the rio deprived of urban planning and public services, a rio that, although, on the social margins, has the best views of this marvelous city. penglase’s ethnographic description does not focus on the exotica and gore of drug traffickers’ violence, police brutality, institutionalized corruption, and the constant sense of insecurity, but rather on the lived experiences of those who make the favela of caxambu their home. the book is based on 18 months of field research between the years 1998 and 1999, followed by a subsequent field visit in 2001. violence is the theme that cuts through all the chapters, but it is framed by michael certeau’s distinction between tactics and strategies, where “strategies are the schema used by the powerful: they seek to produce regularity and stability; (…) tactics, on the other hand, are the ways of operating of the powerless: they are ruses or tricks that do not necessarily challenge or resist systems of power but function within them” (p. 6). it is within this framework that the book explores the saber viver (knowing how to live) of the families who make caxambu their home. it is this particular local knowledge that is presented and problematized throughout the book, and each chapter focuses on different but complementary topics. http://www.anthropology-news.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=71911&action=edit#_ftn1 2 in chapter 1, penglase presents his theoretical framework and situates his work within the larger scholarship on violence. he also highlights the destructive and constructive aspects of violence, and explores examples in which violence generated practices and discourses, reshaping how brazilians think and experience their own social universe. he also presents and problematizes some methodological challenges in the research: “first, how to depict both order and disorder in ways that do not reify one as the normal counterpart to the other; and second, how to depict a situation of uncertainty and unpredictable violence when i myself was part of the story” (p. 26). chapter 2 presents a discussion of how penglase gained rapport in the community (a la geertz), and how his field strategy of deep hanging out [2] allowed him to also fall within the local male comportment. this chapter not only explores the position of the research in the field, but also some important oppositions that help us understand the reality of rio’s favelas. some of these are: inside/outside the favela, hillside/neighborhood, legality/illegality, and violence/nonviolence. throughout the chapter, penglase problematizes some of these oppositions and argues for a more nuanced analysis, which looks at a particular situation within a continuum rather than inferring diacritical values. chapter 3 looks at the dangerous and familial dynamics residents have to assess and engage with in their daily affairs in caxambu. the shared experiences in the favela, and “local social representations of the neighborhood created a moral map to guide and evaluate social interactions” (p. 71). the chapter also looks back in time to explore how favelas and their own distinct logic are not only a problem, but also a solution to specific social, political, and economic moments. in chapter 4, the author explores why and how violence is deployed by drug traffickers to reshape local ideologies, ways of being, and knowing. the state of (in)security is partially due to the fact that drug traffickers often break their own rules. in such a way, they “pursued a strategy of abnormalization: although they claimed to provide safety and security, they alsooften deliberately disrupted daily life” (p. 107). in this environment and permanent state of emergency, residents have to perform the act of hiding what is common knowledge in order to keep at bay acts of violence from drug traffickers and policemen. this chapter also deals with some gender issues in caxambu and how the presence of drug trafficking and its promise of quick wealth creates intergenerational conflicts and changes the values ascribed to masculinity among the residents. chapter 5 explores the interplay of police and drug traffickers in the production of (in)security in caxambu. penglase’s historical analysis of the role of policing during brazil’s military dictatorship offers some insight into the ways in which the police force today deals with those “disrupting civic order.” moreover, “it is clear that the police do not naturalize the power of the state, producing a docile population. rather, they are widely seen as dangerous and unpredictable, to be avoided if possible” (p. 155). chapter 5 also explores how the police tie together assumptions about criminality, race, and types of person, thus overlapping place, race, and people. and in the conclusion, the author points to a few ethnographic cases that show how residents are constantly forgetting and remembering certain spaces and histories of such spaces, which in the end empower the community to (re)write their own stories and histories of violence through their lived experiences. although the book is an accessible read, i have a few minor critiques. the chapters present interesting arguments, but seem to be too isolated from one another, focusing on race, gender, police strategies, historiography, and the dichotomy between morro and bairro (hillside and neighborhood). i think the whole project would benefit if the text were more dialogic within http://www.anthropology-news.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=71911&action=edit#_ftn2 3 itself. in reading, i kept coming up with questions about race, gender, early social and economic strategies of urban development in rio, the state of the local and international drug trade, etc. many of these questions were answered in the text, but in subsequent chapters, so i think a mention of these should have come up earlier on in the text whenever pertinent. another critique is with the discussion of the development of the drug trade in latin america in the 1980s onward, and its status during the author’s field research. it is clear from the scope of the project, that this aspect is beyond the research that was conducted, since the goal is to look at the strategies of caxambu residents in dealing with a state of (in)security. however, this leaves a whole set of questions unanswered. for example: who are the other national and international stakeholders at play? do they influence the kind of violence experienced in rio’s favelas? where do drug traffickers acquire their armaments? are any other aspects of the brazilian state involved in this kind of corruption besides the police (federal police, armed forces, politicians, etc.)? if so, to what extent? a more nuanced description of relations of the drug trafficking violence in caxambu with the drug trafficking in rio, brazil, and latin america would fill a void in the book. another observation is the timeframe of the research itself. the ethnography was conducted in 1998, 1999, and 2001, and since then significant changes have occurred in the way policing is conducted in rio’s favelas, as well as in the configuration of rio’s organized crime itself. penglase himself points to this issue and how the units of police pacification (upp) and changes in the comando vermelho altered the dynamics in the state of (in)security. notwithstanding these critiques, living with insecurity in a brazilian favela: urban violence and daily life is a phenomenal book that presents a humanistic approach to violence in a rio favela. penglase puts police and drug traffickers at the same structural level as agents that contribute to the state of constant insecurity, rather than looking at them as diametrically opposed. both have the potential for violence, but the drug trafficker is the one who residents know intimately. these are the people he calls “dangerous intimates” (p. 29). penglase delivers in his promise of not writing a pornography of violence (p. 27), but a description that is based on traumatic events that leave lingering effects and scars in the social fabric of society. although the book should be read by all those interested in violence and the representation of violence and danger in brazil and latin america, as i was reading i could not help but relate some aspects described by penglase to current political and social events in europe, the middle east, and the us. this was especially the case when describing how police tend to conflate place, race, and qualities of people. it is frightening to see how recent political discourses draw from essentialist assumptions to push for policies that negatively affect large groups. perhaps these peoples, not living in favelas, but in neighborhoods marked by cultural, religious, racial or ethnic specificities, are also living states of (in)security, where representatives of the state are also perceived as the agents of violence and terror. lucas de carvalho is an assistant research professor at the university of maryland at college park. he has a ma in anthropology from the federal university of minas gerais in brazil, and a phd in anthropology from the university of virginia. he specializes in the ethnography of indigenous peoples in amazonia, and is currently working with indigenous theories of subjectivity, relatedness, violence, and everyday practice. [1] roughly equates to feelings of longing and nostalgia. [2] geertz, c., 1998. deep hanging out. the new york review of books, 45 (16), 69. http://www.anthropology-news.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=71911&action=edit#_ftnref1 http://www.anthropology-news.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=71911&action=edit#_ftnref2 4 © 2017 lucas carneiro de carvalho 1 pol pot's willing executioner? criminal accountability at the khmer rouge tribunal review by richard a. wilson man or monster? the trial of a khmer rouge torturer by alexander laban hinton duke university press 2016 alexander laban hinton has written a highly engaging and experimental ethnography of international justice that narrates the criminal trial of kaing guek eav (aka “duch”), a central figure in the “killing fields’ of 1970s cambodia. man or monster? interrogates the enterprise of pursuing accountability for some of worst instances of human rights violations in the twentieth century, exploring the limits of both law and literature to comprehend mass atrocities. hinton finds the manichean dualism posed in the title of his book both inadequate, haunting and generative, and he illustrates how all accounts of one individuals’ role in past crimes are partial and incomplete or, in his words, “redacted.” hinton’s style of writing and analysis of an international criminal trial is original and represents a significant contribution to the growing literature on the anthropology of post-conflict justice that includes recent studies by anders (2011), clarke (2009, 2010), eltringham (2013), kesselring (2016), theidon (2013) and wilson (2011, 2017). hinton complements, and, in imaginative ways, extends this existing anthropological literature. his is a “performative ethnography” that is episodic, polyphonic, experimental, and includes poetry, the dreams of the ethnographer and other literary techniques. for hinton, the international criminal trial of duch is less about accountability and challenging impunity than it is a “performance of a liberal order” (p.241), a quasi-religious quest for the grounds of redemption of the accused so that he might be returned to the fold of humanity. law, according to hinton, is quite unsuited to this latter task, given its epistemological framing of events, and its winner2 takes-all quest for truth that leads to a subsequent attribution of guilt. from 1975 to 1979, the khmer rouge rule of “democratic kampuchea” constituted one of the more brutal and bloody regimes of the twentieth century. its maoist leader, pol pot, famously pursued a policy of devastating the cities and pastoralizing the country in the ideological belief that the peasantry was the only true and pure revolutionary vanguard. roughly 2 million of cambodia’s eight million people died as a result of pol pot’s policies, nearly a quarter of the country’s population. the khmer rouge purged all considered actual or potential opponents, and, as part of its program of mass killing, it established 196 prisons across the country where tens of thousands were interrogated, tortured and murdered. one of the most infamous of these prisons was s-21 (or “tuol sleng”) a former high school in phnom penh run by “comrade duch” the alias of a former mathematics teacher and fervent maoist revolutionary, kaing guek eav. after the fall of phnom penh to the vietnamese army in 1979, tuol sleng genocide museum became “cambodia’s auschwitz,” the site of memory most often visited by foreigners and cambodians. after a hiatus of nearly thirty years, duch was arrested and brought to trial at the extraordinary chamber for the courts of cambodia (eccc), a hybrid international tribunal integrating national and international criminal law and personnel. the eccc’s prosecution team, led by a cambodian national co-prosecutor chea leang, and canadian co-prosecutor robert petit, charged the accused duch with criminal responsibility for the killing of over 12,000 men, women and children, a crime against humanity. the prosecution’s case drew heavily on documents, many of them signed orders to execute prisoners by duch himself, and portrayed the accused as a willing executioner, a zealot for an ideological crusade, and an enthusiastic enforcer of a sadistic regime. in addition to the documentary evidence, former prisoners of s-21 testified to its appalling conditions and unimaginable brutality, where thuggish guards (young peasant men who were selected and trained by duch) raped and tortured prisoners and killed small children by smashing their heads against a designated tree. finally, there was the confession of duch himself, who admitted to, and in fleeting moments, expressed remorse for these atrocities. the prosecution built a compelling case that duch was a “monster,” the personification of evil, a view fulsomely endorsed by his victims and their families who were party to the trial, as well as by ordinary cambodians who graffitied their reactions on the walls of the exhibition at tuol sleng. hinton gives ample consideration to the defense case, which began with the jurisdictional argument 3 that duch should not be on trial at the eccc at all, given that the eccc’s statute mandated the court to only pursue those “most responsible” for international crimes. duch was merely a cog in the machine, following orders that came down from more senior officials who were truly responsible for the mass crimes. duch himself was terrorized by these officials and so his compliance was borne of self-preservation, not ideological fervor. furthermore, none of the heads of the nearly 200 other prisons were charged by the eccc for any crimes, thus violating duch’s right to equality before the cambodian constitution. finally, there was the human aspect; in the years since the events, duch had converted to christianity, had become a teacher again and openly expressed remorse for his past crimes. he apologized several times during the trial, and quoted french poetry. at these moments, the event was less a criminal trial and more a ritualized purification ritual directed at the forgiveness and redemption of the accused. hinton poses the same poignant questions again and again throughout this narrative. what explains the cambodian genocide? was duch a man, or a monster? a zealous and ruthless revolutionary or a quietly-spoken former mathematics teacher who quoted french romantic poetry in his trial? ultimately, hinton opts for the time-honored “perpetrator-in-all-of-us” interpretation that, “under tragic circumstances, anyone can end up like duch (p. 82).” for hinton, the cambodian genocide cannot be grasped by the politically-inclined explanations that have been advanced thus far, such as the mass indoctrination of the population by a small maoist clique led by pol pot, or by the violence of decolonization and its aftermath. instead, hinton identifies the cause of the genocide in “the banality of everyday thought (p. 35).” by this, hinton means the quotidian social categories through which persons simplify, frame and ultimately erase others. in short, “social cognition” (although hinton does not use this term) provides the causal mechanism for mass murder. here, hinton extends historian david chandler’s thesis that to understand s-21, we need to look no further than ourselves and our inherent tendency to obey authority. how might we evaluate the claim that mass atrocities arise from everyday forms of social classification? one might start by acknowledging that social cognition is ubiquitous in all known human societies, and that genocide is always accompanied by rigid forms of social categorizing. at the same time, we need to distinguish carefully between necessary and sufficient conditions, in that social categorization may be a necessary condition for genocide, but it is not sufficient, and much, much more is needed. 4 there is a second potential objection to the “je suis duch” thesis that is based in an anthropological theory of agency. all of us are indeed partially the product of our time, place and culture, but we also exercise a degree of choice and agency, even in the most extreme and inauspicious conditions. while all humans may possess an abstract capacity for violence, it does not follow that all persons, even given a certain upbringing, are in practice willing and able to smash in the brains of small children against a tree. this observation is borne out by the history and ethnography of warfare and genocide. the erdemović trial at the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia illustrated the recalcitrance and mental anguish of a hapless young soldier compelled to participate in the genocide at srebrenica, bosnia-hercegovina. browning’s (1998) classic historical account ordinary men, for instance, noted that 20% of firing squads at the józefów massacre in poland refused to shoot. this response was so widespread that the entire edifice of the inhuman, bureaucratic-industrial machine of the holocaust was created because the german high command could not rely on ordinary soldiers to execute the program of exterminating jews. hinton may be right, that “we” may need look no further than ourselves to understand the cambodian genocide, but for different reasons than the ones he emphasizes. hinton never tells us who his “we” actually refers to, but by “we,” i mean “we americans whose military waged war and dropped over 2 million tons of ordnance on cambodia and indochina between about 1964 and 1974.” culpability lies not in cognition, but in politics. references anders, gerhard. 2011. “testifying about ‘uncivilized events’: problematic representations of africa in the trial against charles taylor.” leiden journal of international law 24 (4): 937–59. doi:10.1017/s0922156511000446. browning, christopher. 1998. ordinary men: reserve police battalion 101 and the final solution in poland. new york: harpercollins. first published 1992. clarke, kamari. 2009. fictions of justice: the international criminal court and the challenge of legal pluralism in sub-saharan africa. cambridge: cambridge university press. 5 ———. 2010. “rethinking africa through its exclusions: the politics of naming criminal responsibility.” anthropological quarterly 83 (3): 625–52. eltringham, nigel. 2013 “‘illuminating the broader context’: anthropological and historical knowledge at the international criminal tribunal for rwanda.” journal of the royal anthropological institute 19 (2): 338–55. kesselring, rita. 2016. bodies of truth: law, memory, and emancipation in post-apartheid south africa. stanford: stanford university press. theidon, kimberly. 2013. intimate enemies: violence and reconciliation in peru. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. wilson, richard ashby. 2011. writing history in international criminal trials. cambridge: cambridge university press. -----------------------------2017. incitement on trial: prosecuting international speech crimes. cambridge: cambridge university press. richard a. wilson is the gladstein distinguished chair of human rights and professor of law and anthropology at uconn school of law, and founding director of the human rights institute at uconn. wilson is a scholar of transitional justice who currently teaches courses on post-conflict justice, law and society, and an interdisciplinary graduate level course on the anthropology, history, law and philosophy of human rights. he is the author or editor of 10 books on international human rights, humanitarianism, truth and reconciliation commissions and international criminal tribunals. his book writing history in international criminal trials was selected by choice in 2012 as an “outstanding academic title” in the law category. his forthcoming book, incitement on trial: prosecuting international speech crimes (cambridge university press, 2017), explains why international criminal tribunals struggle to convict individuals for inciting speech and proposes a new model of prevention and punishment. © 2017 richard a. wilson 1 anthropology and philosophy: creating a workspace for collaboration review by christopher kloth anthropology & philosophy: dialogues on trust and hope by: sune liisberg, esther oluffa pederson, and anne line dalsgard eds. berghahn books, 2015 anthropology & philosophy: dialogues on trust and hope, edited by sune liisberg, esther oluffa pederson, and anne line dalsgard, is the latest in the anthropology & series, which seeks to put anthropology in conversation with neighboring disciplines, in order to advance inter-disciplinary work, and increase cross-fertilization, as well as aid in remedying what has sometimes been a troubled relationship with between anthropology and these various other disciplines. this particular volume is a further contribution to the dialogue between anthropology and philosophy, two disciplines that are frequently engaged in an examination of similar issues, though different methods and modes of questioning. the dialogues that combine to make up this volume anchor the overall examination of the disciplinary relationship, on behalf of the editors, through the consideration of trust and hope, each entertained as a critical mode of understanding the social and political world. this book makes an important contribution to both the anthropological and philosophical literature, in addition to the intersection between the two, as it aids in the further development of a fruitful dialogue between the two disciplines. additionally, it makes more explicit a series of conversations between these disciplines, as well as the broader conversation, that seems to be consistently taking place, though often implicit. the book is divided into six dialogues, each containing a joint statement, by both an anthropologist and a philosopher, and, in most cases, two articles that have been individually written. in dividing the text this way, the editors aim to create a “workspace” in which anthropology and philosophy can be fruitfully put into direct conversation with one another. by creating this “workspace” 2 the editors allow for joint work, in which the authors work in a collaborative manner, while still creating scholarship within their respective discipline. further, such a “workspace” creates an inviting space in which we can see what specifically can be accomplished through direct conversation between these two disciplines, as well as the challenges that such collaboration faces. the first dialogue, titled “practical philosophy and hope as a moral project among africanamericans,” offers a joint statement and a co-authored articled titled “what can we hope for? an exploration in cosmopolitan philosophical anthropology,” by uffe juul jensen and cheryl mattingly, a philosopher and anthropologist respectively. their joint statement offers a brief reflection on the relationship between anthropology and philosophy, concluding that a fruitful interaction will take place if they are able to further elaborate on the fieldwork mattingly has done among african-american families in los angeles. while not necessarily subscribing to kant’s philosophical thought, they use his cosmopolitan philosophy as a starting point for further elaboration of what a cosmopolitan anthropology might look like. this theoretical line of thought is used to further explore and understand hope as it operates in african-american communities in los angeles. they understand hope to function as a “what if” (p. 41), an imagine future, and a moral project. the second dialogue, titled “existential anthropology and the category of the new,” written by michael d. jackson and thomas schwarz wentzer is divided into a joint statement, two chapters, written individually, and a joint afterward. the authors together discuss the desire that humans have to improve any given situation and similarly the suffering that is created as a result of an inability to do so. they perceive of this as a cap between “expectation and opportunity” (p. 59), arguing that it exists for a large portion of the world. the authors are especially interested that, despite this, people continue to feel hope, and moreover feel entitled to this hope. more specifically, hope for something “that will support their active participation in life rather than their passive endurance of circumstances into which they find themselves thrown” (ibid.). considering this problem from different angles, jackson’s is based on his view that ethnographic research is the best way to gain an understanding of these questions. wentzer’s, on the other hand, is an historical/existential approach having a direct bearing on jackson’s ethnographic work, in essence clearing the path for it. despite these different approaches, they share a view that there is a search for “natural justice” (ibid.) that is felt by human beings. this is a crucial component of what jackson has called “existential anthropology.” (p. 60) this conception of a philosophical anthropology aims to join “ethnographic and philosophical analysis seeking to understand human existence…[which] might allow one to address the ‘human condition’” (ibid.), while avoiding the pitfalls of essentialism. 3 dialogue three, titled “intentional trust in uganda,” by esther oluffa pederson and lotte meinert, focuses on the author’s interest in “understanding the attitudes of trust and distrust as [they] are formed in, and of, the social sphere of human life” (p. 10). they develop a more complete picture of trust through two independent lines of research, one being philosophical thought and the other being fieldwork in uganda. the philosophical insights gained by pederson are explained through a discussion of meinert’s fieldwork, together filling in how we might conceptualize the role of trust in social life. they explore the difference between levels of trust and distrust in social life and draw attention to the predominant feelings of distrust in meinert’s fieldwork. dialogue four, titled “trust, ambiguity, and indonesian modernity,” by sure liisberg and nils bubandt, is concerned with the relationship between trust and ambiguity, and moreover the challenge that ambiguity poses to trust and trusting behavior. their respective chapters “address the same overall questions: how is trust possible under certain conditions? what kinds of paradoxes go into trust when trust itself is being eroded by exigencies of existential life-worlds or political power? how, inversely, do existential life-worlds and political power interpellate each other — call each other into existence — through the ambiguities of trust” (p.139)? beginning their articles in both indonesian fieldwork and the philosophy of jean paul sartre, they center their engagement on inauthenticity. like the “public climate of ambivalent authenticity” and a perceived inauthentic political system in indonesia, sartre’s philosophical work, as discussed by liisberg, emphasizes the ambiguity that is “implied in our conscious existence” (ibid.). through both philosophical examination and ethnographic research, the authors demonstrate haunting of trust by inauthenticity, leading to numerous ambiguities in political and social life. in dialogue five, titled “gift-giving and power between trust and hope,” philosopher sverre raffnsoe and anthropologist hirokazu miyazaki “investigate the relationship between trust and hope through the lens of gift-giving and the social power it entails” (p. 14). the authors make use of miyazaki’s ethnographic fieldwork in fiji when discussing raffnsoe’s aim, which is to develop a new conception of power. this conception of power “enables us to consider trust as something which involves power, and vice versa” (ibid.). this conception of power is used to further explore miyazaki’s fieldwork, enabling them to better understand the unitizing forces throughout a nation, especially his work on fiji, during disasters. together, they are better able to explore and understand the relationship and reciprocal trust that is created through gift-giving, especially between the government and citizens. “miyazaki’s analysis is concerned with the managerial motives of the ‘kizuna campaign’ and the question of why the campaign failed and instead engendered a sense of distrust in the government” 4 (p.15). the final dialogue, titled “with kierkegaard in africa,” is written by philosopher anders moe rasmussen and anthropologist hans lucht. both authors take as their starting point kierkegaard’s philosophy, but differ in both their employment and analysis of his work. as a result, their chapters work alongside each other as different ways of reading, understanding, and applying kierkegaard, especially to the development of an understanding of hope. ramussen is concerned with the discourse of hope as being crucial to our political and social life, especially when understood as being related to faith in the possibility of social change. he develops this view by drawing largely on kierkegaard’s understanding of faith. lucht applies kierkegaard;s thought to his own understanding of hope in relation to a ghanaian fishing village. “lucht interprets the struggles of ghanian fishermen in accordance with this structure of hoping that the outside world will react responsibly to their sacrifices” (p. 17). what both have in common then is the view that hope can bring about change in social life, and moreover, plays a crucial role in this process. while each of these overviews of the dialogues is incredibly brief, and certainly leaves out the incredible detail with which they were written, they draw largely on the joint statement provided by the authors. these joint statements offer the most significant discussion of the theoretical overlap between the authors, as well as the kind of project envisioned in embarking on a undertaking such as this. additionally, the joint statements offer the most obvious point from which we can gain insight into the overall theoretical contribution of the volume as a whole. while this book is seemingly aimed primarily at an anthropological audience, there exists a clear desire to make a contribution to both disciplines. as a result, this book is incredibly valuable for those interested in producing scholarship in either discipline, in addition to interdisciplinary work. moreover, the dialogues that make up the majority of the text demonstrate the possibility, as well as the difficulty, of putting two importantly distinct disciplines in conversation with one another. it demonstrates the possibility of making explicit the intellectual companionship between anthropology and philosophy, ensuring that this text is a resource for both disciplines. as a result, the most obvious strength of a book such as this is that it brings into conversation two disciplines that are frequently complimentary, but as cheryl mattingly and uffe juul jenson note in their dialogue, often seem to keep a distance from each other. the approach taken by the editors is both unique and valuable. as one learns in reading this book, much can be accomplished when, in addition to considering other disciplines in their own individual work, authors are able to develop larger projects and conversations while working in their respective disciplines, with an eye towards collaboration. 5 interdisciplinary work provides invaluable insights into near every problem, but this volume offers a unique take on the notion of interdisciplinary work: where an individual typically produces interdisciplinary scholarship, this volume takes the pressure off of the individual. it allows, instead, two individuals to produce scholarship in their respective disciplines, with the goal of collaboration in a larger sense, as opposed to the individual scholar alone developing an interdisciplinary project. the notion of a “workspace” allows of this: a joint discussion of what each article and discipline contributes to a broader conversation. one downside to the dialogue between these two disciplines, though importantly not restricted to just this book, is the range of philosophical material that is often thought to be valuable in making contributions to interdisciplinary work. the breadth of the philosophical literature engaged with is rather small, leaving out the vast range of work that has been written on similar topics, and as such could have been discussed here. while this does not undermine the incredible value of this book, it does leave open a significant space from which this conversation can be expanded in future work and future conversations. overall, this book makes an incredibly valuable contribution to a dialogue that is often lacking between anthropology and philosophy. additionally, it opens multiple avenues from which the conversation can be continued, expanding even beyond just the consideration of trust and hope. christopher kloth is adjunct faculty in philosophy and humanities at truckee meadows community college and the university of nevada, reno. he is beginning doctoral work in anthropology in fall 2017. © 2017 christopher kloth ethnography of an ethnographer: a post-colonial history of caste and other issues review by abhik ghosh autobiography of an archive: a scholar's passage to india by nicholas b. dirks columbia university press, 2015 in india, the tradition of colonial and post-colonial studies has often dominated the world of many of the history departments in a number of universities. however, very few of them have actually teamed up with the work done in anthropology departments. this is what is so refreshing about the work of nicholas dirks. dirks is a historian as well as an anthropologist who has done his major work in the indian context. it would be difficult to state where the historian lets go and the anthropologist takes over. in a beautifully written piece as an initial chapter, dirks begins by writing an ethnography of an archive, somewhat similar to that mentioned in in an antique land by amitav ghosh. however, dirks pulls in a lot of evidence to show how the archive itself has its own history and therefore the evidence within it is structured, organised and mirrors the collector of the evidence. through the ethnography of the archive, dirks displays an archive within the archive. the collection of colin mackenzie was collected using a different set of rules. the colonial government began by using history as a mode and justification for ruling over india. it went on to use anthropology as a mode and means for the continuance of their rule. so, dirks says, “history constructed a glorious past for the nation in which the present was the inevitable teleological frame; anthropology assumed histories that necessitated colonial rule. history told the story of the nation; anthropology explained why a nation had not yet emerged” (40). continuing with this line of thought, dirks goes on to explain how colin mackenzie used and acknowledged the work of native researchers, not only for collection but also for their ideas in analysis, something that prinseps and others who manned the asiatic society in later years did not. mackenzie had a deep knowledge of local customs, politics and economics. later researchers became very structured in collecting, annotating and creating sources for use by the colonial government. the essays written in this book span over twenty five years, and also become an annotated addition and commentary on other works by dirks. so, it is a kind of history and an auto-ethnography of dirks. when he writes about the hollow crown (2007), he comments that reviewers have taken note of issues that interested them, which showed how our reading are still held within disciplinary boundaries. dirks comments on the “well-traveled” corridor between anthropology and history. perhaps, this corridor is not as “well-traveled” as dirks would like us to suppose, from his perspective, especially since his mentor was bernard cohn. cohn’s presence perhaps ensured that dirks saw a welltraveled pathway between anthropology and history all around him. through his pathway to culture by analyzing its politics, dirks gives us his take on what this kind of analysis really entails. through this passage, dirks gives his own idea of a definition of culture, something crucial to anthropological analysis, and a problematic for dirks. having said that, it would be necessary for us to note, whether this methodology is any different from those of the post-colonialist and post-modernist studies of his time. my argument about politics, however, is always somewhat contradictory. on the one hand, i insist that i am giving priority to the cultural construction of power; on the other, i follow that construction through the referential narratives of a historical field where the political becomes a mobile sign of struggle and change. nevertheless, it was, and is, my conviction that the strength of this work builds on the recognition of the necessity of contradiction, the relentless transitivity of text and context, of meanings exposed and concealed – in this instance, a sense that politics is neither available as a transparent analytic category nor contained solely within the cultural statements that ground any analysis of meaning. culture, in other words, is never an autonomous or a stable category of analysis. culture, as well as the other key terms, politics and history, exist as “supplements” – adding only to replace, or insinuating themselves in place of the original, only then to become the original that in turn becomes written over and replaced again. supplementarity suggests why structures must remain open, why no synthesis can be anything more than provisional. [74-75] based on the above principles, one sees the basic ideas for his previous book castes of mind (2001) as a set of “multiple and contextually determined” principles that form the referents for identity, different sets of them being significant at different locations or times (88). it is then entirely logical for dirks to see ritual, not only as a site of order as seen by most anthropologists, but also as a site of resistance in chapter five of autobiography of an archive. one of these traditions in south india forms the focus of dirks’ interest – that of hook-swinging. of course, hook-swinging – a means by which iron hooks embedded in the skin of the back were used to swing an individual from tall poles at certain festivals – is also found in other parts of the country including in the eastern indian provinces, even today. the use of the practice as a means of looking at the indian population as requiring the civilizing experience of the british was seen by dirks as a means of using colonial power to undervalue indian traditions. simultaneously, this outlook of the colonial government attempted to divorce hook-swinging from “mainstream” or “book view” approaches of hindu religion, so that it could be shown as an event that was not being supported by a majority of the hindus. it was a private event done to satisfy pecuniary interests and to satisfy temple priests. this would thus open the way to its abolishment. for dirks, this was a way of understanding how the colonial government looked at indian society, substituting a colonial version of hindu religion manufactured by them as opposed to the kind of religion which was actually lived. dirks then moves on to the historical formation of empire by a colonial government. through a wealth of detail involving the case of warren hastings and the prosecution carried out by edmund burke, dirks contrasts the idea of an imperial sovereignty as opposed to a peculiarly local national sovereignty as seen through the operations of the colonial government and administration. the idea that the colonial government itself was the root source of corruption, as exposed by burke, was another idea that was developed by dirks as one of the pathways to empire. this showed how the company used corruption to gain access to useful pieces of property, objects of power and personal riches. through these pathways, dirks showed that the corrupt practices of hastings was the backdrop for the change of power from the company to the british government. once this change of power was established, hastings was exonerated, since different practices of acceptance became the norm. eventually, these views were carried forward by lord wellesley and lord dalhousie. the essays in this volume show dirks moving from peculiarly local anthropological pursuits to larger arenas through to a historical perspective of the indian scenario. yet, having learned much through these pursuits, he then begins focusing first on the disciplines that he works so hard to link together, history and anthropology, the very academic arenas that he is a part. in other words, having learned of the world through his academic wisdom, he comes back home to use the same methodological focus on the areas closest to him. whatever dirks discusses, he does not let go of his enthusiasm for linking and problematizing the relationship between history and anthropology. he is also concerned about the position of culture in this scenario. for matthew arnold, the victorian view of culture showed it to be “tamed” and “harnessed” to the use of the state in controlling the unruly mobs “that threatened the pretensions and peace of a democratizing and secularizing england” (236). culture was thus a ruin, in terms of being both “material” and “ethereal,” “history” and “memory,” “achievement” and “failure,” “reality” and “representation,” inspiring life as well as death (240-241). using this as a background, a short but insightful analysis of the work of g.s. ghurye shows dirks' own personal, political and academic biases and leanings. he then goes on to discuss the historical account of the beginning of “area studies” within american universities and the teaching and academic interest in the south asian region. this is especially seen through the many academic specialists who were known in this field of study, but he focuses on some in much greater detail. he shows how mckim marriott and robert redfield get in touch with each other and begin their collaboration at the university of chicago in the late 1940s, and how singer became an important part of the ford foundation program in this area in 1951 (272). he traces this to current associations through the introduction of bernard cohn into the program. using the analyses described earlier, he showed how post-colonial academic research incorporated colonial ideas with minor modifications as a core part of their work, using this (“flawed”?) background to interpret the general principles of the country’s politics, policies, economics and other institutions (274-275). when he talks of the contributions of academics from india, dirks makes the mistake of attributing the flow of other academic disciplines through anthropology departments as a sign that those who worked there were all to be considered as anthropologists, like the mention of veena das (285). all academic anthropologists in india are clear about the fact that das may have written about anthropological issues but remains a sociologist, from a premier institute of sociology, who had come into academic work through courses in sociology. in hindsight, then, this muddling of specialized disciplinary boundaries may be one of the things dirks was always very happy to find. the book begins with an introduction, which shows how the “area studies” program was begun in american universities through an interest in gathering intelligence through the office of strategic services and then the cia, mediated by the fulbright program. this is further elaborated in detail showing how this kind of work took precedence in many of the premier universities in america. the problematic relationship of franz boas with the government was also made clear, since he was a member of the friends of india association. dirks went on to join the boas chair in anthropology at columbia university and thus began a period of learning about the work and commitments of franz boas and his relationship with the government. in fact, boas became quite unpopular because he did not support many government interests in south asian countries, thus becoming labeled as giving a “german” view of society. he was to leave columbia university for barnard for a decade before being invited back again in 1929 on this account. this account then goes on to visit the various kinds of scholars who became spies for the government through a variety of programs, a prelude to the human terrain systems conflict going on in anthropology more recently. however, in all his accounts of academia, one misses out on the inclusion of the context of gender within this picture. through these pathways dirks shows how the american public were gradually treated to an increasing array of a variety of cultures, lives, zones, areas and minds. this is an incredible book, a work that needs to be relished slowly, repeatedly and with different perspectives in mind. it encourages thought and fresh ideas. yet, sometimes, one nagging thought remains. is it actually true that all these categories, especially the basic ideas of caste that we have learned about, and their emphases, are colonial constructs? in fact, a nagging suspicion is that these categories relating to caste differed from person-to-person and from area-to-area as well as from community-to-community. this is true of all concepts gleaned as ethnographic products. it is also true that our writings and the social context of these writings affect the outcome of these issues. in the historical genealogy of these concepts (like caste), unraveling their complex journey of ontology and meaning would itself be “good to think.” was there, then, no indigeneity in all of these “categories of the mind” described by dirks? references cited dirks, nicholas 2007. the hollow crown: ethnohistory of an indian kingdom. cambridge: cambridge university press. ghosh, amitav 1992. in an antique land. new delhi: ravi dayal publisher. abhik ghosh is professor in social anthropology and at present chairperson at the department of anthropology, panjab university, chandigarh. he has worked in india, mainly in the eastern and north-western regions, on tribal symbolism, ecology, health and medicine, policy analyses and insurgency. © 2015 abhik ghosh 1 hidden genoa review by rachel heiman creative urbanity: an italian middle class in the shade of revitalization by emanuela guano university of pennsylvania press, 2016 there has been an extraordinary amount of public interest and scholarly writing on the dramatic transformation of cities around the world through the powerful forces of global capital and state intervention. anthropologists have long appreciated that citymaking cannot be fully understood without equal attention to the quotidian practices of city dwellers and the residual historical conditions that continue to matter and shape their cities. emanuela guano’s new book, creative urbanity: an italian middle class in the shade of revitalization, offers an exemplary contribution to this literature through providing a theoretically-rich, ethnographic portrait of struggling middle class residents in the economically precarious, post-industrial port city of genoa, in northern italy. these walking-tour guides, street antique dealers, festival organizers, and small-business owners are trying to make do through creative outlets that draw on their underutilized academic training and that align with affective commitments to their much-maligned city. in the process, they are incrementally recasting the image of their hometown—no easy task given genoa’s legacy of political, state, drug, and gender-based violence and its post-1970s population-decline moniker as a “ghost city.” yet contrary to the familiar story of creative production in the shade of corporate and state projects, which assumes standard teleologies of gentrification, guano’s book throws into relief an account of urban transformation that involves equal parts sedimented materialities, stalled revitalization, and creative resilience. guano is a native genoese who left in the early 1990s to pursue an academic life that would have been foreclosed had she remained. creative urbanity is not an autoethnography per se, yet it is written with 2 a diasporic sensibility that infuses intimacy into the ethnographic stories of those who stayed and have faced chronic under-employment. as guano beautifully explains in her introduction, when describing how she came to write a book on genoa after years of ethnographic work in buenos aires, “genoa always loomed large as the city that never ceased to intrigue, charm, and disappoint me. it tantalized me with memories of my youth and with changes it superimposed on them; it also tormented me with its imperviousness, and, most importantly, it marked my personal life through its refusal to host my future and its simultaneous unwillingness to let fully go of me” (p. 19). this affective richness is most vivid in the book’s historical first chapter, which charts the conditions and spaces of hope and hopelessness for guano’s generation of first-time college graduates. much of italy faced uncertainty as the economic and political optimism of the late 1960s gave way to radical hopelessness in the early 1970s, yet genoa was hit particularly hard. guano’s childhood memories are infused with the normalized violence of those times: of the left battling the right in the streets; of terrorist attacks during beach days with friends; of fascist police storming homes; of used heroine syringes littering the playground; of public harassment of women and girls by men of all ages. when neoliberal logics emerged in the 1980s, genoa’s enduring left kept at bay corporate development interests, though the younger generation found inspiration in the rhetoric of entrepreneurial self-reliance: perhaps meritocracy might finally replace italy’s ensconced gendered system of patronage and nepotism. but to no avail. in the 1990s, new immigrants and unemployed college-graduates began to revitalize empty city spaces, and along with a marina port redevelopment, porto antico, people started to emerge in once-feared public spaces. yet this moment of hope also was short lived. the 2001 g8 summit’s brutal state violence (the focus of chapter two) undermined genoa’s attempt to enter the global stage as a city of promise, and the 2002 introduction of the euro and related eu policies undercut genoa’s bedrock of small businesses. the 2008 economic crisis was the final nail in the coffin: all remaining hope had turned into dystopian resignation. it is in this context that guano analytically re-considers the notion of a “creative class,” reclaiming it from its much-derided association with richard florida’s writings and planning-consultancy empire. city planners in genoa, like so many around the world, use florida’s measures to determine the “creative index” of their city. yet as guano’s book reveals, genoa’s high creative index does not come from the entrepreneurial elite hailed in florida’s story, who are nurtured, encouraged, promoted, and invested in by state and corporate interests as a part of neoliberal developmentalism. the people we meet in creative urbanity are on the economic fringe and have no prospects of mobility or even 3 expectations of economic security. they became entrepreneurs as a last resort and typically hold several jobs, yet their modes of entrepreneurial cultural production and their daily movements in space are shaping genoa in ways hailed by city boosters. guano’s analysis in the ethnographic chapters of the book (chapters three to six) thus approaches the city, as she explains, “through the exploration of some of the subjectivities, practices, expectations, things, logics, and the built environment that contribute to its emergent formation: a process whereby neoliberalism is…only one of the forces at work.” (p. 23). genoa’s built environment is the focus of chapter three, which sheds light on “sedimented spatialities and deeply ingrained lifeways [that] cannot be just as easily overwritten by comparatively recent—and spuriously homogenous—global dynamics” (p. 88). most vivid is guano’s discussion of the homes and neighborhood built by the aristocracy in the sixteenth century in what is now the gentrifying centro storico, a densely woven maze of four-story homes on narrow alleys built to emulate the design of genoa’s maghreb trading cities. the first floors of these homes, which have grand ceilings and internal courtyards, receive no sunlight, nor do the small second floors that once housed servants’ quarters and were built with low ceilings and small windows that measure only a few inches square. the third floors, where the aristocratic families lived, receive bright sunshine that streams in through large windows onto grand rooms with high ornamental ceilings. directly above the “noble floor” is a small, buffer floor under the roof with low ceilings but brilliant light. as the neighborhood gentrified in the late 1990s and early 2000s, these homes took on contemporary class heterogeneity: middle-classes living on the sunny top two floors (e.g. artists and lawyers), with elderly and low-income immigrant families living on the more affordable first two floors. unlike the common teleological story of gentrification, where middle classes displace the majority of long-standing working class and poor residents, leading to rejiggered segregated neighborhoods, here we see “vertical stratification” (p. 91)—a spatialization of class inequality guided by the venerable built environment of centuries before. the next two chapters shift our attention to entrepreneurial practices, which like spaces of home are produced within local conditions of possibility. guano brings us into the everyday lives of antique dealers (chapter four) and tour guides (chapter five) whose spatial practices are enmeshed too with the legacy of genoa’s aristocracy but also italy’s patriarchal gendered politics. tour guides, for example, are largely women, who are leading tour groups of mostly other genoese and are, as guano suggests, “both empowered and restrained by genoa’s own marginality” (p. 135). unlike that of tourist havens venice, florence, and rome, genoa’s aristocracy was reluctant to flaunt its wealth publicly, so genoa’s 4 urbanism is muted, with few iconic landscapes and grand piazzas for promenading. the city’s cultural wealth was largely hidden. most tour descriptions use the language of “hidden genoa,” a double entendre, guano notes, for unseen aristocratic relics and an old city obscured by enduring discourses of crime and decline. yet as guano demonstrates, what also is made visible through these tours are genoa’s entrepreneurial women, who have carved out a niche in what is typically a male profession in other italian cities. they are creatively narrating genoa’s lore on streets where women have long walked in fear and are conducting preparatory historical research with notebook in hand in its nooks and crannies. “as they do so,” guano argues, “they sustain their business by proposing ever-new perspectives on sites that are often taken for granted, conjuring a range of emotions, ideas, and experiences that cast a different light on the urban everyday” (p. 153). they are altering the “urban imaginary of genoa’s publics” (p. 118)—a feat celebrated by the state—and yet run up against regressive and undercutting forces including from the state itself, as when undercover police interrupt their tours to warn of criminal activities in the area. guano’s final ethnographic chapter (chapter six) turns to genoa’s suq multicultural festival, which might seem at first glance a cliché of orientalist consumerism, with its location in touristy porto antico and its attention to the sounds, smells, tastes, colors, and textures of genoa’s diverse urbanites from morocco to ecuador to genoese regions. but guano encourages us to view the suq as a site of “political pedagogy” (p. 187), when understood in the context of italian festival history, italy’s nationalist fervor regarding food and the sensual, and practices within the festival itself, which includes a stage that doubles as a platform for cooking demonstrations and activist discussions of immigrant rights and ethical shopping. guano is careful not to imply that the suq and its booths of wares are free of orientalist logics. rather, she suggests we view this popular festival as a site of “strategic orientalism and subversive hybridity” (p. 187). in a xenophobic moment when economic precarity is blamed more often on ecuadorian youth than neoliberal policies, to place on equal footing italian terroir and the culinary feats of ethnic others is a radical disruption. as such, relevant here, guano argues, is not only the history of orientalist world’s fairs but also the italian sagre, a fascist era festival of local goods, services, and affective politics retooled for the current political economy. a particularly poignant moment is guano’s discussion of “the basil man,” who dresses in medieval garb and marches through the suq with aromatic flair. he is not there to protest the festival’s cultural pluralism, but rather the common enemy of all who have booths there: corporatization of local goods like basil and the growth of nearby malls that undercut small businesses. guano convincingly articulates how we can 5 acknowledge the contradictions intrinsic in these spaces and view them as “a polemic alternative against the backdrop of [the] transformation of the italian economy and its urbanscapes” (p. 185). it was a great pleasure to read creative urbanity. with guano’s remarkable ability to vividly describe and interrogate a vast range of academic texts and theoretical arguments, it is an excellent book for graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses in anthropology, urban studies, gender studies, and political economy. readers may question guano’s use of unnecessary strawman arguments for the inclusion of mediterranean cities like genoa in urban theorizing. she seems at times to suggest that the literature on urbanism is still dominated by discussions of north american and north atlantic modes of gentrification and revitalization, when there has been a surge in recent years of writings on cities ranging from mumbai to cairo to shenzhen. but this overplay in no way takes away from what is a remarkable book: creative urbanity renders visible people, places and practices that have until now not been given their due place in urban anthropology and the anthropology of the middle classes. rachel heiman is associate professor of anthropology and chair of urban studies at the new school. she received her b.a. in anthropology from the university of pennsylvania and her m.a. and ph.d. in anthropology from the university of michigan. her research is driven by an interest in the cultural and spatial politics of class, particularly the interplay of political-economic changes and everyday lived experiences. her most recent book, driving after class: anxious times in an american suburb (university of california press, 2015) explores middle-class anxieties and suburban life in the united states. her previous book, the global middle classes: theorizing through ethnography (sar press, 2012) is a co-edited volume with carla freeman & mark liechty of ethnographic research on the middle classes from a global perspective. her current project, for which she has received grants from the national endowment for the humanities and the wenner-gren foundation, explores emergent subjectivities and modes of governance amid efforts to retrofit suburbia in the united states for a more sustainable future. © 2017 rachel heiman details of experience on health and culture review by nirmala jayaraman community health narratives: a reader by emily mendenhall & kathy wollner (eds) university of new mexico press, 2015 health narratives are similar to ethnographies in that they address how culture shapes an individual’s perception of their selfhood and wellness. in the introduction to the volume, community health narratives: a reader, emily mendenhall writes, if people do not identify a health problem as affecting them, although epidemiologists may have identified the problem, it is less likely that an intervention will be successful. therefore, improvements must come from the bottom up, and people must work together to better the health of their families, friends, and communities. the narratives in this book, depicting different communities and customs in rich detail, focus on common social and cultural factors that shape community health (4). in other words, the purpose of collecting stories from people suffering from social and physical distress is to inform others of how an individual is impacted by community involvement. the editors of this book, emily mendelhall and kathy wollner, proceed to cover factors which connect to public health in sections entitled, “social ties,” “gender and sexuality,” “mental health,” “violence,” “prevention” and “health-care access.” each section provides a set of discussion questions to provoke the readers’ thinking. though broad in focus, this volume could be considered substantial as a text for medical anthropologists and health professionals seeking to teach this material in class. the first two sections, “social ties” and “gender and sexuality,” explore how people are motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle. for example, belonging to a safe school environment can motivate students to refrain from succumbing to peer pressure and engaging in risk-taking behaviors, such as unprotected sex and bullying. teachers play a significant role in opening up conversations among their students to acknowledge their daily struggles with healthy eating and exercise. in the chapter, “mai’suka, my island,” one teacher addresses concern with students developing diabetes, saying: “you know,” mrs. sili said, leaning forward in her folding chair, “my father tells this story over and over again when he sees his descendants mindlessly stuffing themselves full of chips and soda in front of the television or complaining that they don’t have flashier cars. and he says that we samoans used to be warriors, muscular and strong.” she shook her head. “i wonder about it myself. i look at the matais and elders i know, and while some of them are big, most of them are slender, like my father. i look around at choir practice in church sometimes and wonder how potato chips and pickup trucks have made us obese and so prone to mai’suka in just a couple of generations. i don’t want it to happen to me, and i don’t want it to keep happening to the people on my island” (48-49). the concept of “mai’suka” represents the local understanding of disease caused by poor nutrition and high blood sugar; this relates to a larger theme of showing how culture-bound definitions frame an individual’s interpretation of their health needs. social relationships across generations, between parents and children, also impact the lives of teenagers as well. the overall theme in the section is strengthened by observations of how children acquire their knowledge about their health from various role models. although a primary care doctor is in a position to help their patients, most people process their understanding of health from their environment, school, families, and communities at large. the writers of these stories contextualize the lives of their informants in a literary non-fiction style. however, readers might want more analysis in between the content of each story. nevertheless, at the end of each theme, an organization is spotlighted for addressing health policy and healthcare on a local grassroots level. in the “communities in action” pieces, there is just enough practical wisdom and proactive learning so that readers are not left underestimating the power of preventative action. the remaining chapters are delivered in such a way that readers can see how cultural constructions, such as gender and age, contribute to an individual’s perception of their health risks. in the third and forth sections entitled, “mental health” and “violence,” the editors delve into the lives of those who continue to experience social isolation as their health needs progress. the writers provide many details about families who are constantly exposed to violence and are provided little social support as caregivers for their loved ones. in these sections, health narratives become more readily effective in helping readers understand the lives of patient populations from a holistic approach. in the chapter, “chantalle’s secret”, the story of a haitian woman’s struggle with depression unfolds showing how much social support her family needs: chantalle sat up, a bit groggy. “i still feel scared, étienne. i still feel shameful. it’s difficult to face my husband’s family. it’s difficult to feel hopeful with so much uncertainty.” “i know it must be tough,” étienne started. “perhaps by speaking with others, you will remember how much love there is in the community. i heard on the radio that when you feel sad and hopeless, there’s help in a town nearby. there’s someone who works at a clinic there who is a psychologist. her job is to speak with people who are having suicidal thoughts. she can help counsel you. there are many things the clinic can help you with as well. there may be a mama’s club you can join to speak with other mothers who struggle with similar things as you. but i think the best thing we can do is to support you as a community. we can work together to watch your daughters when you need to work” (139). the authors demonstrate how not only physicians, but also mental health counselors can provide care on a regular basis to people in need of support for their psychological well-being. in this example, readers also realize how individuals may need friends and neighbors to help them with their household as they recover from their social suffering. once again, analysis is sparse, however this book is very readable. theoretical concepts from cultural studies, such as structural violence, are referenced and broadly discussed throughout the chapters. readers will learn how social suffering and human health influence each other from storytelling that is ultimately engaging. the final two sections, “prevention” and “healthcare-access,” show how a thoroughly impersonal system, such as healthcare, can change the lives of many in a personal way. the most poignant chapter, “there will always be more struggles to win,” reminds readers that attending to pressing matters in global health will help bring positive consistent change to the most vulnerable people, particularly those living in impoverished communities. in this chapter, the writers describe how people encourage neighbors from their community to address their health needs, saying: three times a week, joão pedro’s mother made house-to-house visits, distributing vitamins, weighing and measuring children, and talking with families about children’s health and safety. she and five other women were employed as community health workers by brazil’s government, and each one was responsible for visiting one hundred households each month. joão pedro loved going out to visit the families and play with friends who lived in the houses they would visit, but most of all, he loved watching his mom at work. she was proud of the contribution she was making to the health of their community, and so was joão (292). reading health narratives can inspire empathy and interest among general readers. anthropologists will find its attention to people and their relationships especially interesting. for those who wish to use health narratives in their work, this book represents an important template for the field. more examples of narrative-styled stories can also be found in global health narratives: a reader for youth (2009) edited by emily mendenhall. references cited mendenhall, emily 2009. global health narratives: a reader for youth. albuquerque: university of new mexico press. nirmala jayaraman received a b.a. in cultural anthropology from union college in schenectady, new york. © 2015 nirmala jayaraman 1 ethics, value, and interaction: bridging natural and social histories in a semiotic framework review by joseph j.z. weiss ethical life: its natural and social histories by webb keane princeton university press, 2015 webb keane opens ethical life: its natural and social histories with a fundamental and familiar dilemma for those concerned with the origins of ethical impulses, systems, and worlds: is a sense of ethics, or, as keane frames it, “the propensity for taking an ethical stance” (keane 2015:3) an innate element of human nature? or do ethical systems arrive from without, mandated, for instance, from divine laws, the tenants of universalist reason, or already-extant cultural orders that constitute the individual, ethical subject? glossing these two positions as falling broadly within the traditions of “natural or social history,” keane suggests it is a mistake to insist that these two positions are inherently “incompatible and that we must choose between them.” instead, even though “the differences matter,” keane writes, “we are all talking about the same world” (3). it is this shared analytical world that keane sets out to specify in ethical life by means of a synthetic review of approaches to ethics and morality from both natural and social historical perspectives. his goals are two-fold. the first is to offer a “satisfactory account of ethics,” by bringing together “key findings from psychology, the ethnography of everyday social life, and social histories of ethical reform” (5). in bringing together these different approaches from natural and social history, in turn, keane aims to demonstrate that these differing, sometimes contentious fields can be brought together. our analyses are stronger, keane asserts, when scholars are persuaded to “climb out of their respective silos and look around” (5). ethics for keane, then, is both object of and model for a particular kind of interdisciplinary analysis. 2 in order to make a synthesis of this breadth of work, keane requires a definition of ethics that is at once general enough so as not to appear already pre-determined by the positions of one camp or the other, but still specified to a point that it is recognizable as a definition of ethical life as such. while his initial definition of ethical life “those aspects of people’s actions, as well as their senses of themselves and of other people (and sometimes entities such as gods and animals), that are oriented with reference to values and ends that are not in turn defined as a means to some further ends” (4) – might suggest the text will concern itself with (or tie itself into heuristic knots over) the task of distinguishing categories of action, keane quickly makes it clear that he is not concerned with developing his own proscriptive typologies. the social and psychological resources that humans draw on in order to label a particular action or person in an “ethical” manner, as good or evil, viable or vile, keane reiterates throughout the text, are heterogeneous (25-26), and it would be impossible to arrive at a normative definition of ethics that could extend to all the different situations in which different human communities understand themselves to be engaged in ethical life. instead, keane’s key premise is that “humans are the kind of creatures that are prone to evaluate themselves, others, and their circumstances” (6). that tendency towards evaluation, rather than any particular product of said evaluations, is at the heart of how keane understands “ethics.” in evaluating "how one should live and what kind of person one should be,” we are engaging with “ethics,” even though the content and context of such evaluations can vary extremely widely (20). in making these evaluations, keane further argues, we draw on “ethical affordances,” all those “aspects of people’s experiences and perceptions that they might draw on in the process of making ethical evaluations and decisions, whether consciously or not” (27). affordances operate at different scales and can be of entirely diverse orders, from evolutionary propensities to moral dogmas. this concept of an “ethical affordance” is critical to the text, as it represents the analytical means through which keane can bridge perspectives from natural and social histories. effectively, any field of study concerned with human cognitive and/or social life can be understood as demonstrating the existence, and often detailing the operation, of particular varieties of ethical affordances. at the same time, keane’s argument pushes back against the notion that any of these disciplines could, in and of themselves, provide a comprehensive account of ethical behavior, as no single discipline could conceivably sketch out the entire field of possible ethical affordances. this does not mean, however, that keane’s text gives equal priority to every different discipline it 3 discusses. keane is quite clear that, whatever ethical affordances go into a given moment of ethical evaluation, what makes such moments take on significance in the world is that they take place in the context of social interaction. “for social interactions are the natural home of justifications, excuses, accusations, reasons, praise, blame, and all the other ways in which ethics come to be made explicit” (26). social interaction, for keane, is the focal point around which every scale of ethical affordance can converge, including “both those psychological processes that work beneath people’s normal awareness and the historical ones that may range beyond it” (26). his text is structured accordingly. only a single full chapter, albeit a long one, is given to perspectives from natural histories, largely studies in developmental psychology, while three chapters in the middle of the text are devoted to elaborating how ethical evaluation operates through social interaction, and a further three in demonstrating how such evaluations can “scale up” through a process of presupposition and entailment into broader and seemingly objective moral orders. the social, in short, outweighs the natural here, a fact which could potentially discourage readers with natural science backgrounds. this would be a pity, however, as keane’s attempts to integrate the findings of evolutionary biology and developmental psychology into a social interaction-oriented perspective are compelling. in said chapter concerned with natural history (39-73), keane explores childhood acquisition of the capacity to evaluate actions and people and, more fundamentally, of the sense of both of their own selfhood and of the existence of distinct others upon which all such evaluation relies. keane is careful to take this research seriously, avoiding straw-man accusations of “biological determinism” or other means of delegitimizing the premises upon which these studies are founded, but he is also emphatic on two points: first, that childhood development is a social process, with each developmental “step” requiring extensive participation from children and their communicative partners; and, second, that the various tendencies, trends and propensities that these studies detail are only made legible as ethical when they are brought into interactional contexts and thereby reflected upon and responded to as particular kinds of “ethical” behavior (71-72). ethics, in other words, is social all the way down both in the childhood acquisition of the basic pre-conditions for ethical impulses and their actualization as ethical in social interaction but the findings of natural science play a critical role in understanding these processes and the particular affordances that are generated through basic elements of human biology and psychology. the next three chapters concern themselves directly with the dynamics of social interaction, representing both the literal and figurative center of keane’s argument. “people’s self-understanding as 4 ethical beings,” keane writes, “is most often instigated by the very dynamics of interaction” (78). by “dynamics of interaction,” keane does not simply mean explicit statements to others, nor even ideas and feelings about which we are fully conscious. those moments in which we are aware of “being ethical” are emergent, for keane, out of a much broader and more complex system of signs, verbal and non-verbal, through which people make sense of their interactions with each other and, indeed, of the people with whom they are interacting. keane: “people are not exactly mind-readers; rather, they are sign readers” (83). keane is on familiar territory here, demonstrating the dynamics of interaction through readings that intertwine his own ethnographic research as a semiotic anthropologist (e.g. keane 1997; 2003) with a strong review of contemporary and seminal studies in cultural and linguistic anthropology (e.g. bourgois 2003; carr 2011; hill 1995; hirschkind 2006), philosophy of language (e.g. bahktin 1981) and sociology (e.g. goffman 1959; 1963; 1967). none of this material represents newly published research, nor is keane challenging the basic premises of most of these studies. what is most productive in keane’s engagement with these texts, rather, is the way in which he is able to read new unities into their disparate data-sets, demonstrating over and over again how acts and processes of evaluation, conscious and unconscious, saturate human interactions across otherwise dramatically different cultural worlds, and how deeply necessary such evaluations are for participants in order to feel that they are participating in coherent and essentially comprehensible social worlds. keane’s lengthy engagement with goffman is particularly compelling in this regard, as keane highlights the extent to which goffman’s classic theory of “facework,” the ways in which individuals perform (and are expected to perform) their social roles for real and imagined audiences, is grounded in the notion of a fundamentally vulnerable self. whether we are attempting to perform the role of “doctor,” “scholar,” “parent,” or “anthropologist,” we are always subject to the evaluation of others as to whether or not we truly are what we claim to be, and such role performances can fail for reasons as seemingly minor as body language or lexical choices, a wrong gesture here or a poorly chosen word there (keane 2015:97). any of these moments of evaluation could serve as an ethical affordance, in keane’s sense. equally importantly, when such evaluations are actualized interactionally, e.g., when an accusation is made that someone is “faking” a particular social role, a set of different impulses, instincts, suppositions, claims and responses are woven together into an explicitly ethical claim, a judgment on how a person should live or the kind of person they should be. note how deeply embedded such judgments must be within 5 larger social and cultural orders. to accuse someone of being a “fake” doctor, for instance, requires a set of already-present understandings of what it means to be “a” doctor, how such a person should present themselves and behave towards others. but it is equally important for keane that we understand that such cultural orders are not unchanging unities that always already pre-determine the terms of a given interaction; quite the opposite, normative systems too are “vulnerable,” subject not just to reinscription in interaction, but also to shift, transformation, and reconfiguration. echoes here of sahlins’ classic characterization of culture as being made and remade through a dialectic of presupposition and entailment through social practice (sahlins 1981), and of the equally crucial role that entailment and presupposition play in the constitution of orders of meaning in metapragmatics (cf: silverstein 2003). it is appropriate, then, that keane’s final chapters focus on how large-scale, relatively coherent and identifiable orders of ethical norms and values “morality systems,” as keane refers to them are made and remade in the crucible of social interaction. drawing on examples of feminist consciousness raising projects, religious piety movements, and marxist revolutionary ideologies, keane demonstrates how large-scale and relatively stable ethical orders are constituted by and reconstituted within intersubjective interactions. crucial here are processes of “objectification,” by which interactional elements are taken up as particular instances of broader categories (160). the dynamic nature of objectification is illustrated particularly effectively by keane through the example of “feminist anger,” a category that emerged out of feminist conscious raising efforts in the mid-20th century. feminist anger explicitly resignified a set of formerly unselfconscious habits and affects of daily life, associating them with “the feminist,” a new social subjectivity, and orienting them against “the patriarchy,” a newly articulated (though not new) structure of oppression (197). feminist anger could not be made real as an ethical category without social interaction, as that is the space where feminist anger is both actually experienced and later reflected upon as having been experienced. at the same, it exists as a seemingly objective category that transcends any individual interaction, much like god’s laws or the will of the party. but that seeming transcendence is itself an interactional achievement, the work of many social participants who constitute and are in turn constituted by the morality systems that form integral parts of their ethical worlds. thus historical processes which may range beyond people’s awareness can, just like unconscious psychological processes, be understood as ethical affordances rather than fully deterministic forces. 6 it is worth emphasizing, in closing, just how successful keane’s text is in explicating this continuum of ethical affordances and demonstrating how they become recognizable precisely as “ethical” through the vicissitudes and complexities of intersubjective interaction. in this sense he decisively meets his first objective of presenting an interdisciplinary account of ethics that is far richer for its interdisciplinarity. given that keane anchors this interdisciplinarity in a firmly semiotic approach, however, one wonders to what extent there is a hierarchy of disciplinary explanatory power embedded within his particular approach to bridging the natural and social sciences. it is through social interaction, mediated by signs, that ethical affordances are made socially meaningful, “real,” in a crucial sense. while other disciplines can give insight into said affordances, it is largely the realm of semiotic anthropology to explain how they are made to matter in the world. we might ask, then, to what extent has keane left his own “silo” in order to assemble his arguments? and does this tacitly position a semiotic approach as a necessary pre-condition for a coherent interdisciplinary analysis for other, significant shared topics across the natural and social historical disciplines? in this regard, we might detect in the text a second, distinctly ethical project undergirding keane’s efforts to construct a semiotic bridge across disciplines, one aimed at shifting broader disciplinary foci from the intentions and internal states of individual subjects towards their manifestation in social interaction (e.g. 182). after all, disciplinary positions on the nature of the individual and their relationship to society are themselves, in keane’s terms, “ethical” positions, ones that speak to how one should live and the particular kind of person one should be. in emphasizing social interaction as the critical lynchpin around which the universe of ethical affordance unfolds, keane subtly but sharply intervenes in this conversation. to be ethical, indeed, to be human in any meaningful sense, is social in its very essence. references: bahktin, mikhail. the dialogic imagination: four essays. michael holquist, ed. austin: university of texas press, 1981. bourgois, phillip. in search of respect: selling crack in el barrio. cambridge: university of cambridge press, 2003. carr, e. summerson scripting addiction: the politics of therapeutic talk and american sobriety. princeton: princeton university press, 2011. goffman, erving the presentation of self in everyday life. garden city: doubleday anchor, 1959. 7 —stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity. englewood cliffs: prentice hall, 1963. —interaction ritual: essays on face to face behavior. garden city: anchor books, 1967. hill, jane. "the voices of don gabriel: responsibility and self in a modern mexicano narrative". in the dialogic emergence of culture, dennis tedlock and b. mannheim, eds. pp. 97-147. urbana: university of illinois press, 1995. hirschkind, charles. the ethical soundscape: cassette sermons and islamic counterpublics. new york: columbia university press, 2006. keane, webb. signs of recognition: powers and hazards of representation in an indonesian society. berkeley: university of california press, 1997. —"semiotics and the social analysis of material things". language and communication 23(3):409-425, 2003. sahlins, marshall. historical metaphors and mythical realities: structure in the early history of the sandwhich island kingdoms. michigan: university of michigan press, 1981. silverstein, michael. "indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life". language and communication. 23(3):193-229, 2003. <em><strong>joseph weiss</strong></em> is curator of western ethnology at the canadian museum of history. his research explores indigenous political life, indigenous-settler relations, ethics, and the power of time, with a particular focus on the indigenous haida first nation. he also maintains abiding interests in truth and reconciliation in canada and research ethics in the social sciences. dr. weiss holds a phd in anthropology from the university of chicago. his doctoral thesis, funded in part by the wenner-gren foundation for anthropological research, examined how the members of the haida community of old massett conceived of and built futures for themselves and for their settler neighbors. he is currently preparing a monograph based on this work for the university of british columbia press. dr. weiss has also collaborated with the university of chicago and the field museum of natural history on the “open fields project,” examining museum-indigenous relationships, and published with the international journal of canadian studies. © 2017 joseph j.z. weiss microsoft word dahl final.doc 1 feelgood farming marsolais, ken (director). 2017. the bullish farmer (film). marsolais productions. “the bullish farmer” is a film about ‘john boy,’ a farmer in new york state. it focuses on john and his career choices. the audience is told that after finishing school, he worked in wall street as a financial investor for 12 years. facing a crisis of meaninglessness, he decided to return to the farmstead where he had spent his childhood. with a small start in poultry farming, over the last decade he has gradually expanded his activities to a sizeable business producing and marketing food uncontaminated by chemicals and genetically modified organisms. it is a pleasant film to watch, with lovely images of animal flocks and herds and maize fields, and the portrait of john is warm and sympathetic. nevertheless, the lasting impression is one of predictability and conventionality rather than surprise. this impression is furthered by short textual comments interspersed in the narrative, including quotes of first nation wisdoms and statements by celebrities such as jane goodall, framing the film in a discourse equalizing purity and naturalness. it is thus a film with a very clear message – that food production should be based on locally developed species of livestock and plants, without herbicides or “unnatural” livestock feeds. the quality of john’s produce is furthermore seen to be enhanced by his highly personalized relation to his animals, expressed in naming, fondling and conversation, including a respectful talk at the sorrowful sending off of animals to slaughter. the latter is the only point of moral difficulty presented by the film. it is justified by john with the argument that the existence of his herds depends on the purpose of meat production. the film is launched as an anthropological one, but indirectly raises the question as to what this implies. the approach of the film is normative rather than analytical. if the film is “ethnographical” it is in the depiction of john’s individual views of his production strategy and his loving relations to his animals. yet, there is no attempt to put this in a larger cultural 2 context or contribute a self-reflective perspective of the film’s key message. rather, the film operates by emotionally including the viewer in an assumedly shared value system. the explicit moral evaluation of john’s production methods provides the red thread and focusses on issues of quality-of-life and human and animal health. hazardously, the viewer is without problematization introduced to customers who praise the good effects of john’s produce on the health and development of children diagnosed within the autism spectrum. a secondary thread is provided by detailing the risks of monocropping with gmo-seeds and herbicides for long-time field productivity. nevertheless, such ecological concerns are not dealt with to the same extent as health issues, leaving aside questions of energy use by agricultural machines, vehicles and computers. the impending climate crisis is left in silence. to a non-us reviewer, these biases of the film are social facts that in an anthropological text would have merited a reflective discussion. the film can be used in methodology courses dealing with fieldwork and research dissemination, as a good base for discussion on issues of identification, reflexivity and outsider/insider issues in analysis and representation. gudrun dahl, b. 1948, is professor emeritus of social anthropology with particular emphasis on development studies at stockholm university, where she has also been dean of the faculty of social sciences. her early research was concerned with social change and livelihood strategies among pastoralists in north east africa focussing on the borana of kenya and the beja of sudan. she has also written on swedish development discourse and on how egalitarianism is expressed in swedish natural symbolism. presently she is writing on the use of moral arguments in environmental contexts. © 2021 gudrun dahl microsoft word review capt kidd_with comments1.doc in search of pirates review by russell k. skowronek june 2020 captain kidd’s lost ship, the wreck of the quedagh merchant isbn 13: 9780813056227 $85.00 by frederick h. hanselmann university press of florida, 2019 frederick “fritz” hanselmann is one of the rising stars in twenty first century underwater archaeology. in little more than a decade he has worked on submerged pleistocene deposits in coastal texas, conducted shipwreck surveys in colombia, searched for henry morgan’s ships off panama, and worked on gold rush era ship sites in california. around these he also was involved in the discovery of the 200-year-old monterrey deep water (4300 feet) wrecks in the gulf of mexico. in this same period, he has notched an enviable list of publications, reports, and film credits. in 2008, as a graduate student at indiana university, hanselmann and his professor charles beeker began the investigation of the site that would be identified as kidd’s quedagh merchant in the dominican republic. this book grew out of his dissertation and a 2016 book chapter titled, “the wreck of the quedagh merchant, the lost ship of captain william kidd” which appeared in pieces of eight, more archaeology of piracy. i note this to underscore and cement hanselmann’s place in the study of pirates in the archaeological record. it was only a decade before his dissertation and his chapter that “pirate archaeology” was first examined within the framework of anthropological archaeology in x marks the spot, the archaeology of piracy (2006). in captain kidd’s lost ship, the wreck of the quedagh merchant hanselmann demonstrates his prowess as a writer and scholar and the field is better for it. hanselmann opens with a discussion of the guiding principles he used to frame his examination of his data. these include world systems, network, and agency theory. he notes that these theoretical models provide insights into the social processes involved in the creation, function, and abandonment of the quedagh merchant. generally, in anthropology the behaviors associated with these processes provide a snapshot of the past. but in historical archaeology the documentary record can illuminate the agency of individual actors. with this perspective hanselmann dives deep into the birth of globalization in the early modern era. this includes european competition for new world colonies and commerce, and oldworld trade with south asia. competition, whether through war or the machinations of the east india company or british crown, result in a complex set of relationships where it could be difficult to know friend from foe. the fluidity which this created meant an individual privateer acting as an agent for his sovereign might slide into the world of piracy. captain william kidd was an individual who fell in the grey region between privateer and pirate. hanselmann situates kidd as an individual caught between two eras. one the older model of commissioning privateers who, acted not only in the interest of the parent state but in their own self-interest to the modern centralized professional navy. kidd serves on a successful privateer and finds himself a wealthy man by 1691. by the end of king william’s war in 1697 many of kidd’s former privateer colleagues had already gone rogue. in the 1690s the indian ocean was filled with pirates whose attacks are stifling commerce in the region. kidd and fellow new yorker robert livingston make common cause with the earl of bellomont to suppress the pirates and to profit from their capture, but that was easier said than done. kidd arrives in the indian ocean and fails to find the pirates. instead he captures first a portuguese vessel, and later a moorish ship carrying “french passes” meaning it was a legitimate “target” as france was the enemy of england. then, early in 1698 they captured the quedagh merchant. it too carried “french passes” but had an english captain affiliated with the english east india company. furthermore, most of the rich cargo belonged to a courtier of the emperor of mughal india who controlled trade with the east india company. he denounced english pirates and threatened the company. kidd’s crew decided to keep the prize and steer for st. mary’s island off madagascar. at this pirate lair kidd moved to the quedagh merchant. six months later the rechristened quedagh merchant or adventure prize sailed for home. by the time kidd arrived in the west indies in april of 1699 he was wanted for piracy. he left the quedagh merchant off hispaniola at catalina island where it was burned and abandoned and returned to new york. there the earl of bellomont had him arrested and confiscated the plunder. kidd’s letter of marque and the “french passes” were “lost” at his trial (and only discovered misfiled two centuries later). kidd was hanged for piracy in 1701. how would you identify the resting place of the quedagh merchant or adventure prize? the vessel was built and outfitted in surat, india. three centuries later in 2008 hanselmann and his team investigated a wreck site in the dominican republic. while no hull structure was initially observed there were broken anchors, 28 iron guns dating to the 17th century and a large unidentifiable ferrous magnetic anomaly. using the documentary record of a deposition given by kidd in 1699 noted that when he left the quedagh merchant it contained ten tons of scrap iron, fourteen or fifteen anchors, and about twenty guns in the hold. other valuable and easily transportable bales of cloth and sugar were probably taken before the ship was burned. as the site had not been touched for three centuries the archaeological work was limited to testing so as to not disturb the wreck beyond obtaining basic information regarding the possibility it was the quedagh merchant. to build the case certain questions needed to be answered. what is the age of the wreck? where was it built? where had it sailed? analysis of one of the “great guns” revealed that in its form it “fit’ the 17th-century timeframe. the test excavations revealed that some of the wooden hull timbers had survived. testing of a sample revealed it was teak (tectona grandis), indigenous to southeast and south asia where it was used for shipbuilding. other articulated aspects of the hull were suggestive of indian shipbuilding techniques. the final piece of the puzzle was the analysis of ballast stones. they were identified as basalt specifically associated with northwest india and two rivers from these deposits flow into surat. most archaeologically themed studies end with a discussion of the findings and their interpretation. hanselmann recognizes that the story does not end with his book. rather the site and its story can continue for future generations as a “museum in the sea.” the creation of a marine protected area around the wreck site can create opportunities for economic benefit through cultural and natural heritage tourism. conservation of marine resources including coral reefs and fish, combined with a compelling story replete with pirates is a winning combination. hanselmann chose well to publish with the university press of florida. since its establishment 75 years ago in 1945 the university press of florida has become an important player in the publication of anthropology and archaeology topics. currently these comprise 333 of nearly 2,000 in-print titles. of these nearly fifty would best be characterized as dealing with maritime archaeology and history, and underwater archaeology more generally. coming in at 222 pages with references and index this is an attractively produced book illustrated with 43 black and white figures and tables. a bonus is a timeline or “chronology of events” which provides a useful scaffolding for the reader. with the exception of one graph which unfortunately refers to colors (orange and purple) undoubtedly present in the original work all help the reader understand kidd, the archaeological investigations and findings, and how the site was turned into a “living museum in the sea.” captain kidd’s lost ship, the wreck of the quedagh merchant is a must read for those interested in the archaeology of piracy. and, in an era when funding is limited for the preservation of archaeological sites how a marine protected area can be sustained through heritage tourism. i am pleased to have this book in my library and look forward to fritz hanselmann’s future publications. references hanselmann, frederick h. and charles d. beeker 2016 the wreck of the quedagh merchant, the lost ship of captain william kidd. in. ewen, pieces of eight, more archaeology of piracy. charles r. and russell k. skowronek, editors university press of florida, gainesville, fl. skowronek, russell k. and charles r. ewen, editors 2006 x marks the spot: the archaeology of piracy. university press of florida, gainesville, fl russell k. skowronek holds the houston endowment chair for civic engagement and is professor of anthropology and history at the university of texas rio grande valley where he also serves as associate dean in the college of liberal arts and as the founding director of the community historical archaeology project with schools (chaps) program. he is the coauthor or editor of three books dealing with piracy and maritime archaeologyx marks the spot: the archaeology of piracy, pieces of eight, more archaeology of piracy, and hms fowey lost...and found! all published by the university press of florida. © 2020 russell k. skowronek microsoft word khosravi-publish.doc 1 thinking with disaster reviewer: shahram khosravi, professor of socal anthropology at stockholm university directed by rian brown and geoff pingree, 2018. the foreigner’s home. the video project. the foreigner’s home is a compelling and poetic film that explores two central concepts in toni morrison’s work; the foreigner and the home. the film starts with footage from 2006 when ms. morrison was invited by the louvre in paris to curate an exhibition. with the same title, the foreigner's home, ms. morrison decided to put the focus of the exhibition on the pain of exile and displacement. engaging footage of the exhibition, intertwining with ms. morrison’s words, and animations, the film eloquently poses fundamental questions of our time: who is the foreigner? how long does a foreigner remain a foreigner? who decides what the foreignness is in a person? what, rather than where, is a home? what is the relationship between houselessness (lacking lodging) and homelessness (existential or politically imposed unbelonging)? throughout the film toni morrison’s words and visions engage us into a conversation which is vital to understanding: ‘what does it mean to be human?’ a main protagonist in the film is ‘the raft of the medusa,’ the famous painting by théodore géricault from 1819. the painting depicts the tragic and grim aftermath of a shipwreck. a handful of survivors on an open raft struggle to survive. they are the ‘leftover,’ ‘undesirable,’ ‘surplus’ human beings; enslaved and poor laborers. for ms. morrison the painting shows a ‘raft cut off from the colonial ship,’ left-to-die. another main motif that reappears throughout the entire film is a short animation of a boat packed with people. the boat moves back and forward in the sea against the backdrop of a night sky. the juxtaposition of the early nineteenth century painting and current migrant boat disasters in the mediterranean sea exhibits the condition of coloniality along the european borders as an unfinished project. we hear her voice over the images of the animated boat packed with migrants moving closer to us: foreigners are constructed as the sum total of the nation’s ills….we would be not merely remiss but irrelevant if we did not address the doom currently faced by millions of people reduced to animal, 2 insect, or polluted status by nations with unmitigated, unrepentant power to decide who is a stranger and whether they live or die at or far from home. by a radical historicization ms. morrison shows that bordering and border practices are in a sense colonial practices. with references not only to the current european border policies but also by tracing the afterlife of slavery in modern american society the film unfolds a continuum of oppression and expulsion across place and time. to turn people into surplus people you have to first make them into foreigners. the question of foreignness is a question of race. in societies that are built upon the legacies of slavery and colonialism, being black (skin, hair, eyes) is unforgivable. as we see in the film, hurricane katrina swiftly turned racialized citizens into foreigners in their own homeland. another striking juxtaposition in the film is when ms. morrison invited slam poets, artists, and performers, who have been excluded from the ‘high culture world’, to the stage at the louvre. allowing their forceful words revealing racism, violence, and abandonment to echo in a museum crammed with a heritage made by white men. by bringing young artists to the stage, ms. morrison praises their ‘unpoliced language,’ a language regarded as corrupt, impure, and incorrect by the established white culture of elites. the film then continues with video clips of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ showing drowning migrants in the mediterranean sea or migrants stuck at barbed wire borders along the balkans in 2015. rather than a crisis, it was, in the french philosopher maurice blanchot’s term, a disaster. recurrent reference to ‘the raft of the medusa’ as an embodiment of fear, pain, and despair force the viewers to ask: 'how can we respond to the disaster?’ blanchot argued of the impossibility of the representation of the disaster. we cannot fully comprehend, and therefore we are not able to represent a disaster since we are not able to see the whole catastrophe, the full scale of what has happened. the film directors failed to avoid the temptation of showing actual dramatic footages of migrants arriving by boats and getting rescued. like in many other documentaries we see clips showing large number of black people squeezed on boats. the camera angle is always from the rescuers’ position recording the peculiar moment of arrival. the moment of rescuing black bodies from the wreck of the boats by white people in high technological vessels and equipment, including filmmakers’ cameras. crying mothers. traumatized children. devastation. this kind of visual representation offers a constant presence of boats packed with de-named and defaced racialized bodies: a mass, a package of bodies, who represent ‘the crises’ and at the same time are filled with a constant absence of the very reasons behind the ‘crisis.’ such images and clips fail to represent the disaster since the core horror of the disaster is always absent. when in early november 2019 europe was preparing the huge celebration of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall, ms. morrison had been passed away for a few months. i am sure she would not have taken part in the celebration. in 1989 there were 16 3 border barriers worldwide. today there are almost 80. what is it exactly that we celebrate? as she eloquently reminds us: it may be that the most defining characteristic of our times….is that…walls and weapons feature as prominently now as they once did, in medieval times. despite all defeats and deaths due to the necropolitics at work along the walls, back in history and still, toni morrison’s vision leaves the viewer with hope. among the survivors in the ‘the raft of the medusa’ the viewer’s eyes are drawn to a male black body who is the composition’s figurehead. seen from the back he is waving a tattered garment toward the horizon. he embodies hope. the film ends with a short passage from her nobel prize acceptance speech in 1993: i don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what i do know is that it is in your hands. it is in your hands. it is in our hands and there is still possibility for a radical change to remake the world so we all will be foreigners and no one will be at home. homelessness as a paradigm, as a horizon that the black man in the painting is gazing upon, as a way of being-in-the-world, as ethical and aesthetic normativity, opens the door to accept the foreigner as she is, not as how we want her to be. if we cannot escape the disaster, so paraphrasing maurice blanchot, let’s learn to think with disaster. shahram khosravi is professor of anthropology at stockholm university. his research interests include anthropology of iran and the middle east, migration, forced displacement, and border studies. khosravi is the author of several books, including the illegal traveler: an auto-ethnography of borders (2010) and precarious lives: waiting and hope in iran (2017). during the past two years he has developed a new research field called critical border studies in sweden for creating interaction between scholars, artists and activists. he has been an active writer in international press and has also written fiction. currently he is working on an art book on waiting. © 2019 shahram khosravi microsoft word lenhard final.docx 1 informational selves – a genealogy of how data became to increasingly define how we operate koopman, colin. 2019. how we became our data – a genealogy of the informational person. chicago: university of chicago press. pp. 272 isbn: 9780226626444. reviewed by johannes lenhard, centre coordinator and research associate, max planck cambridge centre for the study of ethics, the economy and social change, university of cambridge, uk keywords: data, algorithm, politics, ethics, genealogy. just in february, a big blue metropolitan police van was parked outside the exit of the london underground at the second biggest shopping center in the british capital in stratford. two big white cameras sat high on top of the van pointing at the outcoming crowds; a red sign with white letters was placed in proximity of the car but barely readable for people approaching. the sign read: ‘police live facial recognition in use.’ despite protests from groups such as big brother watch, london police force announced shortly before this first sighting of the blue van that it would increasingly use facial recognition software in london to ‘find and stop criminals.’ how does that work? in fact, the process once the pictures are captured is simple: the identified faces are fed into a big database of acutely searched-for supposed criminals. in case of a match between a filmed face and the database, police captures the suspect immediately, so the theory. unfortunately, an independent review during trials of the software has found significant flaws with the practice of this data-driven prosecution aide. researchers around professor peter fussey 2 at the university of essex have observed issues both with the lawfulness of the process and its effectiveness. the reviewers concluded that there is no explicit and only insufficient implicit legal authority for the use of facial recognition in domestic law on the one hand; they found on the other hand, that the machine-identified matches during the trial period were only in 8 out of 42 cases ‘verifiably correct.’ that is a terrible 20% quota. *** the use of facial recognition software by the police in london (and elsewhere – see conversations in california) opens up questions of both ethics and data reliability that – as koopman shows in his excellent genealogy of the ‘informational person’ – date back at least 100 years. who can legitimately collect which kinds of data? what kind of usages for the data once collected are legitimate? what kind of models can help make use of the data and which assumptions are fed into these models? do the models lead to reliable results with regards to the set goals? koopman starts even more simple than that, however, and asks: how, in what formats is data collected? he traces back many of these highly topical questions to the 1910s and, in a very explicitly foucauldian genealogical analysis, he begins with a startling observation: “our information composes significant parts of our very selves.” (vii). his fundamental curiosity: “how have [we] become our data?” (ix). he argues, to put this differently, that we are ‘informational persons’ “inscribed, processed, and reproduced as subjects of data” (4) (to a point where we would lose a significant part of our selves if we lost our data, 5) and wonders: when and how did that start? with a strong focus on the american context, koopman presents three very detailed case studies of the traces he found about 120 years ago: the beginning of identity documents (birth certificates and national insurance number), the origin of personality traits (in personality testing) and the history of racialized real-estate redlining. in the first case study, koopman puts forward a very vivid example of a ‘form’ and a ‘format’ that fixes everyone from the moment they are born and hence marks the “first point of entry into the information systems” (41). the practice of issuing birth certificates started off in the us as late as 1905 with a first bill in pennsylvania 3 which was subsequently copied into other states. but despite a strong audit culture around the certificate (driven by the census bureau and so-called ‘birth registration areas,’ 54), it only found true universal application when, with the social security number rollout in the mid-1930s, a strong incentive was established (61). the birth certificate became the necessary proof of age to be able to work and to receive social security benefits and later pension payments. on the flip side, the state was able to measure tax incomes and track wages. as koopman claims: “ssn solidified […] a stable kind of person who could move to the beat of the drum of data” (63). in the second case study, koopman goes into detail on how personality has become a vector of ourselves as something “measurable and differentiable” through measuring personality traits (69) from the 1930s onwards. while developed scientifically as part of the field of ‘abnormal psychology,’ it was again the state that made intelligence and psychometric tests a standard measure of personality traits (93) and eventually character, starting with their wwi recruits (77). koopman goes into much detail about the different kind of test regimes and forms as well measurement of personality more generally, but – just as with the first case study – one thing i am missing is not just a genealogy of the tests as such but their politics. what are these tests not measuring? do they claim ‘objectivity’ and if so what is this based on? more importantly what consequences do the underlying assumptions have on the data collected, and eventually on the processed outputs? the third and by far most detailed case study on racialized real-estate appraisal methods – what is often described as redlining – is in contrast focused strongly on this aspect of the informational person: the ethics and politics of data gathering, processing and output. koopman lays out how real estate appraisals – judging the price of a given property – became scientific-ized in the 1920s mostly driven by increasingly professionalizing real estate brokers (122). the problem was that one of the inputs in the appraisal method was “new forms of racialized evidence” (116); in simple words: in order to fulfil their ‘economic duty’ and value the property correctly, the ‘racial composition of the neighborhood’ had to be considered (119). race was a “valuation factor” (126) that was worked into standard valuation work sheets and reports (128f) based on guidelines published in newly conceptualized ‘manuals’ (133). this had immediate effects not only on house prices but also on mortgages (and the possibility of remortgaging properties) as 4 the home owners’ loan corporation (holc), which gave out specific kinds of mortgages, was among the first to ‘redline’ maps in 1933 (138). while their goal was to extend access to mortgages, they were trying to de-risk their operations by grading properties and areas on a scale of ‘residential security’: “black neighborhoods were invariably rated as fourth grade,” i.e. the worst possible grade (141). naturally, these techniques produced highly unequal decisions negatively affecting access to properties and credit for african-americans and – as koopman does point out – often continue to do so. *** what koopman calls technical formatting is an act of power that fastens its subject to their data (12), all in the name of efficiency and better measurement and decision making; ultimately, this kind of analysis based on standardized forms is supposed to be more scientific, quicker, more reliable and more objective. but the consequences of these processes and the related infopower as koopman terms it can “limit our freedoms or open up our liberties” (159). while koopman seems to stay mostly neutral as to which direction – limiting or opening up liberties? – the processes enabled more, as i already suggested above, he closes his volume with a question implicitly fearing the danger of the techniques: “what can we do to redesign these formats where they function today as programs for the disposition of burdens?” (180). koopman is doing something very well that many other authors – partly because of their disciplinary affiliation, partly because it is a really tedious task – don’t do: he goes back in history to trace the origins of something we are living with today – the fixation as our beings as informational. what remains for me beyond my quarrel with his selective digging deeper into the politics of the techniques is twofold: first, the state throughout koopman’s analysis plays a crucial role, as financier, as regulator, as administrator of the data collection, procession and validation; perhaps a further step in the analysis could zoom in on the role the state played in the development of the informational self more explicitly (inspired by authors such as mazzucato 2017, for instance). secondly, i am curious to hear more directly about how he thinks the issues he unearths with data – from its collection, its procession to the outputs it generates – relate to problems today. what exactly can we learn from the teething issues of the birth certificate? how 5 are the historical formats still shaping outputs today? there are surely other authors (e.g. o’neil 2016; noble 2018) who pick up this thread very elegantly. obviously, as a european, i also now want to see koopman’s american genealogy replicated to this side of the planet – and i hope somebody as careful and considerate as koopman takes that task up in the near future. dr. johannes lenhard is the centre coordinator of the max planck cambridge centre for the study of ethics, the economy and social change (max cam). while his doctoral research was focused on the home making practices of people sleeping rough on the streets of paris, he is currently working on a new project on the ethics of venture capital investors in berlin, london and san francisco. find his twitter at @jflenhard. © 2020 johannes lenhard 1 chocolá: an ancient maya capital in a contemporary guatemalan community review by gavin roger davies water, cacao, and the early maya of chocolá by jonathan kaplan and federico paredes umana university press of florida, 2018 water, cacao, and the early maya of chocolá presents the results of jonathan kaplan and federico paredes umana’s three seasons of archaeological investigations and additional years of research at the large prehispanic site of chocolá, located in the pacific piedmont of southwestern guatemala. more than simply a dry monograph, this book also represents the culmination of kaplan’s journey as the director of a project that was ultimately shut down by the modern community in which they were working. as kaplan reveals in the preface: “our research was halted by threats from christian evangelical pastors and wealthier families in the town wishing to build bigger churches and homes, destroying mounds containing ancient edifices. they saw the archaeological project, with its mandate from the cultural ministry to protect the mounds, and the guatemalan cultural patrimony protection laws themselves, as impediments to their ambitions” (xxii) given the problems that kaplan’s project precipitated in the local community, it is unlikely that archaeologists will be granted further access to these ruins anytime soon. for this reason, and due to the rapid rate of development occurring in that region, kaplan laments that: “the record of our work may be all that remains for posterity and world cultural patrimony”. that this responsibility weighs heavy on kaplan is evident both from such explicit statements and also by the exhaustive level of detail provided in both the background and results chapters of this book. 2 the site of chocolá was one of several sites that rose to importance in southern mesoamerica during middle and late preclassic periods (c.600 bc – 300 ad). one of just nine sites in the region to have produced a ruler portrait (monument 1), kaplan reports that the site once boasted over 100 mounds, indicating that the population of the site may have rivalled that of better known preclassic sites like takalik abaj (in the department of retalhuleu) and kaminaljuyu (in the valley of guatemala). chocolá’s location, in one of the premier cacao producing regions has long suggested to scholars that cacao may have been central to this center’s political and economic power. however, specific evidence tying this ancient site to cacao production has so far been lacking. kaplan’s discovery of a sophisticated hydraulic system running through a large portion of the site and his identification of cacao residues in preclassic pots, thus provides significant support for this theory and helps advance our understanding of the preclassic economy of this region. the first three chapters of kaplan’s book provide the historical and environmental context of the site and include a comprehensive review of previous investigations, and a thorough synthesis of the historical documentation for cacao production in the province and later department of suchitepequez. the 70-page introductory chapter additionally provides an insightful discussion of the southern maya region in the history of maya scholarship, and perceptions of this region’s role in the development of “maya civilization”. this latter topic has received increasing attention in recent years, in part as a result of inomata et al. (2014) proposed revisions for the preclassic chronology of the site of kaminaljuyu, the largest and most important site in the southern maya region. the proposed revisions, which would involve shifting the preclassic chronology of kaminaljuyu and several related sites forward by as much as 300 years, are significant because they suggest that key features of later classic maya civilization. (i.e. the long-count calendar and the stela-altar complex), which were long believed to have emerged first in the southern maya region and then spread north to the peten region, may have emerged contemporaneously in both regions. as kaplan and others (e.g. love 2018) have observed, however, diffusion is too simplistic a concept to explain the processes involved in the spread and adoption of “maya” ideology and culture. kaplan, nevertheless lays out compelling evidence that many of these classic maya traits were in use during the late preclassic in the pacific coast. 3 the first three chapters include numerous high-quality maps and illustrations, which help to provide the reader with a clear understanding of chocolá’s geographical and environmental setting. some of these maps (e.g. figure 2.6), also highlight the challenge of reconstructing the history of this region (particularly in the department of suchitepequez) due to the patchy nature of previous work. one of these (figure 2.6) for instance, shows that the area around chocolá both to the south, east and west is still virtually unknown archaeologically. this makes it difficult to put chocolá in its local historical context and to determine the extent of its political territory, which is assumed to have been extensive. greater knowledge of sites in the surrounding region would greatly enrich our understanding of chocolá’s role as a political and administrative center. it is of course quite possible that urbanization at the site of chocolá caused the majority of the rural population to move to that site. if this was the case, however, further research will be needed to determine how the leaders of chocolá provided sufficient food for this population, when many of the city’s inhabitants must have been dedicated to cacao production. chapters 4 through 6 of the book provide the hard data derived from kaplan and paredes umana’s extensive fieldwork and artifact analysis. these chapters are rich in detail and may prove difficult for non-specialists to digest. however, the quantity and quality of the illustrations help to make these chapters more accessible. patience and perseverance with these chapters, is rewarded by a greater understanding of how the site’s architecture and artifacts compare with those of nearby sites like takalik abaj and kaminaljuyu. for those who have followed kaplan and paredes umana’s previous reports and publications, little in these chapters will be new. an exception to this, however, is the ceramics chapter, which provides a more comprehensive listing of the ceramic types and wares than has previously been published and includes a large number of digitally produced illustrations. given the time that has passed since the investigations took place, it is somewhat disappointing to find that the ceramic analysis is still “ongoing” and also to find that no quantification is provided for any of the ceramic types and wares that are described. this makes it difficult to assess changes in the population of the site over time as well as changes in the site’s interactions with other sites and regions. chapter 7 represents the synthesis / discussion section of the book and focuses in on the two central themes: water management and cacao production. although not fully adopting wittfogel’s hydraulic theory, kaplan nevertheless supports the notion of a “causal link between water control and a 4 centralized source of political authority” and provides persuasive evidence that water management was central to chocolá’s success as an urban settlement and as an early cacao production center. kaplan and paredes umana’s book is a welcome addition to the literature on the rise of complex societies on the pacific coast of guatemala. the comprehensive review chapters will make it a useful reference source for both students and professional researchers working in the southern maya region, while the detailed methodological discussions will make it of general interest for archaeologists working elsewhere in the world. finally, the revelations concerning the problems that this project experienced with the local community mean that the book also provides an important cautionary tale for archaeologists engaging in research in small, indigenous communities. references inomata, takeshi, et al. (2014) “chronological revision of preclassic kaminaljuyú, guatemala: implications for social processes in the southern maya area”. latin american antiquity 25(4):377-408. love, michael (2018) “kaminaljuyu chronology and ceramic analysis: an alternative view”. latin american antiquity 29(2):260-278. gavin roger davies is a phd candidate within the anthropology department at the university of kentucky, specializing in anthropological archaeology. his phd research focuses on community resilience and political integration during the classic to postclassic transition in the lake atitlan basin of highland guatemala. his interests, however, span the much broader region of mesoamerica and extend from the preclassic to colonial periods. © 2018 gavin roger davies re-evaluating the state of mortuary studies in the near east review by michael brass remembering the dead: recent contributions from bioarchaeology and mortuary archaeology by benjamin porter & alexis boutin (eds) university press of colorado, 2014 as stated in the introduction, there is a dearth of holistic and “comprehensive treatments of mortuary contexts” in near eastern archaeology, which here includes egypt and nubia. the point is made that usually only one or occasionally two datasets are used, be they writings, grave assemblages, or descriptions of the graves and/or skeletal remains. there is a move underway in the sudan to buck this trend and to bring the study of sudanese cemeteries (brass 2014, 2015, brass and schwenniger 2013; dann 2009; salvatori 2012; salvatori and usai 2008; usai et al. 2014) in line with mortuary archaeology conducted outside of the near east (see, for example, rakita et al. 2005, mchugh 1999, sullivan and mainfort 2010). consequently, a session was organised at the 2011 society for american archaeology conference from which these publications arose. the book is organised into seven chapters. each chapter is co-authored by different scholars and examine mortuary complexes across six countries. the first chapter, by the editors, is an introduction to how mortuary archaeology is conducted more thematically outside of the near east, while pointing out that rarely are grave goods, tomb construction, architecture, ceramics and chronology treated together. while usually site reports contain chapters on each by their own specialists, holistic attempts to integrate and cross-correlate the disparate data remain in the minority. the publication looks at settlement, regional and grave context; dental and skeletal data; visual and, where appropriate, written sources; and the inscription and redefinition of memory from the perspective of non-elites. four of the remaining 6 chapters concern the third and second millennia bc which suggests potential for scholars dealing with periods on either side to rise to the challenge. chapter 2 looks at domuztepe in south-eastern turkey. it dates from the first half to the middle of the 6th millennium bc, within the halaf period. there is a death pit, a red terrace and a ditch in the red terrace with burials which the piece focuses upon. buildings were sometimes deliberately dismantled and rebuilt in relatively short bursts, which is in contrast to the three discussed features containing burials. the red terrace was a structure which was continually renewed and expanded; a shaft was dug down to the water table towards the end of the life of the red terrace and subsequently carefully refilled. within the burial contexts, dogs and humans received similar treatment, while artefacts were also deliberately buried sometimes separately from any human remains or in association with fragments such as teeth. food was also buried: in the death pit, animal food remains were deposited in a layer before being overlain with human bones. the author suggest that food associated with feasting was given special attention and deliberately deposited, creating a link in social memory between eating, dying and memory. they also suggest that there are traces of artefacts being accessed after originally buried and state that this may have been a means to connect past and present, and that it could have been a mechanism whereby anything potentially dangerous could be controlled. finally, the authors point out that burial is not simply a disposal of individuals but rather part of a culturally constructed entity, a socially powerful material through which meaning is gained and ascribed in multiple contexts, including the use of actions and artefacts. chapter 3 looks at how akkadian identity was constructed at kish (iraq) during the late 3rd millennium bc. “a” cemetery was a mound featuring the “a” palace, which was destroyed and replaced by buildings which were the scene of multiple activities, including disposal of the dead. the destruction and building activity are ascribed to the ruler sargon, who defeated the previous (sumerian) ruler. the authors analysed how the bodies were treated, including the nature of the burial assemblages, and combined it with the results of their biodistance analysis. the latter took into account the demographic profile of the buried individuals in determining the degree of biological affinity of those interned within “a” cemetery and elsewhere in the city. sadly, the authors also state that biodistance studies to calculate “the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between a priori groups (here, burial mounds and sexes) using the relative frequency of expression of the various nonmetric traits observed in each group” is uncommon in mesopotamian studies, particularly when looking at the effects of biological diversity at a local rather than regional level. the results showed that the males in “a” cemetery were biologically distinct (either different population history or descent), while its females and males and females from elsewhere were similar. however, the mortuary treatment of all the individuals were similar. the authors interpret the data as showing that some akkadian males settled in the city after its conquest by sagan, males drawn from different genetic stock but not necessarily with undue distinct cultural traditions. alternatively, the authors also point out that perhaps any ethnic distinctions in life were not strong enough to warrant being represented in death by non-perishable artefacts, although there may have been differences elsewhere in the mortuary rites. the decision to have (semi-)homogenized mortuary treatments may thus have been a coping mechanism at a time of great political flux. chapter 4 moves to bahrain, in particular to the bronze and iron age polity of dilmun. the authors re-analyze material excavated by a deaf graduate student, peter b. cornwall, especially the skeleton of a disabled young woman who lived circa 2050-1800 bc. the aim was to examine how the respective above individuals managed their conditions in life and to juxtapose them in death in order to see how their respective societies commemorated them. essentially, the chapter is a bioarchaeology of livelihood or personhood where physical attributes are embodied socially in a variety of ways which need to be teased apart. the western assumption that disability may have been less tolerated in general in the distant past is not necessarily true. the woman was buried with an unusually rich array of goods compared with her contemporaries but it may not have been on account of her disability as she may have held status in life unrelated to her physical condition. chapter 5 looks at biological group identity during the early bronze age (eba i-iv) at bab edh-dhra’, jordan. the authors look for changes in mortuary patterns and incorporate the results of dental morphology with the wider social archaeology denoting more intensive occupation of the site in eba ii-iii. in the latter period, the occupation became more permanent. a large wall was constructed, orchads were expanded and chanel houses for the dead were constructed above ground outside of the settlement. previously, the dead were buried in shaft tombs. in the latter, family members were buried together. the former likely held extended kin. the numbers of interned individuals are argued to be more accurately determined by “most likely number of individuals” (mlni) rather than the older “minimum number of individuals” (mni) technique through better addressing biases introduced by taphonomic processes. overall, the study “looked at changes in [social and biological structuring forces] as a means of determining who represented the dead and by whom they were remembered” (p. 176). chapter 6 moves into africa, notably into nubia. specifically, tombos which was founded circa 1400 bc along an egyptian colonial frontier and saw an entangled identity emerge which incorporated both egyptian and nubian mortuary ideals. these ideals were re-conceptualised through multivocal commemorations that emphasised different cultural memories reinterpreted in the present. the authors therefore explore the immediate term lived experiences versus longer-term interpreted cultural memories. furthermore, the authors state (page 185) that a consideration of inscribed versus incorporated memorialization can help distinguish between conscious and unconscious remembrances reflected in the archaeological record. we suggest that like the distinction between inscribed and incorporated memory, commemorative practice and cultural memory at tombos do not represent contrasting forms. instead they indicate intersecting social fields that apply to varying degrees in different cases, reflecting choices conditioned by individual predispositions as well as larger social and political contexts. (p. 185) δ18o data supported the proposition of intermarriage between locals and colonists, while the bioarchaeology revealed the presence of a great number of trauma wounds, particularly to the craniofacial area. the presence and reuse of pyramids, after they had stopped being used in egypt, is also used to show how cultural symbols were used in long-term cultural memory to the advantage of local political elites. chapter 7, the last, looks at the newly discovered south tomb cemetery at tell el-armana, which the authors term “a cemetery of forgotten souls.” while there was a portion of the cemetery for more elite elements of the population, the nature of the grave goods, osteological analyses, the structure of the graves and wider social archaeological knowledge of the town armana itself show how the diverse population was attempting to maintain their cultural connections to their home regions over the course of two decades. the authors conclude that the living robbed the cemetery when the site was abandoned not as an act of robbery per se but rather as commemoration through the removal of objects or parts of individuals to repatriate back to their home towns or villages. overall, the editors achieve their stated aim with the articles. more near eastern archaeologists should pick up the challenge and run with it. it is no longer enough to have separate chapters on mortuary and settlement patterns, grave structures, grave goods, and isotopic and osteological analyses without extensive cross-referencing and integration in order to answer specific questions to determine how the dead were commemorated and remembered, and what their social interactions were with the living. references cited brass, m. 2014. jebel moya: a mortuary complex on the southern edge of the meroitic state. african archaeological review 31, 425-445. brass, m. 2015. reinterpreting chronology and society at the mortuary complex of jebel moya (sudan). university college london. unpublished ph.d dissertation brass, m. and schwenniger, j.-l. 2013. jebel moya (sudan): new dates from a mortuary complex at the southern meroitic frontier. azania 48, 455-472. dann, r. 2009. the archaeology of late antique sudan: aesthetics and identity in the royal x-group tombs at qustul and ballana. new york: cambria press. mchugh, f. 1999. theoretical and quantitative approaches to the study of mortuary practice. oxford: bar international series 785. rakita, g., buikstra, j., beck, l. and williams, s. (eds.) 2005. interacting with the dead: perspectives on mortuary archaeology for the new millennium. gainesville: university press of florida. salvatori, s. 2012. disclosing archaeological complexity of the khartoum mesolithic: new data at the site and regional level. african archaeological review 29, 399-472. salvatori, s. and usai, d. (eds.) 2008. a neolithic cemetery in the northern dongola reach. excavations at site r12. oxford: bar international series 1814. sullivan, l. and mainfort, r. (eds.) 2010. mississipian mortuary practices: beyond hierarchy and the representationist perspective. gainesville: university press of florida. usai, d., salvatori, s., jakob, t. and david, r. 2014. the al khiday cemetery in central sudan and its "classic/late meroitic" period graves. journal of african archaeology 12, 183-204. michael brass is completing his doctorate in archaeology at the institute of archaeology, university college london. he focuses on the site of jebel moya (south-central sudan), the largest mortuary locality in sub-saharan africa which bordered the meroitic state. © 2015 michael brass microsoft word final_moving to serve_kraemer.doc 1 review title: moving to serve review author: jonathan kraemer, stockholm university book reviewed: follow the maid. domestic worker migration in and from indonesia. olivia killias, 2018. copenhagen: nias press. keywords: labor migration; southeast asia; domestic workers; indentured labor; migration regime. in her recently published ethnography, follow the maid, olivia killias takes the title literally: the reader gets to follow the migratory pathways of young women from the uplands of central java, indonesia, setting out to become domestic workers in middle-class households in malaysia, much as killias herself has done in her long-term, ethnographic fieldwork on which the book is based. in writing this book, killias sets out to provide an understanding of the intersection of moral, economic and legal processes in making rural javanese women into maids for households in malaysia and the particular struggles and negotiations that arise at various points in this transformation (8). accordingly, the book is structured to correspond to the various moments or steps in this process, with each chapter focusing on one particular moment: from social and economic conditions in the women’s villages of origins (chapter 2), the brokers and agencies recruiting women for overseas domestic work (chapter 3), the training camps in indonesian cities that prepare women for their work abroad (chapter 4), their workplaces in malaysia (chapter 5), and their eventual return to indonesia (chapter 6). this allows at once for a coherent and intimate ethnographic thread, closely connecting the various theoretical discussions offered in 2 these chapters and engaging the reader at every step, and the continued logical development of the book’s theoretical argument. killias skillfully highlights the productive intersection of normative discourses, legal frameworks and social and economic structures that defines every stage of this movement and thereby not just enables but creates a particular form of temporary labor migration. normative discourses in both indonesia and malaysia construct indonesian women as docile and caring, and thus particularly suitable for working in the domestic sector, while in need of protection, and represent women’s labor migration as an essential contribution to the economic and social development of the indonesian nation (113, 146-147). economic structures provide the need for women to seek employment abroad and create a migratory regime that ties women to the brokers, agencies and employers through contractual and debt obligation, effectively reproducing older forms of labor bondage (37). finally, legal frameworks in both the sending and receiving countries enable this specific form of labor migration, while illegalizing alternative modes of migration and limiting women’s bargaining power vis-à-vis both employers and agents by tying their legal status to their employment and closely circumscribing the conditions for legality (41, 163, 176). bringing together these different elements and showing the productive dynamics that ensue from their intersection and crucially define contemporary labor migration is the great merit of killias’ book. all too often, these aspects are being kept separate in the literature on labor migration with studies focusing on one aspect while bracketing out the others, even though they are, as this study shows, mutually constituted. chapter 4, in which killias discusses the women migrants’ stay at camps run by the recruitment agencies in the main cities of indonesia, is particularly strong. such camps serve the dual purpose of, on the one hand, providing the migrants with the necessary training for turning them into desirable domestic workers, teaching them language skills, acceptable behavior and the 3 required forms of carrying out their daily housekeeping tasks. and, on the other hand, keeping the women from failing to honor the contractual obligations they have agreed to in the recruitment process by preventing any movement outside the tightly controlled space of the camp – in short, by incarcerating them. thus, bound up with the contractual and debt mechanism structure of this migratory regime, these camps are characterized by killias as goffmanian total institutions attuned to reshaping crucial aspects of the migrant women’s being, from their looks to their behavior and their very thinking about what their labor is about and for. this presents a crucial moment in the process of turning young rural women into maids, whereby de-personifying, if not dehumanizing, disciplining practices transform these women into the maids that middle-class malaysians desire. killias’ ethnography provides a unique, intimate and hugely important glimpse into this space control and disciplining, and draws attention to an aspect of contemporary labor migration that is seldom made a subject in the current literature on transnational labor migration, not least since few researchers ever gain such thorough access to these transitory disciplining spaces as killias has. at the same time, as in much of the book, the theoretical framework through which she seeks to make sense of her ethnographic material is well fitting, accessible and carefully elaborated. throughout the book, killias pays close attention to the particularly gendered nature of this form of labor migration. she shows how the migrants’ gender and age is negotiated in the economic and legal structures that frame their migration and particularly in the normative discourses that are mobilized in relation to women’s labor migration and domestic work in malaysia as well as in indonesia, both on the national and on the local level. this includes specific local notions such as taking responsibility (tanggung jawab; 73) for the migrants or seeking experience through migrating (cari pengalaman; 71), which killias interlocutors in the javanese sending village used in discussing migration experiences. in this context, a more detailed and expanded discussion of these concepts’ historical and cultural construction would have been 4 interesting, in particular for scholars of indonesian labor migration, though the lack thereof does not detract the general argument of the book. more generally, killias offers clear and concise discussions of key concepts of the field of labor migration, as with her discussion of indentured labor and debt bondage in chapter two (34), thereby helping her readers find their way through the more dense, theoretical parts of the text. this is no small feat, making it accessible to students only just approaching the study of labor migration. as such, the book promises to be an invaluable source for teaching issues of labor migration on undergraduate and graduate levels alike, especially when considering these clear theoretical discussions in conjunction with the book’s lively and engaging ethnographic parts. this is complemented by killias’ choice to include an exceptionally detailed and intimate discussion of her long-term, multi-sited ethnographic research, its logistics, the challenges it presented and the connections it allowed her to make (13-21). uncommon as it may be, such a long and detailed discussion of the daily logistics of research nonetheless offers a valuable and certainly inspiring insight into the work that underpins this study. all in all, killias’ ethnography offers an admirable and refreshing contribution to the vast academic literature on contemporary labor migration and will be an important read not only for scholars of southeast asia, but for those of labor migration in general as well. jonathan kraemer is currently a phd student in the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. his research concerns transnational labor migration of indonesian workers to the palm oil fields in malaysia, with a particular focus on migrant politics, migratory networks and the intersection of exploitation and racialization in the contemporary plantation economy in southeast asia. he holds a master’s degree from heidelberg university and a bachelor’s degree from the university of toronto. 5 © 2019 jonathan kraemer bridges through conservation development review by jeremy trombley beyond the lens of conservation: malagasy and swiss imaginations of one another by eva keller berghahn books, 2015 eva keller's beyond the lens of conservation is an interesting study of the relationship between malagasy and swiss people by way of their mutual connection to masoala national park in madagascar. there has been a lot of ethnographic research done on the unequal relationship between north and south, particularly as it relates to conservation, but this book takes a somewhat different approach. by looking at the way that people from both switzerland and madagascar understand one another by way of this national park and its sister exhibit at the zurich zoo, the author is able to examine the way that conservation projects mediate peoples’ perceptions of one another over great distances. in the zurich zoo, there is a large exhibit featuring lemurs, tortoises, and other animals native to madagascar’s masoala national park. the exhibit also features references to the indigenous peoples who live in or near the park, and the scientific expeditions to learn about the park and its unique wildlife. this exhibit provides many swiss with their most direct experience of madagascar, and it’s through it and other cultural references that keller examines the swiss perspective on the people and place of madagascar. keller begins her book with a thorough “virtual tour” of the exhibit – allowing us to see it from her perspective as she wanders among the tourists and trees where elusive lemurs and other animals reside. the image that we get from this exhibit is of a familiar story. madagascar, aside from a brief display at the beginning, a few easily missed references in the exhibit itself, and at the end, is depicted as relatively devoid of human occupation. instead of a nation rich with both human and natural diversity, madagascar comes across as a vast natural wilderness untouched by human influence – that is, until the health of the forest comes into question. the final portion of the exhibit – also easily bypassed – provides a detailed depiction of the masoala locals as villains satisfying their selfish desire for profit by destroying the forest upon which they and the health of the planet depend. according to keller, these views are reinforced by two major popular cultural narratives – the story of the globe-trotting parrot globi and his adventures in madagascar, and the dreamworks animation film madagascar. in both stories, the island nation is portrayed as either devoid of human presence or the people are depicted as ignorant and selfish destroyers of the natural world. this perspective justifies swiss intervention in madagascar to save the masoala forest from the locals who would, in this view, destroy it. all of this leads keller to what she refers to as the “coconut schema.” instead of recognizing the unique culture and history of madagascar, the swiss people she spoke with – including several classes of students – fit them into a universal “native” schema that could be applied to any indigenous people. in this framework, the malagasy are impoverished, backward, and primitive, and must be taught how to live sustainably with the forest. the project of protecting masoala, then, becomes a moral project of preserving a threatened landscape, rather than a meaningful engagement with the people of madagascar themselves. the second part of the book focuses on life in and around masoala for the malagasy. it begins with a history of the park and how it was created, followed by an analysis of the effects that the creation of the park had on people who live in the area. primarily, the park affects land use by preventing access to certain regions and forcing people to request permits to conduct routine activities. this put a severe burden on the people there, and has resulted in a great deal of tension between the local population and the agency that oversees the park. keller demonstrates these tensions through an examination of the “banana ethos” and the “moon ethos” – drawing from a malagasy myth. in the banana ethos, which the malagasy hold, the value of life is in building a strong connection to the land a growing community of kinship. the moon ethos, on the other hand, is held by conservationists who see the growing population not as a benefit to the expansion of kin, but as overpopulation and potentially increasing the destruction of the forest. keller describes this interaction of contradictory ways of viewing life as generating friction (drawing on anna tsing’s notion of the term as the uneven and awkward aspects of interaction across difference) between the two groups. from the perspective of the malagasy, the masoala park represents an intrusion of the state and of foreigners into their everyday lives. it has resulted in the loss of cultivable land, prevents the expansion of kin groups by limiting the land available for future generations, and interferes with their burial practices by preventing them from accessing the burial sites of their ancestors. keller illustrates these effects with a number of anecdotes such as the story of a burial site on an island called, “the island of the wanderer.” after the island was listed as part of the “hard core” of the park, and foreign tourists were seen kayaking to it, the malagasy in the area felt forced to move the burial to protect their ancestors. this left them feeling defeated, and anxious about the future. ultimately, keller argues, the park has interrupted a long process among the malagasy of trying to overcome the legacy of colonialism and slavery on the island. many of the malagasy in the park region are descendants of former slaves. their humanity – in the form of access to land for their own descendants, and to connect with their ancestors – has been stripped away. the masoala peninsula provided these people with the opportunity to recover what had been lost. the creation of the park, and the resulting restrictions on accessing the land have halted this recovery process. returning to her analysis of swiss perceptions of madagascar, keller suggests that, instead of bringing the people of the two nations together, the park has driven them further apart by creating further tensions and antagonisms. although both groups perceive one another through conflated generalizations – the swiss through the coconut schema, and the malagasy through the image of the vazaha or foreigner – keller argues that there is a significant difference between these two generalizations. the first is based on a generic type, lacking any historical or political dimension – a “native” from any continent could just as easily stand in for any other “native.” the second, on the other hand, is based on the direct historical and political relationship that the malagasy have had with europeans and other foreigners in both the past and the present. she describes these different perspectives as a “broken bridge,” but offers no suggestions for how to fix it. here it might have been useful to raise the other aspect of anna tsing’s concept of friction. what’s most interesting about tsing’s work is not that friction prevents interaction across difference – though in some cases it no doubt does – but that friction is the condition of possibility for relationships to be formed. friction, for tsing, is productive. it might, in light of keller’s analysis, be worth imagining the productive possibilities that the friction between the swiss who visit the zurich zoo exhibit and the malagasy who live near masoala park might produce. the only other substantive critique i have is that the cultural models approach is not well developed in the text. there is little explanation of how the models are identified and validated. people unfamiliar with holland and quinn’s work or the method of cultural models more generally might not grasp the process based on the limited methodological description provided. although supported by ethnographic examples (e.g. quotes, and descriptions provided by the author), this lack of methodological explanation makes the cultural models aspect of the research seem comparatively thin. additionally, i would advise a general caution with all approaches based on schema theory. because the methodology selects for schemas that are the most generally applicable within a community, there is often little room for nuance and variation. it is possible that many swiss, including the zoo staff, are very reflexive about the masoala exhibit, but this may not come out in interviews, and could get overshadowed by the dominant discourse of the zoo and the exhibit. that is a general critique of schema theory, though, and not an issue with keller’s work specifically. overall, i found the book to be very engaging and enlightening. the unique approach of studying the relationships between two regions by way of the forest and its sister zoo exhibit provided a rich account of how the people of these two regions view one another and the kinds of relationships that emerge from the interaction. it is a worthwhile addition to the literature on inequality and conservation, and provides many interesting and engaging ideas that can be built upon in further research. jeremy trombley is a phd candidate in anthropology the the university of maryland. his research revolves around the construction of computational models for environmental management within the chesapeake bay watershed. he writes about social, political, and philosophical issues on his blog struggle forever! © 2016 jeremy trombley uncovering the contemporary lives of the little known chinese ewenki review by jeanette lykkegård reclaiming the forest: the ewenki reindeer herders of aoluguya by åshild kolås & yuanyuan xie (eds) berghahn books, 2015 reclaiming the forest, edited by åshild kolås and yuanyuan xie, is the outcome of a joint collaboration between the peace research institute oslo (prio) and the chinese academy of social sciences (cass) on the research project, “pastoralism in china: policy and practice,” funded by the research council of norway. this cross-country teamwork has produced a remarkable volume with several contributions from chinese scholars and also indigenous people of the ewenki community, and this is perhaps one of the greatest achievements of the book. it provides a thorough presentation of the history and life of the ewenki of aoluguya, and is both an important contribution to the otherwise scarce english-language literature on this particular group of people and at the same time adds valuable knowledge to the anthropology of northern eurasian peoples as a whole. the book is thematically divided into four parts, framed by an introductory chapter. in the introduction, kolås clarifies that this book “challenges the implicit pessimism in popular conceptions of the reindeer ewenki as a relic of the past, as in the epithet 'the last hunting tribe'” (p. 7). the purpose of the volume is thus primarily to concentrate on the present-day situation of these people and the challenges that they face, as well as their responses to these challenges. the overall objective is to raise awareness of the ewenki reindeer herders of china by offering a “glimpse into the contemporary world of the people of aoluguya” (p. 13). the difficulty of this worthy goal shines through, as the present situation is hard to convey without a comprehensive understanding of history. thus, historical events, which have led to great cultural changes and loss of language and spiritual leaders, fill a considerable amount of pages (see especially the chapters by kolås and siqinfu). the title of the introduction, “writing the ‘reindeer ewenki,’” stirred expectations towards more elaborations on the creative collaborative process of actually writing and editing the book – something, which i would have appreciated. the first part of the book consists of only one chapter by siqinfu, focusing on the changes the aoluguya ewenki have met with from 1965 onward. siqunfu takes a critical stand towards the story of majority china in order to bring forth the “small story” of the aoluguya ewenki. we follow the story of ewenki hunters, as they are forcibly moved away from their hunting settlement qiqian as a consequence of the collapse of the sino-sovjet alliance the now old aoluguya was founded in 1965. the reindeer were declared government property and the ewenki were drawn into the chinese socialist market economy. as a new industry of antler harvesting for the medicinal market grew – and mainstream society criticized shamanism and other aspects of the ewenki’s traditional lifestyle – the value of reindeer changed from being of social, practical and religious character to a mere economic one (p. 27). from the late 1990’s the number of reindeer decreased drastically. the official explanation blames the “primitive” methods of the ewenki, but siqinfu states that the problem rather derives from poachers, traffic accidents, pesticides, diseases and predators. problems with alcoholism and lack of interest in herding from the younger population of the community led to other social complications, such as lack of intergenerational transfer of cultural education within the community, as well as a breakdown in parent-child relationships and absent fathers. siqinfu states that “the aoluguya ewenki are losing their culture, largely through their integration into chinese politics, economy and culture” (p. 35) and further that “aoluguya ewenki society has been offered only one path to the future – assimilation into mainstream society” (p. 39). it becomes clear that avoiding the popular pessimist outlook, which this volume sets out to do, is a challenging undertaking. the second part, “migrations: reindeer herding in flux,” is comprised of three chapters, thematically revolving around practices and organization of reindeer herding. tang ge describes the transformation of the ewenki from hunters, using reindeer mainly for transport to becoming mainly reindeer herders, a change that accelerated after the resettlement in 2003 to the new aoluguya and the contemporary hunting-ban. this recurrent theme here focuses on how this affects the social organization in the reindeer-camps, <em>urilen</em>. tending the herd used to be a female job, whereas now both men and women engage in managing the reindeer. the current situation is ascribed to continuous negotiation between ewenki and the government (p. 49), where the ewenki wanted to maintain their traditional way of life, and although a powerful government wish for the ewenki to become sedentary reindeer ranchers, they have usually only accepted the changes to some degree while upholding some kind of continuity with traditions (p. 50). åshild kolas continues the discussion of this transition by emphasizing the ambiguities hereof, arguing that the ewenki currently find themselves in a “liminal space of law” (p. 65), where they are neither a hunting tribe, nor true pastoralists. in 1980 the production brigades were dismantled, and rights to animals and pastures were to be distributed to individual herding and farming households. in aoluoga, however, this has not been fully implemented. another ambiguity arises through the plan for the ewenki to occupy guiding positions for tourist hunting trips, while they themselves are deprived of their hunting rights. to close this part, aurore dumont focuses on how the ewenki use flexible strategies to maintain and adapt their economy to changing conditions (p. 77). while migrating between settlement and forest camps, new economic networks are created and she emphasizes the agency of the ewenki to maintain a form of continuity despite serious state interventions. the third part, “representations: defining the reindeer ewenki culture and identity,” offers insights into ascribed as well as self-defined identities of contemporary ewenki. bai ying and zhang rongde open this part by problematizing the local ewenki museums as a governmental instrument or – with a marxist notion – a “superstructure,” both “reflecting a given society’s politics and economy” while at the same time serving “as a political tool of that society” (p. 104). surprisingly, the latest museum in aoluguya has been designed by a finnish consulting firm, poyry, which has now contributed to a representation of the ewenki as reindeer herders in line with the scandinavian sami, regardless of the distinct differences between the two groups of people. then xie yuanyuan questions the so-called “ecological migration” to the new aoluguya settlement in 2003 on the ground that traditional hunters are “destroyers of the natural environment” (p. 124). we are reminded that the entire site of old aoluguya was sold to a private enterprise (p. 121) and that “history shows that the forest ecosystem was never damaged until the government initiated large-scale industrialization,” whereas he somewhat romantically refers to the ewenki hunters as living in an “original affluent society” (p. 124). richard fraser rounds of the third part with a remarkable take on the changing nature of the relations between the ewenki and state, through an exploration of the vernacular characteristics and transformations of ewenki dwellings over time. he argues that the adoption of ridge-tents and woodburners are not non-vernacular transformations, but intelligent adjustments of the vernacular forms as new materials have become available. part four, “local voices,” contains – as the title promises – contributions from members of the aoluguya ewenki community. it is comprised of the poem “campfire” by weijia – an artist who lives in the forest as a hunter-herder, poet and painter – followed by gong yu's "my homeland," and gu xinjun's account of a hunting expedition, "hunting along the bei'erci river." gong yu is named in the local language niurika after the last shaman and she contributes with a narrative of her life story and inheritance. gu xinjun’s hunting story reflects back on a time that is no longer, and kolås presents his motivation for this story to be a wish for the ewenki youth to know about the old hunting culture. through these local voices it becomes obvious that the historical and cultural inheritance are still very much present in the consciousness of contemporary ewenki, and it thus becomes even more understandable (and forgivable) why history takes up so much space in a book who’s objective is to spread knowledge of the present situation of this particular group of people. jeanette lykkegård is a phd student at the department of anthropology at aarhus university, denmark. her current research is on contemporary chukchi lifeways in northern kamchatka, with a special interest in existential questions of religion, life and death. © 2015 jeanette lykkegård 1 where sanskrit meets silicon: a study of hinduism in the heartland of information technology review by arthi devarajan the cow in the elevator: an anthropology of wonder by tulasi srinivas duke university press, 2018 any western anthropologist working in india has, at times, been dumbstruck by the creative and spontaneous moments of encounter between traditional religious life and the realities of a modern global economy. i, for one, will certainly never forget hearing the sacred sanskrit hymn venkatachalapati suprabhatam as a ring tone on a mobile phone, or seeing a traditional brahmin priest, top-knotted and bare-chested in a cotton veshti lower garment and ritual poonal string slung over his shoulder, pull an atm card from his belt while seated upon his moped. it is in the spirit of these moments of surprise and curiosity that tulasi srinivas explores modern hinduism in the cow in the elevator: an anthropology of wonder. situating her work in the middle-class bangalore suburb of malleshwaram, a neighborhood transformed over the last twenty years as the epicenter of india’s booming information technology industry, srinivas chronicles life in and around two traditional hindu temples, describing how orthodox brahmin priests, who live according to austere, ritually-prescribed tenets, have found ways to engage creatively – and even enjoy – new technologies, vocabularies, and global perspectives in the work of hindu temple ritual. if one will permit the proverbial “spoiler alerts,” prospective readers will be gifted with brilliant descriptions of animatronic goddess statues, the immersion of ganesha images during the festival of visarjan using construction vehicles, abhishekams (ritual anointing) of temples via helicopter, and the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras as a way of capturing ritually-heightened moments during hindu puja (and yes, there is a delightful ethnographic vignette about a cow in an elevator). srinivas approaches these snapshots of modern indian religious life through the experiential dimension of wonder, and relates wonder to modes of traditional ritual culture, as well as emergent, neoliberal means of 2 adapting to globalization. life in the urbanized middle-class of india now exists largely in this dialectic, and srinivas’ book guides the reader to the experience of living in – and even relishing – this seemingly oxymoronic world. srinivas deftly offers ethnographic thick description and analysis on the process of “rupture-capture,” a term highlighted in conversation with other theorists like michael puett, to describe the processes of living with two perspectives on modern change at once –the nostalgia, disorientation, and loss of traditional landscapes and ways of life, along with a new, often optimistic vision of modern westernized living as utopian. she interprets the rupture-capture process as relevant even to the aesthetic worlds of hinduism in malleshwaram; temple rituals draw from indigenous conventions of rasa (emotive/aesthetic tropes) and rehearsed, prescribed sentiments such as viraha (separation) and raudra (anger). these traditional emotional tropes are experienced alongside modern, spontaneous, and stimulus-response evocations of emotion, like irritation at traffic jams occluding ritual procession routes, heartbroken tirades at deities for unfulfilled career aspirations, and anxiety about the incompatibilities of hindu liturgical calendars with modern, westernized 9-to-5 work schedules. her compelling chapter on economies and debts invites readers to reimagine the dizzying effects of neoliberal capital in india as they are seen by the temple priesthood. tangible units of currency like printed paper and coin, seen through the mainstream rubrics of international banking and monetary flows, are viewed by the priests as simple, colorful, shiny, and dazzling material elements, to be arranged creatively in displays and adornments to inspire wonder in worshippers, and to invite their participation in a transactional relationship with the divine fundamentally undergirded by the traditional hindu principle of bhakti (devotion). her work on technology in ritual and anxieties about obsolescence is also apropos in the modern culture and economy of india’s silicon valley; just as software developers and it engineers worry about their innovations becoming obsolete, the priests of the malleshwaram temples fret over their robotic puja innovations becoming passé to their congregations. on the whole, srinivas’s volume astutely captures the joy, fluidity, and adaptability in this one locale, which swirls with currents of brahminical ritual knowledge, information technologies, and global market culture. the cow in the elevator offers a longitudinal anthropological study of hinduism, chronicling nearly 18 continuous years of life in a bangalore neighborhood, where numerous field informants’ places are intimately known to the author; thus, the indexing of change is portrayed in glorious detail. in the fields of south asian studies, global studies, and economics, we have seen many descriptions and theories on 3 globalization and the effects on culture, beginning with thomas friedman, but none truly offer the level of intimacy and personal analysis on religious meaning-making that this volume does. as a consummate example of reciprocal ethnography, the book benefits from the intimacy of these field relationships, and offers frank honesty and profound depth on theological discourse, shifting ethical perspectives, and emerging changes in aesthetic ideals. as is often the case when experiencing good ethnography, readers are at times left with further questions. srinivas talks about class, caste, gender, and ritual exclusion in chapter 3, and while her vignettes are helpful in understanding the complex internal conflicts of the malleshwaram bourgeois over traditional class and caste values, one cannot help but yearn to hear voices from the margins. but naturally a study like this, focusing so intimately on a carefully-delineated neighborhood temple and its constituent community of priests and upper-middle class patrons, cannot do everything, and one appreciates that within the field of anthropology of south asia, there are others pursuing work on marginal communities’ perspectives in full-length volumes. a second area of further curiosity is in the beguiling use of indian english to speak to the hybridity of religious culture in malleshwaram. srinivas often quotes her field informants’ tamil-english or kannada-english quips and turns of phrase to point to the theological, ethical, and cultural flexibility of their lives. patrons paying for ritual services at the temples are asked by priests “casha carda?” (tamil: “cash or card?”); high-earning patrons are colloquially described as “mintingu” (kannada: “minting [money]”). to this reader, who has fluency in english, tamil, and kannada, these moments were both humorous and absolutely clear as a synecdoche for broader change. non-fluent readers will hopefully benefit from these examples just as fully; further investigation into theories of linguistic hybridity might be useful here as a way of more directly foregrounding this aspect of field data. the book absolutely fulfills its stated goals of indexing modern hinduism in the post-it world, and presents a grassroots – and local – study of modern hinduism that is a refreshing alternative to studies focused on hindutva and nationalist trends. most enjoyably, the book reads as satisfyingly authentic to anyone who knows and loves the experience of doing anthropology in india. fellow scholars of india will invariably hear vestiges of their own experiences of surprise and hilarity at the creative adaptations of modern culture with traditional life. readers may also be reminded of their own moments of disappointment, anxiety, heartache and nostalgia in the field, where one sees modern innovations and a burgeoning local fascination with the western slowly erasing the beautiful and uniquely indian aspects 4 of the field that we love. the central contribution of this book is its presentation of wonder as a new category of anthropological inquiry, and its interdisciplinary approach of parsing wonder from the vantage points of ritual and liturgical lives, socioeconomics, and aesthetic and creative spheres. srinivas’s deployment of these specific categories by no means limits its readers; on the contrary, the book inspires readers to revisit their own field experiences, and look for the moments of wonder. arthi devarajan, phd has taught courses on religious performance, the anthropology of religion, and the religions of south asia and the middle east at the university of miami. her research areas include the study of bharata natyam and affiliated indian classical performance genres as a site of identity formation and the transmission of ethical knowledge in indian american communities. © 2018 arthi devarajan 1 fulfilling sex lives: understanding people with disabilities and sexual desire in denmark and sweden review by john a. carranza loneliness and its opposite: sex, disability, and the ethics of engagement. by don kulick and jens rydström, eds duke university press, 2015 human sexuality has been considered by a variety of scholars across disciplines that focus on differing time periods and social contexts. these studies have yielded a wealth of information from which we can better understand the diversity of sexualities. however, the available literature on sexuality frequently focuses on the able-bodied. don kulick and jens rydström add to this literature with their monograph loneliness and its opposite: sex, disability, and the ethics of engagement. in this book, denmark and sweden are the sites in which the authors consider people with disabilities’ desires for sexual activity and to what extent policymakers, social workers, and caregivers allow or disallow such desires. kulick and rydström combine their experiences as an anthropologist and historian, respectively, to present an ethnography that uses fieldwork, interviews, and archival materials to discuss the place of sexuality and disability in denmark and sweden. while each of the countries are welfare states and are within proximity to one another, the reader learns that policies and attitudes about sex and people with disabilities are in contrast. the authors highlight the differences by presenting points of view from caregivers, governmental policies, and the voices of people with disabilities. the first chapter positions sexuality within the larger disability rights movement, which frequently sees it as one of the last items on the list of objectives to be attained by activists. this study was rooted in kulick and rydström’s work on queer theory, which led them to embrace crip theory (the amalgamation of queer theory and disabilities studies). although the authors embrace crip theory, they 2 question whether anything new can be learned in the approach to and the understanding of the lived experiences of people with disabilities. another concern presented by the authors is disability studies’ insistence that people with disabilities teach nondisabled persons about disability. instead, the authors offer the concept of “ethical engagement and responsibility,” (17) where they question the actions of the danish and swedish states in facilitating sex for people with disabilities by focusing on what both countries do socially and relationally for people with disabilities. therefore, this study relies on the examination of how nondisabled people engage with disabled people and their sexual desires. chapter 2 gives the reader the historical foundation from which the discussion—or lack thereof—of sexuality and people with disabilities began to take shape in denmark and sweden. beginning in the 1960s, governmental agencies in both countries began to question forced sterilization and large institutions that violated the human rights of people with disabilities. these issues combined with the sexual revolution of the time led to the acknowledgement that people with disabilities had a right to a fulfilling sex life. this chapter also focuses on the scandinavian political and theoretical framework called the normalization principle, which was coined by the danish reformer niels erik bank-mikkelson that moves away from the medical model of disability and focuses on reshaping society to make it more inclusive. the normalization principle is slightly similar to the social model of disability, but was in use nearly twenty years before the social model. the third chapter considers the precarious position in which caregivers are placed when assisting people with disabilities and ensuring that they are sexually fulfilled. using interviews with caregivers in sweden and denmark, the authors present diverse perspectives for why a caregiver would not (i.e. accusations of sexual abuse) or would (wanting people with disabilities to fulfill basic needs) facilitate sex. in chapter four, kulick and rydström explore what boundaries mean when examining sex and people with disabilities. this chapter is thought provoking because it considers sex and people with disabilities and the complicated personal and social boundaries around these issues. taken together, the authors question the extent to which caregivers should facilitate sexual interactions for people with disabilities without being complicit in a crime (hiring prostitutes where it is illegal), dictating a person’s sex life (when and where a person can have sex), or instructing them about sexual techniques such as masturbation (which could border on sexual abuse in some locations). however, they also consider boundaries between people with disabilities who have sex with one another by again questioning how caregivers might provide sex positive education about their bodies and what feels pleasurable. chapter 5 can be viewed as an extension of chapter four and its discussions of boundaries, but fleshes 3 out the ethics of allowing people with disabilities to purchase sex from sex workers. the authors consider whether caregivers should facilitate appointments with sex workers and whether those same employees should transport the individuals to those appointments. the legality of sex work in denmark and sweden and the debate about whether government funds disbursed to people with disabilities should be used to purchase sex workers. the sixth chapter veers slightly away from people with disabilities and sex by digging deeper into the history of denmark and sweden to trace their political trajectories that led them to diverge in their treatment of sexuality and people with disabilities. this divergence results in denmark being more progressive in allowing people with disabilities to have sex lives and the matter is discussed openly. sweden is more conservative in that the matter is rarely discussed among caregivers, social workers, and politicians and usually focuses on negative aspects of sexuality such as abuse and rehabilitation. the final chapter explores why the reader should care about sexuality and disability. a significant part of the chapter discusses sex and disability from a social justice and capabilities standpoint. the authors use john rawls’s work on social justice, which conveys the idea that a just society is one in which everyone desires an equal position, and so everyone must work together to create a society that one would expect to have access to if they were introduced to it with a disadvantage. another viewpoint comes from a focus on capabilities as outlined by martha nussbaum. nussbaum’s view is that a just society helps a person expand their capabilities to the greatest extent. nussbaum’s capabilities approach provides for very basic entitlements for all people, capabilities are intertwined and a lack in one capability is not immediately fulfilled by an abundance in another, and each person is worthy of living a life with dignity. rawls’s and nussbaum’s works mesh well to give us a framework for understanding human rights. this discussion about human rights, disability, and sexuality is particularly useful because of the history that people with disabilities have had fighting for visibility and demanding a society that can be accessed by everyone. when sex is added, it contributes a new dimension to consider human rights and who should have access to one of the most basic of needs. loneliness and its opposite: sex, disability, and the ethics of engagement is a significant contribution to the body of literature on disability studies because it shows how sex and disability are contested or accepted in a given society by using denmark and sweden as examples of how welfare states handle both issues. kulick and rydström are straightforward with their intent of making this monograph accessible for all readers, which is evident as the reader moves through the book unencumbered with excessive jargon and lofty theoretical ideas that the reader might skip over. in all 4 instances, the actors speak for themselves and the theory used is presented in a comprehensible manner. the lessons to be learned from the authors’ work would be useful in affecting policy in the united states. consequently, it also helps us to reconsider sexuality from a different perspective and how expressions of that sexuality vary from one person to another. this book is beneficial not only for students of anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, and disabilities studies, but also for students and general readers of history, public policy, and public health because of the added dimensions of thought, analysis, and consideration given to people with disabilities by the authors. john a. carranza is currently completing coursework towards his phd in history at the university of texas at austin. his current research interests include the history of medicine, disability studies, and gender and sexuality. © 2017 john a. carranza 1 tracing afterlives of ethnography: in pursuit of engagements and dialogues with publics review by sarbani sharma if truth be told: the politics of public ethnography by didier fassin, ed. duke university press, 2017 every anthropologist at some point in their career, consciously or not, responds to the particularities of their work of ethnography and its contribution to the space within which the anthropologist is located. accusations of ‘speaking from an ivory tower’ further persuade the production of anthropological knowledge to vindicate its utility and validity in the face of a world that is witnessing unprecedented vicious cycles of deprivation, injustice, fear and hate. it is in this context that the volume ‘if truth be told: the politics of public ethnography’ edited by didier fassin, engages with some of the formidable debates of what lies ‘at stake in both the production of an ethnographic understanding of the world and its public dissemination’ (p.9). introducing the volume, fassin begins by providing a comprehensive history of ethnography as a method within the discipline of anthropology and its evolution in terms of practices and presentation. for fassin, the experience of interaction with one’s subjects and the subsequent process of writing leading to knowledge production and consumption by one’s fellow academics is only a part of the whole process of anthropological engagement. he insists on paying greater attention to the ‘afterlife’ (p.338) of one’s published work and the consequences of publicization (p.4) of the work to various publics. the author consistently reiterates the value of documenting, and critically examining the challenges and stakes related to its dissemination, promotion, reception, and utilization of their intellectual production. according to him these should not be treated as a mundane ‘after-sales services’ posing practical 2 problems to be solved personally and of no relevance for the discipline (p.2). ‘public ethnography’ is defined here, as the process and principle of publicizing one’s work and documenting an ethnography of the subsequent encounters of the published work with various publics. in the epilogue to the volume, fassin describes, through his own ethnographic work in france and south africa, how the two operations of ‘popularization’ and ‘politicization’ (though both are not always necessarily interlinked) are critical to the practice of public ethnography. the collection of twelve essays is an attempt to explore the ‘diversity of public afterlife of ethnography’ by anthropologists who are predominantly located in metropolitan, global north universities (with two exceptions). the first part of the book titled ‘strategies’ elucidates how anthropologists labor to develop strategies (consciously or otherwise) to work with and work through their ethnographic material in order to communicate their ideas to an audience of specialists outside their discipline. gabriella coleman (chapter 1) elucidates how her willingness to be at ease with some degree of uncertainty regarding her study (p.30) of a secret network of hackers facilitated her translation and explanation of the work and world of the hackers to the community of journalists. ghassan hage (chapter 2) recollects how, during a personally distressing visit to palestine on the sidelines of an invitation to deliver a lecture at a palestinian university, he was able to effectively use his position as an academic speaker, to not merely echo his solidarity with the palestinian cause, but also critically engage with the dynamics of power that operate within the tropes of resistance (p.61). reflecting on the reception of her testimony requested by a commission investigating police brutality in the south african township, kelly gillespie (chapter 3) makes a case for letting ethnographies meaningfully enter public debates by carefully considering the framing of those debates through an ethnographic insistence on the importance of contextualization and recontextualization (p.88-90). manuela ivone cunha (chapter 4) describes her experience of communicating ethnographic findings to publics mediating between research and policymaking in the portugese criminal justice system. she illustrates the relevance of context, complexity and process in ethnographic works that makes it persuasive to sensitize policy oriented audiences’ understanding and planning (p.111). the second part of the volume titled ‘engagements’ discusses the various forms and specifics of engagements sought from ethnographers by their publics. federico neiburg (chapter 5) self-reflexively illustrates the ethical and political negotiations in translating ethnographic expertise into the pragmatics of brokering peace. lucas bessire (chapter 6) draws from a series of failed experiments in 3 anthropological advocacy conducted among the so-called ayoreo indians to question how ethnographic knowledge production practices impinges on the ‘liberal metanarrative’ (p.138) and its promises of ‘revelations’ manages to get co-opted by the very politics it attempts to fight. bessire makes an interesting case for ‘indigenized public ethnography,’ which is predicated on nonconformity and presumes its subjects to be constantly transforming, as against ‘tactical public ethnography’ that takes nonconformity as evidence of insufficiency or illegitimacy (p.151). jonathan benthall (chapter 7), a scholar of islamic charities in west bank, describes his experience of being discredited as a scholar and being prevented from publishing his ethnographic work after he was called upon to testify in a court case in which the defendant was accused of using humanitarian assistance for terrorist activities. vincent dubois (chapter 8) draws links between the conditions of production and the conditions of reception of ethnography by various audiences to illustrate how policy ethnography can become public with the aim of contributing to ongoing debates beyond the immediate specific domains of policy-making. the third part of this collection titled ‘tensions’ illustrates cases of conflicts and tensions which have occurred in the course of the publicization and politicization of ethnography, often resulting in a threat to the researcher himself/herself. nadia abu el-haj (chapter 9) poses the question of how anthropologists should begin thinking of public ethnography vis-àvis forms of misunderstanding, denial, ignorance, and criticism that seem to be deliberate misrepresentations of scholarly work (p.221). she insists on paying attention to the multiple ways in which an ethnographic work is received and the forms of evidence and authority that interpret anthropological texts (p.206). in the light of campaign by certain jewish groups against her tenured position, abu el-haj interrogates the consequences of public ethnography that at times threatens academic freedom, perplexes the ethnographer and prevents any further response or engagement. unni wikan (chapter 10), through her work on honor killing amongst migrant kurdish families in europe and her contestation of the much-celebrated multiculturalism of norway, highlights the variety of ways in which various publics align to prohibit, or encourage, research on critical social issues and its entry into the public domain (p.228). through his long engagement with right to health litigation in brazil, joão biehl (chapter 11) highlights the tensions over the reception of counter-evidence by various publics that resulted in a breakdown of epistemic collaboration between ethnographers and the policy-makers/administrators (p.263). sherine hamdy (chapter 12) reflects on barriers to public ethnography based on her experiences conducting ethnographic fieldwork in egypt, and her disappointing attempts to present it to people with diverse political and social worldviews. while acknowledging the cynicism that pervaded her ideas of ethnography’s potentialities, hamdy makes a 4 case for greater recognition and discussion of how various publics come with their own ideas, ideological commitments, and affective stakes that shape the ability of the ethnographer to engage audiences, as well as audiences’ own receptivity to the alternative visions ethnography can produce (p.287). while one can certainly understand the value of these illustrated stories of the anthropologists, his or her engagements, disappointments and anxieties, the reader learns much less about the effects of these engagements, strategies and tensions on the anthropological knowledge subsequently produced. with due acknowledgment to the value of publicization, popularization and politicization of one’s ethnography, it would have been more interesting to learn about the anthropology subsequently developed from such engagements. instantiations of the influence of public ethnography on the nature, source and limits of anthropological knowledge would significantly enrich the volume. further, since theoretical mode of reasoning may not necessarily be a shared vocabulary with various audiences of ethnography, it would have been valuable for the volume to attempt to comment on what is the specificity of public ethnography’s value and intentions that has not been already achieved by the longue durée, intensive and intimate works of journalists, activists, legal researchers etc. considering that the volume intends to explore the ‘diversity of afterlife of ethnography’, it would have been more stimulating to see the editor or authors be more curious about the afterlife of ethnographies produced in non-metropolitan locations, the majority of which never make it to anthropology’s esteemed journals or university presses and yet engage with various publics in multiple ways. perhaps, insight into the practices of public ethnography generated from these locations would genuinely provide destabilizers to evaluate the epistemic value of public ethnography albeit being venerated as exotic. that said, the volume is a must-read for every student of anthropology, policy maker and administrator trying to understand the complexities of the social world we inhabit. sarbani sharma is a doctoral candidate at the department of sociology in delhi school of economics, india. it was during her masters in jawaharlal nehru university that she embarked upon a journey of untangling the equations of self and society, something that still informs her work and life. for a long time, she kept wandering in the lanes of srinagar, trying to understand everyday manifestations of political theologies. nowadays she is busy putting together all these experience in the form of a dissertation on how 'azadi' unites and divides people across kashmir. 5 © 2017 sarbani sharma microsoft word haarstick_final.docx 1 contagious narratives: pandemics, vaccines, and zombies andrea kitta kiss of death: contagion, contamination, and folklore. 2019. louisville, co: utah state university press, pp 202 isbn: 978-1-60732-926-8 keywords: pandemics, vaccination, health, legends, monsters i was initially drawn to andrea kitta’s book, the kiss of death: contagion, contamination, and folklore, because of my own research on families who choose not to vaccinate and the metaphors they use to describe bodily contamination through vaccines. a folklorist by training, kitta argues that stories are our way of processing information, giving structure to our experiences and creating meaning from the world around us. investigating narratives, she writes, offers insight into lay understandings of health and wellness, as stories in the form of popular rumors and legends easily find their way into private health-related beliefs and medical decision-making processes. such “vernacular explanatory models” (vii) have very real consequences for individual’s health behaviors, and kitta explains that health professionals often lack knowledge of the complex sociocultural influences that drive those behaviors, especially where contagion and contamination are concerned. initially, i held a sliver of skepticism on how kitta could blend ideas of biomedical contagion and contamination with narratives of zombie and vampire legends in one book. my skepticism was relieved immediately as kitta reminded readers that the analysis of contagion and contamination are heavily slanted toward notions of biomedical health, adding that biomedical concepts of contagion and contamination have roots in social conditions, culture, and folklore narratives. she continues that for health professionals to adequately address issues in public disease management, such as successful responses to pandemics, they must have knowledge of contamination and contagion themes, rumors, and legends. kitta delineates how these permeate 2 personal and community narratives, including how they influence people’s beliefs and thoughts on viruses, bacteria, and germs. kitta provides substantial evidence of society’s collective beliefs and thoughts on contagion and contamination, which are exhibited through pop culture movies or books centering on zombie apocalypses or vampire relationships. from this foundation, kitta successfully intertwines concepts and examples of both biomedical-based contagion and contamination in the same book as discussions of the contagious aspects of zombies and vampires, including contamination through deadly kisses, for instance. the introduction covers a brief history of medical and scientific discourses surrounding “contagion” and “contamination,” including the linguistic and metaphorical history of the terms as well. kitta sees contagion and contamination narratives as a way for society to make sense of social interactions. additionally, these narratives can address the complex issues around people’s perceptions of contamination and contagion. she notes the importance of the outbreak and carrier narratives which represent “a crucial part of how we understand and process information about disease and spread” (5). during a pandemic outbreak, these narratives often include expressions of anxiety and fear, leading to an “outsider” labeling of the outbreak virus, often connected to foreigners bringing disease to north america. here, kitta suggests that folklorists and academics should use their positions of privilege to call out disease narratives that create division and blame. chapter two flows seamlessly from the introduction as kitta looks at disease narratives and stigmatization, both of which have deep colonial themes. she addresses the western hemisphere’s preoccupation with establishing the origin of disease, including an obsession with finding “patient zero,” who often becomes a scapegoat in the blame-game of disease spread. she includes a comparative chart on current and historic patient zeros, which includes disease association, where they were from, their “dangerous” activity (how they contracted the disease), and their “otherness” (36-37). for example, the “dangerous activity” of the child from the republic of guinea infected with ebola was that he played near bats, and his “otherness” was his residence in a rural area. she ends this chapter by discussing the disneyland measles outbreak of 2015, arguing that the speculation surrounding patient zero’s medical history (vaccinated or not?) and country of origin (american or “outsider”) leads to distinct contagion narratives 3 depending on the presumed answers. unsurprisingly, a vaccinated u.s. citizen makes for a more sympathetic patient zero in public narratives than an unvaccinated outsider. chapters three and four delve into the popular cultural phenomena of slender man, zombies, and vampires. these chapters make deep narrative and symbolic connections between violence against marginalized individuals and stories, legends, and folklore about monsters and hybrids. in chapter three, kitta discusses the internet phenomenon of slender man, a tall, thin, and faceless “stalker” known to encourage self-harm, suicide, and revenge bullying. slender man is not a part of any traditional folklore, and first appeared in online forums. chapter four links monsters like zombies and vampires back to contagious disease narratives, but with elements of pop culture, deviancy, paternalistic power dynamics, and social expectations. kitta stresses that contamination narratives are not only physical in nature, but also moral. infection spread often includes ideologies of fear, hate, and anger which emerge prominently in times of stress, whether that stress comes from a global pandemic or social media bullying among teenagers. specifically, kitta connects the metaphors used in discussing monsters, such as vampires and zombies, to institutionalized medicine and fears about pandemics and how our perceptions and fears of a vampire bite as a supernatural and moral contagion connects to real viruses. chapter five circles back to medical and vaccine contagion and contamination discourses about the human papilloma vaccine (hpv). here, kitta notes how pro-vaccine discourse consists of underlying paternalistic rhetoric, including the use of polarization and shaming. chapter six, the title of which is also the title of the book, details numerous kissing motifs and the many aspects of a deadly kiss, including a kiss with poisoned lipstick and the legend of “the peanut butter kiss,” which is a kiss between two people, one of whom has just eaten peanut butter, causing an allergic reaction in the other participant, tragically resulting in death. she also describes unintentional contamination when mothers kiss babies, passing on the herpes virus, sometimes with deadly results. each narrative example in this chapter is connected through the idea of risky behavior or risky people, and that risk, like taboo, is highly charged both morally and politically. kitta’s conclusion is a thorough synopsis of the entire book, encapsulating the most important points of each chapter and section. additionally, exhorting researchers and academics 4 to use research “to amplify the voices of the marginalized,” using their “privilege to push other voices to the forefront” (137). lastly, a teaching companion at the end of the book includes a list of additional books and articles for those using the kiss of death in the classroom. ultimately, the kiss of death: contagion, contamination, and folklore is a quick and accessible read, weaving the worlds of health, medicine, and monsters into narratives, stories, and folklore. kiss of death speaks to how contamination and contagion topics create connection for some, while sowing division and blame for others. kim haarstick is a graduate student at north dakota state university working on her ma in medical anthropology, with an emphasis in public health. her research focus is on families living in the upper midwest who choose not to vaccinate. © 2020 kim haarstick 1 what does an international anthropology of the us say about the global practice of the discipline? review by judith freidenberg america i observed: on an international anthropology of the united states by virginia dominguez and jazmin habib, editors berghahn press, 2017 this edited collection contributes to the framing of a global anthropology in the 21 st century as it poses a question and a mystery to readers. the question, whether the us can be “othered”, seems to me to help reflect on the practice of anthropology globally. from the outset, we get the sense that the question is preliminary answered negatively, thus unveiling the mystery—that the us has not been the site of long-term fieldwork nor the object of specialization by anthropologists from abroad. when i first read the introduction to the collection, i thought foreign-born anthropologists like me had not been included. i had chosen to carry out dissertation research on the politicization of puerto rican identity in new york city when return to work on peasants in argentina, my country of birth, was thwarted by state terrorism in the mid-nineteen-seventies. like my peers, i was trained to expect that dissertation research would be conducted abroad. unable to commit to my initial plan, i argued that the us was a foreign culture to me. fortunately, these were the early days of an interest in an anthropology of the us, albeit one that focused on the others within. yet, reading the introduction on, i realized the editors weren’t referring to people like me, foreign-born anthropologists who trained in and then resided in the us during their professional careers. rather, the mystery was about those who had had professional careers in their home countries, regardless of where they trained. perhaps because i was not born in the us and have engaged professionally in both the us and argentina throughout my career, i value most anthropology’s perspective which helps de-familiarize the familiar, in a sense 2 othering ourselves and our life circumstances as well as those we observe. this is intrinsic to the discipline, regardless of the country location of the fieldsite or personal characteristics of the anthropologist, such as place of birth and/or professional practice (miner, 1953; de vita, 2016; hannerz, 1969; freidenberg & nash, 2001). it was in this frame of mind that i read on. the edited collection consists of an introduction, two parts and an afterword. part i, on the outside looking in: the us as fieldwork, features five authors who hold positions outside the us but have conducted fieldwork in the us. in their essays, they all manage to do three things well: they describe their fieldwork in the us; they set up comparisons with other countries, including those where they work, whether based on actual research or personal “insider” reflections; and they share their own experience of the us. to expand: wulff centers on young swedes’ experiences of short sojourns in manhattan while sharing her own initial sensory impressions and later learning of social issues foreign to her such as homelessness. this form of geographic mobility works as a rite of passage to sediment or accumulate social and cultural capital to be displayed upon return to sweden, and found useful to garner social connections globally. habib uses her research on jewish activism in the us midwest to understand the perils, real or imagined, of diasporic opposition to israel’s military politics for a us citizen living in the nation-state (is it un-american to be critical of israel, habib asks?). she ponders how the state helps frame the nature of political activism through references to her research on the topic in israel and canada. the question of homeland is, for habib, both personal and academic. after conducting research on life sciences biosecurity in israel, samimian-darash turns to an inquiry on how the us-health policy establishment positions itself regarding the global interest in battling influenza. surprised by the high level of public access to meetings in washington, she immerses herself in what ends up being a cultural study: in the us, as different from israel for example, preparing to respond to the pandemic is framed as biosecurity, which means that research which might be harmful to others is not disseminated. hannerz, who has conducted research in the us since the 1960s, reflects comparatively on the success of the us entertainment industry, both in its global dissemination and consumption. he also shows how the industry inspires theatricality in the performance of the country’s political leaders and exerts soft power on the population. finally, shokeid’s ethnography of gay voluntary associations in the us reveals their role in placating a sense of estrangement from the larger society, including family and friends. a comparison with his research on similar populations in israel allows shokeid to suggest that the israeli social fabric infuses a sense of belonging that deters the need for the company of strangers, as in the us, which explains the relative lack of gay voluntary 3 associations. following these five cases of fieldwork on the us by foreign-based anthropologists, part ii, entitled from the inside out: reflection on an international anthropology in the us, provides commentary and reflection from three anthropologists on the essays in part i of this work, only one of whom-ikeda-is based abroad. in different ways, they all reiterate that the lack of something—in this case, foreignbased anthropologists researching the us—helps us understand 21 st -century anthropology as a global rather than a fieldsite-away-from-home type of practice. the question then becomes what this anthropology looks like, rather than the personal characteristics of the fieldworker: in sum, these essays lead us well beyond the puzzle of the absence of a foreign anthropology of the us. rather, they open a critical window on to the premises of twenty-first-century anthropology, suggesting that the promise of the 1980s critique to “bring anthropology back home” is only just now beginning to be addressed in complex circuits of global ethnographic practice. (white, 152) like with other commodities, the production, circulation and use of knowledge can be tracked to understand the connection among sites, instead of separating them through labeling: …i want to explore how the situational positioning of “other” vs “us,” “foreign” vs “native,” and “japanese” vs “american” emerges and works in the production and circulation of knowledge. as we engage in various international collaborations, i hope to show here that distinctions and their meanings, often taken for granted in cross-cultural interactions, such as “japanese” vs “american,” “outsider” vs “insider,” or “native” vs “foreign”, are arbitrary and simplistic constructs produced and reproduced through shifting landscapes of relational exchanges. (ikeda, 156) this statement prompts questions about how “we” think of “them”. are we “othering” the foreignbased anthropologist by focusing on her country of practice? are we reproducing labels instead of trying to blur the differences in practice and working towards a global anthropology? are we simplifying the heterogeneity of nation-states by making a foreign-based anthropologist its representative? let me discuss next some issues addressed in the volume. one is raised in the 4 introduction where the editors entertain possible causes for the noted lack of long-term fieldwork in the us by foreign anthropologists and what this absence might reveal. could the practicalities of cost, visa policies and politics turn them away, they ponder? could the us be found less interesting culturally abroad? would anti-americanism be a factor? each of these possible reasons is disputed, leaving us with the initial question…and the mystery. we are assured there are some anthropologists who fit the bill, including those recruited to write for the collection, but there are no answers for why there are not more. since the editors sought contributions from anthropologists who were born abroad and who practiced anthropology abroad, i looked more closely into their career trajectories and status to see if that approach might shed other ideas. part i features the fieldwork of five foreign-born and based anthropologists: two from sweden (wulff and hannerz); one from canada (habib); and two from israel (samimian-darash and shokeid). although it is difficult to ascertain where they were born, they all work at major western universities (one assistant professor, one associate professor, one professor and two emeritus professors). they all work in wealthy countries that have probably more familiarity and experience heightened us cultural penetration than others (although it may be argued that us cultural penetration is now worldwide). wulff speaks of the cultural transmission of us culture through the media as “anticipatory socialization” (p. 39) to the us; hannerz comments that “…the us is a global power influencing everybody’s lives…” (p. 108). in addition to distancelearning the us, most of the authors had personal life experiences—as students, visiting scholars, or just visitors—in four different regions before defining fieldwork. one can then say that these academic professionals are transnationally connected to the us, as are their subjects of study. if national borders are blurred, then where the anthropologist is employed might not be relevant for constituting the discipline in the 21 st century. both the authors and the commentators, also senior academics (one from japan), practice a global anthropology in that they frame research questions from their double, and often multiple, situational circumstances and affiliations. this is certainly different from the sustained preference for anthropological research in sites where there are notable asymmetries in the social class and embodied power of the observer vis-à-vis the observed. both the dual role of insider and outsider of the authors and the increase in anthropology of the us by us practitioners constitute a “further step in the deorientalizing of anthropological practice” (white, 143). these considerations bring forth additional possible reasons for the negligible anthropology of the us by foreign-based anthropologists. for instance, since us culture has disseminated globally, it might not be perceived as an interesting 5 fieldsite. in addition, the increase of published anthropology of the us by us-based anthropologists might deter the foreign-based anthropologist from seeking funding to study what is assumed to be a saturated and well-known field already. which brings us back to the discipline rather than its practitioners. then, there is the issue of whether we should conceive a country only within its geopolitical borders, an issue i have been working on. like all countries, there are millions (estimates range from 4 to 10) of us nationals—not counting the military or diplomats—residing abroad, in nations they have “othered”, and where they are regarded as “others” in fact, they differentiate themselves as us nationals abroad by designating themselves as expats, in contrast to the country/s native population and to immigrants (freidenberg, 2011). to conclude, this volume raises very interesting questions, but the attempts to answer them leads us to think of the discipline. it sets us thinking about anthropology as a global field; one where the local issues help frame global ones and, vice versa, the extent to which the local is shaped by the global. many topics attracting the attention of contemporary anthropologists are global in nature, among many others, genomics, climate change, the anthropocene, migration, and health. perhaps we are reaching a moment where the framing of the topics for research is global in nature, even if the actual fieldsite is local. if so, we should not be asking ‘where’, but ‘what’, and not ‘who’, but ‘why’; and moving from an international anthropology of the us to an global anthropology mediated by local conditions. references cited devita, philip, ed. distant mirrors: america as a foreign culture. illinois: waveland press, 2016. freidenberg, judith and june nash. “forum on institutionalizing international anthropology.” american anthropological association, washington, d.c., 2001 freidenberg, judith. “researching global spaces ethnographically: queries on methods for the study of virtual populations”. human organization. (2011): (70) 3. miner, horace. “body ritual among the nacirema”. american anthropologist 58:3, june 1956 hannerz, ulf. soulside: inquiries into ghetto culture and community. chicago: university of chicago press. 1969. judith noemí freidenberg is professor emerita of anthropology at the university of maryland at 6 college park, where she directed the anthropology of the immigrant life course research program and the certificate in museum scholarship and material culture and was co-editor of practicing anthropology. she was affiliated with the instituto de investigaciones gino germani, facultad de ciencias sociales, universidad de buenos aires as a visiting researcher during her sabbatical stay in argentina in 2016. her books include contemporary conversations on immigration in the united states: the view from prince george’s county, maryland (lexington, 2016), growing old in el barrio (new york university press, 2000), memorias de villa clara (antropofagia, 2005), and the invention of the jewish gaucho: villa clara and the construction of argentine identity (texas university press, 2009); translated into spanish by prometeo editorial, argentina, 2013. she has edited books and journal issues and published numerous articles. © 2018 judith freidenberg i many latin americans, myself included, object to the use of america and the us as synonyms. in this text, i will therefore choose to use america to designate the continent and u.s. the nation. 1 anthropology of the middle east: an overview review by solaiman m. fazel a companion to the anthropology of the middle east by soraya altorki, ed. wiley, 2015 soraya altorki’s edited volume advances our understanding of a number of issues setting at the core of the anthropology of the middle east. given the vast size of the region and the diversity of topics presented by the scholars, this volume is neither an exhaustive country profile nor solely an account of where ethnographic research stands nowadays with respect to each topic. according to altorki, a companion to the anthropology of the middle east (2015) focuses on three interrelated points: (1) the main theoretical and methodological questions that anthropologists have asked about their topic in recent decades, (2) the existing gaps or “silences” in the academic literature, and (3) the future direction of anthropological research in a region that is undergoing socio-economic and demographic changes (altorki, xxi). the contributors of this volume effectively demonstrate that the middle east is not a dormant region. it is rather a dynamic region composed of old and new urbanites living in stratified societies who are also engaged in the global flow of ideals and materials in the existing information age (kozma et. al 2015). the volume, wherever applicable, weaves local topics or microhistories into broader trends that transcends the parochial narrative of the nation-states and the compartmentalized view of area studies professionals. the contributors successfully navigate the boundaries of the nation-states by situating their study within the wider anthropological themes. by focusing on the interrelated cultures, histories, and identities of the peoples in the overland archipelago we call the middle east, it makes this volume useful for other social scientists and historians who have an academic interest in the theoretical and 2 methodological questions. integrating the middle east as part and parcel of the global developments also breakdowns the outdated occidental/oriental binary (lockman 2004). a companion to the anthropology of the middle east comprises twenty-five chapters arranged into five units. twenty-four chapters are written by a range of reputable scholars (including native or/and “halfie” academics), a research fellow, a post-doctoral fellow, and one chapter is written by a capable doctoral candidate. the objective of the five units under the headings of “introduction: theoretical and conceptual,” “culture and everyday life,” “social relations and social movements,” “law, politics, and the state,” and “pop culture and new media” are as follows: the four chapters in unit one addresses the overall theoretical and methodological questions facing the anthropology of the middle east. kandiyoti’s chapter highlights the troubled legacies of oriental studies and colonial age knowledge production, which lasted until the end of the second world war. the decolonization period coincided with the cold war, 1945-92. cold war rivalries led to the creation of area studies in the u.s., which at times treated the entire “muslim world” region as an island by itself without giving their internal aspirations much thought. deniz kandiyoti argues that the field of post-colonial studies that gained prominence in the 1970s produced a more nuanced analysis than what the proponents of linear modernity and staged development had offered. post-colonial studies has had a deep impact on the anthropology of the middle east before the start of the unipolar world order in 1992, which gave rise to the recent paradigm of globalization (p 7). for kandiyoti, the anthropology of the middle east is currently faced with polarized discourses of the past and deteriorating fieldwork access now facing parts of the region. this bleak landscape raises the risk of ethno-nationalist biases that tries to homogenize the nation with a primordial past at the expense of silencing the minority populations (anderson 2006, appadurai 1996). suad joseph in chapter two, acknowledges the gaps and silences in the anthropology of the middle east, but argues that since the 1970s the field has become less of an area studies project (p 17). she supports her claim by bringing some of the newer publications into the discussion. altorki’s chapter centers on structure/agency debate in the context of the mideast. she draws our attention to two key theoretical developments that occurred in the 1970s: first, attention is placed on macro-systems with stress on the importance of uneven power relations, and second, attention is placed on the importance of post-structuralism (p 41-2). in the final chapter of unit one, steven c. caton agrees with saud joseph 3 that “middle east studies has become a global undertaking” (p 75). apart from the notable theoretical developments of the 1970s, caton reminds us of another significant event the opec oil embargo in 1973-74, which generated a tsunami of studies. unit two of the volume consists of six chapters that focus on day-to-day cultural practices. martin stokes in chapter five tells us of the lack of studies on “aesthetics” in anthropology since the 1960s. he argues that beauty has a central place in the day-to-day life of the muslims. stokes refers to the role of “religious pop” music that has accompanied the islamists rise to power in turkey (p 92). in chapter six, amira mittermaier says that the arab spring of 2011 brought with it not only a powerful eruption of “street politics,” but also of dream talk (p 107). for amira, dream is used metaphorically to indicate the aspirations of the egyptian youth before their civil protest in tahrir square was hijacked by the better organized and financed islamists. the youth’s dream encompasses personal freedoms, social justice, human dignity, democratization, employment opportunities, and a higher standard of living for all and not just for the well-connected. another key academic development in the late-1970s was the emergence of anthropology of islam. nada moumtaz’s chapter, “refiguring islam,” argues for approaching islam as a discursive tradition and not ascribing “everything muslims do and say to islam” (p 125). for moumtaz, scholars should also take into account the consequences of the capitalistic market economy on the muslim majority societies. moumtaz agrees with talal asad of the need to understand islam historically – within the context of its political economies, and not equating islam with previous social structures and dynastic rule. for moumtaz, the risk of not applying the discursive approach to middle eastern societies would further complicate the encounter of islamic tradition(s) with modernity. the new discursive approach is understood to create space for sunni, shi’a, and sufi opinions to coexist in a future-oriented society. moving to another topic, shahla haeri in chapter eight states that unlike sex, sexuality is a cultural production. for haeri, understanding sexuality in today’s cosmopolitan areas requires more than an analysis of the legal and sociopolitical structures that regulate sexuality and gender relation (p 151). for haeri, the hudud or the frontiers of sexuality and gender relations are laid out in the qur’an, and have been elaborated upon and codified into different schools of islamic law by the earlier jurists during islam’s expansion (p 152). muslim feminists and scholars are now challenging the old patriarchal and doctrinal monopoly of sacred knowledge by previous jurists. livia wick’s chapter defies the orientalist 4 view of the muslim women as symbols of oppression and eroticization by showing the ways in which muslim nurses and midwives participate in today’s labor market (p 184). the final chapter in unit two is by j. andrew bush, which brings into the conversation the question of what counts as politics in poetry? bush argues that the dominant cultural paradigms are renewed through poetry recitation since poetry applies obligation and attachment across a set of relationships that pluralizes the subject (p 201). to support his argument, bush focuses on several works and parses out the political messages in these poems. chapters eleven to seventeen makeup the third unit. jessica newman and marcia c. inhorn’s chapter is asserting that medical anthropology is now a vibrant field from afghanistan to morocco and nearly 10% of the published books in the last five decades focuses on pertinent medical issues. one reasons for this surge in public health studies is war. violence causes displacement of people and wealth, underdevelopment, and scarcity of clean water, especially among the lower economic strata (p 208). at the same time for newman and inhorn, missing are in-depth ethnographies on the social impact of hiv/aids, sexually transmitted diseases, and the absence of sex education. the unaccountability of the states in relation to wealth distribution/generation, sidelining of women and minorities, and unsustainable development are mentioned by nicholas s. hopkins in chapter twelve (p 234). dawn chatty’s chapter brings to light the groups of people who have been forced to relocate over the past 150 years in various parts of the middle east. chatty argues that anthropology can play a role in studying the immigrant experiences that are mostly left out of the nationalist accounts. ilana feldman raises the key question about the ethics of intervention. feldman asks, is intervention led by principles of neutrality and impartiality, known as “humanitarianism” or is intervention grounded on the basis of geopolitics and political calculation (p 264)? chapter fifteen authored by paul a. silverman fits nicely with the prior two chapters. for silverman, family genealogies, nisba, links communities of people across space (p 282). thus, historical anthropology (also known as ethnohistory, an established subfield in anthropology) is a suitable research method to record fragmented histories and preserve cultures of people who have relocated and are now divided by political borders (fazel 2017). ella shohat’s work is divided into two shorter chapters centered on different aspects of the mizrahi people living in israel. she discusses the paradox of arab-jewish identity. shohat writes in israel the “official israeli/zionist policy denies the arabness of the arab jews” by coercing the non-european 5 jews to realign their identity according to the euro-israeli paradigm (p 317). shohat’s next chapter contextualizes the development of pan-oriental communities within israel. she also defines what the term mizrahi actually means. the final chapter in unit three is by zeina zaatari. it engages with a timely theoretical topic: what constitutes a social movement in the region. zaatari’s section is also a nice transition to topics of law, politics, and the state that are discussed in unit four. unit four consists of six chapter and the contributors examine the themes of religion, courts, and secularism as a result of interaction with capitalism. hussein ali agrama offers insights on the relationship between sharia and liberal law within egypt. agrama's research shows that sharia law is “not much” used, but qur’an verses are applied in cases dealing with theft, homicide, assault, fraud, contract, inheritance, and criminal and civil procedures (p 363). agrama also points out that asab alnuzul, which give historical context to the qur’anic verses must be taken into consideration in cases where sharia is used as part of the case arguments (p 364). chapter nineteen talks about the different ngos that operate in the coastal city of aqaba. the education for employment foundation (efe) program that was established after 9/11 was an effort to train, find jobs, and alleviate poverty for the growing youth population in jordan through microcredit (p 391). the lack of ethnographies centered on political economies of the middle east is stated by julia elyachar. the consequences of neoliberal economics on the peoples of the region remains largely understudied. elyachar claims that arab spring was in part a movement against the outrageous thievery of public goods, national wealth, and dignity itself by the local crony-capitalists (p 411). michelle obedi’s chapter echoes part of elyachar’s arguments. obedi tells us that masses in the middle east “region are seeking radical change that is fundamentally about social, economic, and political justice, and one that is articulated through the vocabulary of dignity and rights” (p 434). al-rustam in chapter twenty-two examines the experiences of anatolian armenians who remained in the anatolian plateau. al-rustam suggests that many cultural traits (folk songs, culinary practices, vocabularies, and memories) transcends the boundaries between the balkans and the ethno-sectarian states that materialized out of the ruins of the ottoman empire (p 452). the last chapter of unit four is written by kamran asdar ali. ali focuses on the vast demographic shift toward urban living in the broader middle east region. he states that unlike the urban studies of the past, which focused on the topics of globalizing metropolis and popular neighborhoods, recent studies in the emergent field of middle east 6 urban studies has taken on the task of studying small or medium size cities. for ali, cities are vibrant hubs where various histories, cultures, and worldviews collide, coexist, and coalesce to overcome differences and create trust (and at times mistrust) (p 480-6). the final unit of soraya al-torki’s edited volume consists of two chapters. unit five draws our attention the themes of music, pop culture, and social media. in chapter twenty-four, schaefer argues that music retains a central place in middle eastern societies despite the shortage of attention given to it by scholars. he claims that more than any other cultural feature music offers a unifying synergy (p 496). schaefer’s chapter offers a description of middle eastern music and popular culture and explores the crucial role that music plays in the revolutions and uprisings (p 496). the concluding chapter of this volume discusses the uses of social media during the arab uprisings in 2011. mark a. peterson discusses the positive and negative roles of the new media in non-democratic societies of the middle east. the non-democratic states apply technologies to record and monitor a person’s digital footprint, which than enables them to arrest dissenters. hence, the cycle of oppression and silencing continues. the writing throughout is clear and engaging. graduate sociocultural anthropology students, advanced undergraduates, and specialists will find this survey book valuable. parts of this volume are also essential for policymakers since some of discussed anthropological themes are now at the core of contemporary world affairs. the extensive bibliographies at the end of each chapter include new publications, which are convenient sources for researchers and students as this volume is not an indepth discussion of the array of topics, themes, and approaches characterizing the anthropology of the middle east. a companion to the anthropology of the middle east also has some minor shortcomings. absent are timelines, images, maps, tables, and illustrations to help the non-specialist readers. missing are casestudies focused on christians, indus, and zoroastrians living in the region. lacking are studies on environmental anthropology. needed are ethnographic discussions of 1979, a turning point year in afghanistan and iran. in conclusion, many of raised issues in this compilation point to the ongoing efforts of state-formation and nation-building at a time when the anthropological studies of the state remains fairly small. without ethnographies focused on state-formation, key issues like minorities and the state relations, 7 ethnic and sectarian identity formation at the expense of an inclusive national identity, and what eric foner calls “who owns history” will remain at the core of social turmoil. the question of how to respond to the aspirations of the people remains unanswered at a time when politics seems to be moving in favor of strongmen and dictators. reference cited anderson, benedict. 2006. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso. appadurai, arjan. 1996. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. fazel, solaiman m. 2017. ethnohistory of the qizilbash in kabul: migration, state, and a shi’a minority. indiana university. (doctoral dissertation). https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/21448 foner, eric. 2002. who owns history: rethinking the past in a changing world. new york: hill and wang. kozma, liat, schayegh cyrus, and wishnitzer avner. 2015. a global middle east: mobility, materiality and culture in the modern age, 1880-1940. london: i.b. tauris & co. ltd. lockman, zachary. 2004. contending visions of the middle east: the history and politics of orientalism. cambridge: cambridge university press. solaiman m. fazel recently completed his doctorate in the department of anthropology, indiana university, bloomington. his research interest includes globalization, minorities and the state, the modern middle east, and historical anthropology. dr. fazel was a future faculty teaching fellow in the department of sociology and anthropology at indiana university south bend in 2016-17. during his ph.d. tenure, he taught courses on peoples and cultures of the middle east, iran and afghanistan, introduction to social and cultural anthropology, and globalization, development, and conflict. dr. fazel has also presented research papers in many academic conferences. © 2017 solaiman m. fazel 1 resurgent life: how to flourish with what’s left review by matthew d. thompson the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins by anna lowenhapt tsing princeton university press, 2015 i had just settled in to begin reading the mushroom at the end of the world when my wife looked up from her perch on the loveseat opposite mine. “is it about mushrooms,” she asked, “or the end of the world?” as it happens, it’s about both. in her latest book-length work anna tsing advances an anthropology that is a tangle of the human and the nonhuman, taking the matsutake mushroom as a polysemous metaphor for not just resilience but the resurgence of life in an inhospitable world. simply put, as decomposers mushrooms play an important ecological role by translating death into life, and in a world beset by environmental catastrophe we would do well to learn their lessons. through tsing’s words the matsutake reveals itself to be more than a delicious ingredient in japanese cooking, it becomes a generous teacher that offers not only iconoclastic perspective but something approaching wisdom. the discipline of anthropology was in part born of the study of what came before european history, evidence of this pre-historic time could be found in the monumental architecture of ancient civilians. while these ruins fascinated our pith-helmeted forbearers, in contemporary theory “ruin” has been reconfigured as good to think. ruin illuminates our understanding of the present by reading it as a representation of past human activities, especially collective trauma. traces of such destructive experiences persist in compelling ways. tsing continues this reconceptualization, only here the ruins in question are whole ecologies disturbed by capitalism and war. we are all their inhabitants but so are myriad other nonhuman lifeforms. how will we all make do in a shattered environment? the author 2 suggests we might start by taking stock of what’s left. ruination is one possible outcome of human interaction with the natural environment, particularly when it comes to capitalist forms of resource extraction. in this work as in tsing’s earlier monographs the specter of industrial logging looms large. the two ruined forests tsing focuses on include u.s. forest service managed land in oregon and satoyama or “peasant forests” in japan, supplementing this is fieldwork in the logged-out forests of yunnan, china, and the geologically young lapland forests in northern finland. with an explorer’s curiosity tsing notices that when an ecology is disturbed new ecologies can flourish. this is a lesson we learn from mushrooms, “the effect of industrial ruins on living things depends on which living things we follow” (tsing 2015: 211). among the ruins of capitalism lies the theoretical centerpiece of the book: tsing’s engagement with the anthropology of value and the experience of precarious life under neoliberalism. indeed, the life of an itinerant mushroom picker exemplifies making do with an uncertain economic future. it is an occupation that is literally the commodification of hunting and gathering. but this is not an ethnography that stops at the boundary of the human, we are invited to imagine worlds that include the perspective of the mushroom itself. just as war and economic devastation makes people into refugees so too are the spores of fungi scattered to the wind. they grow and become strong by utilizing underground networks and forging partnerships with other lifeforms, and then, when conditions are right, they surge into view, popping up in unexpected places. one of the many facets to tsing’s cultural critique of capitalism is “patchiness,” referring to the overall incompleteness of capitalist hegemony. interesting things happen on the margins of capitalism where, at different times and places, the matsutake appears as both commodity and gift, an alienated product of alienated labor and a thing fully imbued with social life. starting not from marx but malinowski, tsing observes that, “[the] kula reminds us that things as well as people are alienated under capitalism” and that “things are extensions of persons and persons are extensions of things” (tsing 2015: 122). one reason why this interrogation of the boundary of commodity and gift works so well is because of matustake’s unique status in japanese society. perhaps an appropriate analog in an american context would be red roses? one can imagine an ethnographic study of red roses in the mode of the mushroom at the end of the world following this lifeform from its growth, harvest and transformation into commodity, transport and consumption, and then retransformation into gift expressing social bonds. 3 the exception, however, is that roses can be grown in a plantation-like environment, matsutake are wild and impossible to domesticate. building off her creative work with notions of the gift and commodity, tsing offers her most wide ranging expansion of marx by reconfiguring and redeploying the concept of alienation in a multispecies context. alienation promotes detachment and mobility, it disentangles the thing from its complex social world and makes it stand alone. not only is this a necessary step in the translation of natural resources into assets that can be amassed into wealth, it reverberates throughout rationalized ways of knowing. this articulates the author’s analysis of capitalism with science and technology studies. whereas marx elucidates how alienation strips away the social relations inherent in the production of commodities, so too, tsing argues, does the science of biology compartmentalize lifeforms into discrete species isolated from the tangle of life. just as alienation provides the foundation upon which wealth, and hence power, can be accumulated so too does science rely upon “scalability” to generalize and produce knowledge (and hence power). on both counts, tsing shows how mushrooms subvert this inclination. not only do they produce a “theory of nonscalability,” they show how at the margins the distinction between gift and commodity in capitalism breaks down. to make this point tsing follows mintz’s history of the sugar plantation as a case study. the plantation provides a formula for scalability and model for industrialization: workers, like ecologies, are merely replaceable parts. by envisioning more and more of the world as if it were plantation, capitalism conceived of utilitarianism and progress as growth. matsutake resist all of this as they only flourish in contaminated environments, their reliance on complex networks blurring the boundaries of discrete definitions of species. as such mushrooms are the ultimate scavenger, flourishing in a damaged world by making do with what’s left and upending modernist notions of biology including definitions of group, individual, and competition. all of this is culminates in a theory of salvage capitalism, or “taking advantage of value produced without capitalist control” (tsing 2015: 63) where “unregulated production is translated in the commodity chain” (2015: 65). tsing argues that modernist theories of capital are constrained in the way they conceptualize time and space, privileging industry and other sites in the heart of empire. thus, per marx, “factory owners concentrate wealth by paying workers less than the value of the goods the workers produce each day” (2015: 62). however, salvage capitalism and tsing’s attentions to sites at 4 the margins show us formations where, “living things made within ecological processes are coopted for the concentration of wealth” (2015: 63). sites of ongoing salvage operations are “pericapitalist,” they scoop up wild values in a process tsing calls “translation.” she writes, “capitalism is a translation machine for producing capital from all kinds of livelihoods, human and not human” (2015: 133). in the story of the matsutake mushroom this “translation” happens several times from american mountain range to japanese kitchen. the author contends that in oregon the commercial pickers and the field agents they sell to do not experience their labor as alienated, instead they feel rewarded by a sense of “freedom,” variously defined, perceiving their acquisition of cash more like the acquiring of a trophy, and standing in contrast to their experience of traditional wage labor. at this stage the mushroom is still as if a gift, bound up in networks of social relationships and complex histories. it is translated into a commodity by wage laborers, the employees of exporters who buy the mushrooms in bulk from field agents, who in a warehouse setting sort them by quality. now proper commodities, the exporters endeavor not to sell their mushrooms to the highest bidder, but rather match the right mushrooms with the right buyers, foregoing market pressures and instead relying on their social networks and knowledge of japanese culture. thus, the matsutake becomes again as if a gift and less like a pure commodity. finally, in japan, the matustake commands premium retail prices, a consummate commodity once again where shoppers delight in buying them not for themselves but to give to friends and family as gifts. one can imagine this theory of salvage capitalism as being of great utility for anthropologies of human relationships with nature, critiquing environmentalisms of the use-value of nature, human reproduction and the nation-state, gender and racial formations under capitalism, and the monetization of big data just to name a few. it is perhaps the most significant contribution of the work under review. to this reviewer tsing’s “salvage capitalism” resonates most profoundly with yúdice’s the expediency of culture (2004) where “culture” becomes a resource to be invested in and exploited as a wellspring of profit and hegemony. but whereas yúdice writes about contemporary political forms and neoliberal governmental programs from a cultural studies standpoint, tsing is more expansive historically and carries the argument into nonhuman worlds. the mushroom at the end of the world is more than just theory of the anthropology of value. one of the successes of this book is the way tsing balances thinking through mushrooms and the sensual 5 experiences of mushrooming. speaking as an avid mushroom enthusiast i was pleased with how tsing periodically dipped into descriptions of tastes and smells, the thrill of the hunt, and the joy that fungi bring to those who love them. among her many ethnographic encounters with diverse southeast asian commercial mushroom pickers and japanese american heritage pickers in oregon, as well as satoyama tenders and mushroom scientists in japan, tsing finds the matsutake to be a mushroom that opens the memory and invites storytelling. along the way, the reader is treated to ghost stories, tales of escape from angry land owners, and nostalgic remanences of home. on these mushrooming adventures in oregon, tsing is surprised to find that the commercial pickers, hmong, mein, and lao, have essentially reconstituted southeast asian villages in the forests of the american pacific northwest. add to these white men, many of whom self-identify as veterans of the vietnam war, and histories of violence figure prominently as people are torn from one corner of the world only to be scattered to the wind, landing in another. their varied paths to america’s west coast and economic precarity prompt tsing to reflect on the divergent immigrant experiences of recent immigrants from southeast asia represented in the commercial pickers, and how they diverge from those of chinese americans and japanese americans who immigrated generations ago and whose american experience is much closer to tsing’s own. the different histories of these immigrant groups are, among other things, embodied in different relationships to the matsutake mushroom. from white american veterans to southeast asian immigrants, the diverse groups she encounters experience mushroom picking as producing “freedom,” but they define and experience that freedom differently. in these ethnographic encounters, tsing finds that freedom is “performative, communally varied, and effervescent” (tsing 2015: 76). to the commercial pickers mushrooming is not-work, it offers escape from many of the trappings of life in contemporary america and communion with the wild. for the southeast asian immigrants, it promises family reunion. each day of mushrooming culminates in selling, where pickers try to play buyers off against each other to drive up prices. she writes, “this is a performance of competition—not a necessity of business. the point is the drama” (2015: 81). the pickers entertain themselves by taking photos of their best mushrooms and stacks of cash, especially one hundred dollar bills. this section of the book, the narratives of picking and selling in oregon, were some of the book’s most engaging, the stories are short, poignant, and gripping. but in their brevity, tsing tries to fit too much into a small amount of text. often the author falls into assertion and this reviewer was left feeling as if some of her conclusions outstripped what was in the evidence. it 6 is ironic that a work that so thoroughly critiques models of “scalability” in science would rely on what are essentially anecdotal experiences to make general claims. returning to the author’s twofold agenda of critiquing capitalism and science the concept of “assemblage,” borrowed from ecology, emerges as an important theoretical tool and organizing principle for the monograph. assemblage, for tsing, is a way to reconceptualize what is meant by community. she writes, “the question of how the varied species in a species assemblage influence each other—if at all—is never settled… [assemblages] allow us to ask about communal affects without assuming them” (tsing 2015: 22-23). to say multiple lifeforms live together in a community implies that they are interacting somehow: symbiosis, mutualism, predation, and parasitism all come to mind. assemblage merely recognizes that they are situated together in the same time and place without intention. tsing takes this idea and runs asking, “if history without progress is indeterminate and multidirectional might assemblages show us its possibilities?” (tsing 2015: 23). complementing this are suggestions that the reader think of her work as if it were polyphonic music, which is itself a kind of sonic assemblage. in this expansive new definition capitalism itself is an assemblage, the diverse southeast asian peoples in the oregon woods that are together but not one are assemblage, and disparate bits of the matsutake story that form the book—from bureaucratic histories of the u.s. national forest service, to japanese internment camps, and a train ride through finland—are assemblage too. like a fugue or madrigal choir tsing implores her audience to “notice” moments of harmony and discord when they happen to appear. disparate elements come together in time and space and then diverge again. this reviewer found the author’s appreciation of “noticing” and the analogies to fugue to be less compelling. from a literary standpoint, this theoretical but also stylistic aspect of tsing’s monograph is a mixed bag. the odd juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated bits of information and the book’s free flowing structure makes it into something resembling a shaggy dog. to unpack this idiom, a shaggy dog is a longwinded joke that is all performance and no punchline. it wanders from one detail to the next until the listener realizes that the narrative itself is a practical joke and begs the teller to stop. bringing this into an anthropological context, we might say that instead of a vulnerable observer now we have a vulnerable readership. in tsing’s ethnographic assemblage, it is not the case that various 7 aspects of the text are related they are merely together. but if they are related (or not), then we are to “notice.” the upshot of assemblage as writing technique is that, at least in this instance, tsing has told the joke very well. the many facets and fragments of the matsutake’s story really do pull together and drift apart in illuminating ways. she successfully executes this by cutting against the grain of anthropology’s literary tradition. one could lovingly argue that anthropologists are masters of the long essay: we need to be to tell complex stories well. but many of tsing’s chapters are only about ten pages and interspersed among them are interstitial passages of only about five pages. by choosing to write shorter chapters the author gives herself space to experiment, sometimes this pays off while at others it fall flat but never does the reader feel their time wasted. this makes the mushroom at the end of the world, which piles on a variety of styles, perspectives, and scales, different than, say, the work of studs terkel, where the reader must wade through gobs of narrative much of it the same, to find the gem. the mushroom at the end of the world is well suited for use in a graduate seminar and will be an easy lift for talented undergraduates. instructors will find productive grounds for their students in its discussion of value, commodities, gifts, and exchange. this book would also be a good fit for courses on ethnographic writing or contemporary cultural anthropology generally. researchers will find this to be a work of great depth and, moving forward, one anticipates that “salvage capitalism” and tsing’s multispecies redefinition of marx’s alienation have the potential to become popular and effective theoretical tools. moreover, i learned a great deal about landscape from this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in how the interactions among people and their environment change over time and how that dynamic fits into broad global flows. finally, anyone who enjoys quality prose and engaging ethnography ought not hesitate that a work on a single mushroom species is too far afield. tsing’s short chapters make it perfect for dipping into during a coffee break or deserving of a place on your nightstand. as this review is being written the mushroom at the end of the world has been awarded the 2016 gregory bateson book prize and the 2016 victor turner prize in ethnographic writing among many other recognitions, the praise is well deserved. this very creative and thoughtproving book will speak to a wide audience. references cited yudice, george. the expediency of culture: uses of culture in the global era. durham: duke 8 university press, 2004. matthew d. thompson matthew thompson is project cataloger for the mariners' museum in newport news, virginia. he has a doctorate in anthropology from the university of north carolina and a masters in information science from the university of tennessee. he is currently working on a clir 'hidden collections' grant to digitize the museum's historical photographs. © 2017 matthew thompson the subtle arts of ethnography and lineology review by sideeq mohammed & felicity heathcote-márcz the life of lines by tim ingold routledge, 2015 introduction this review aims to offer readers a concise yet (hopefully) robust review of tim ingold’s latest work, the life of lines. readers familiar with ingold’s work will remember his controversial (but arguably misunderstood) definition of anthropology as “philosophy with people in” (1992, p.696), as well as his vehement opposition to the synonymity of ethnography and anthropological work (ingold, 2014). considering this position, it is possible to read the life of lines as a well written anthropological treatise one attentive to the culture and mores of a global community or collective “we” (as opposed to a particular people, time and place; the conventional objects of ethnographic investigation) which weaves together a cross-disciplinary set of themes around the question of the line. there is, however, another dimension to this argument in which it would be an injustice to depict the life of lines as anything other than an ethnographic monograph. such a definition of “ethnographic”, however, is heterogeneous to the mainstream images of qualitative researchers with pragmatist principles investigating the realities of how things work in everyday organizations (watson, 2011, 2012). indeed, it is one which tries even contemporary definitions of “the field” within anthropology (amit, 2000) pursuing “interlocutors” through the worlds of art, literature, philosophy, meteorology, cartography, ingold’s childhood memories, and conversations with several major works of anthropological canon. in many ways then, the life of lines may be seen as the product of an entire life subjected to the “retrospective judgement” which, for ingold (2014), defines “ethnographicness”. as he astutely puts it: “to lead a life is to lay down a line” (2015, p.118). a life which follows and creates lines, that is, and ingold’s is undoubtedly a life that is religiously observant to the lines that have become his anthropology and ethnography. his ethnography of lines is one which is long-term, in-depth, committed, attentive, complex, and ‘wanders’ in interesting ways. few texts which we might more commonly call ethnographic provide us with such conceptually nuanced glimpses into the thought processes, understandings and practices of the ethnographer. it would also be an error to describe this work as merely theoretical, for the classificatory schema of “theory” does not adequately depict that ingold is out for a walk among the thoughts of the world; that he is tying a series of richly complex conceptual knots. the lines of thought which constitute the life of lines interweave and knot together throughout ingold’s corpus, reaching even to his earliest works. indeed, this is perhaps what ingold can offer to scholars in organization studies whose research ventures into the ethnographic: the practice of weaving, creating an intricately complex meshwork of concepts out of “the field”. in this sense, it may be that a new discipline is needed to describe these efforts, that weave in-between ethnography and so many other disciplines what ingold himself calls a lineology a discipline whose principles this review will attempt to espouse. while ingold, the lineologist, may be prone to an almost religious devotion to the tracking of lines, we shall argue that there is much that his work can teach us in terms of reconciling the questions surrounding an engagement with “theory” and, more broadly speaking, ethnographic practice. on the meshwork to begin simply, ingold’s definition of the line is kept unsurprisingly general, delineated in the initial statements of lines: a brief history as merely that which unifies “walking, weaving, observing, singing, storytelling, drawing and writing” (ingold, 2007. p.1). in a broader context, the line (or in the least the relation which the line implies) is perhaps the smallest anthropological unit of measure, for lines are not about fixity, singularity and uniqueness but about connection, linkage and association; those basic building blocks of culture and the social with which the anthropologist concerns herself. ingold himself underscores this in the life of lines noting the centrality of “the entwining of lines” (p.4) to the social fabric. one may thus be tempted to dismiss ingold as another thinker of the globalized, network society but he defies the ubiquity of the “network” in our thinking by turning to to lefebvre (ingold, 2007. p.81) and the concept of the “meshwork”: “a dense tangle of trails” (2015, p.82) which are “interwoven” (2011, p.63) rather than “interconnected”. if one were to try to delineate the tenets and principles of lineology, one would necessarily have to begin with the idea of developing a meshwork. the life of lines develops the concept of the “meshwork” itself (previously developed by others such as de landa, 1995) through the language of “knotting”. this conceptualisation first emerges for ingold in looking for lines in nature (2012), via the work of the architect, lars spuybroek. while a network will have nodes and communicate point to point, a meshwork will have knots or tangles where the lines of slugs, or the trails of australian aboriginal people, or concepts, will be drawn close together and allowed to resound with each other. following this imaginary, part i of the life of lines interlaces the concepts of blobs with images of octopuses and anemones from marcel mauss, with questions of joining and carpentry, with the work of immanuel kant and the grounds of perception, and with ingold’s previous work on walking (see ingold and vergunst, 2008). it is worth noting, however, that for ingold this weaving practice always produces a number of concepts which emerge as “loose ends”, as spuybroek might term them, while others are knotted together with different concepts, continuing to evolve as a part of the weaving. indeed, some of the aforementioned concepts become such “loose ends” in the life of lines, while others continue to occur throughout the text. such loose ends are inevitably a part of a meshwork and indeed, a life (see ingold, 2012). what we might learn from this is perhaps that these diverse lines of thought can be placed into correspondence with one another, if only to see what they produce. that is, rather than merely borrowing and applying concepts from the world of philosophy, ingold is actively engaged in creating his own though the interweaving of a meshwork of different sources. though this is not altogether a novel practice, organization studies has long expressed difficulty at navigating the many answers to the question of what to do with philosophy (jones and ten bos, 2007), and more mainstream approaches appear to struggle around more basic questions of theory/practice and the role of the “theorizer” (hatch and cunliffe, 2013). it may be that there is a method to the weaving of the meshwork of the life of lines and the consequent creation of concepts “from the field” that ingold can offer to aid us in understanding broader debates around the role of “theory” in driving ethnographic research (see wilson and chaddha, 2009). on discipline ingold’s weaving practices can also be seen in the disciplinary irreverence of his more recent works and this may meaningfully be read as the second tenet of lineology. ingold’s own history of attempting to articulate anthropology with and through other disciplines, culminates in the life of lines with his own correspondence of multi-disciplinary lines of thinking, following lines from his own corpus as well as from art, architecture, literature, meteorology and philosophy. however, ingold’s pursuit of a concept goes beyond this, tracking it over long periods of time and drawing our focus to its process to the inbetween (that we will discuss in our next section). this cross-disciplinarity is especially observable in part ii of the life of lines: “weathering” (p.51). taking the example of the storm, we might trace the line of thought beyond part ii of the life of lines to ingold’s early studies of finnish lapland where, as he notes, he would often include in his fieldnotes descriptions of the weather (p.69-70). ingold’s (2005) work on visual perception similarly begins with an anecdote about the experience of standing on a scottish shoreline with a colleague and watching a storm materialize as a presence in the sky, the “eye” of the storm leading ingold into a protracted discussion of vision and light via merleau-ponty and gibson. this discussion of the perception of the weather is continued via a similar reminiscence in 2011’s being alive where ingold takes a class of students to the shore, observing a “world without objects” (p.131) amidst the weatherworld of the fluctuating and impossible to define boundaries between sky and ocean. the line of thought continues to ingold’s (2012) paper which speaks of the storm as pure movement, as other than a bounded, contained entity spiralling across the sky, drawing analogies between it and the movement of slugs on the driveway. the thought itself is thus always in the middle of becoming, always ‘a relation of correspondence between lines’ (p.56). in the life of lines, ingold asks his readers to weather with him, as he returns to the discussion of storms and the atmosphere in order to apply a “blending of the cosmic with the affective” (2015. p.92) in their thinking. in the space of a few short chapters ingold elaborates from the whirling of the storm (2015. p.54-5), connecting to his previous work on walking and the difficulty drawing boundary lines around trees (see ingold, 2010) as well as, in keeping with his attention to the sensual, developing the aforementioned work on visual perception through discussions of van gogh’s a starry night (p.94), taussig’s (2009) comments on colour in relation to affect (p.103) and sonority in relation to bach’s third suite for unaccompanied cello (p.109). in each of these cases, what is crucial is that the lines of thought which constitute this meshwork are pursued across time, spaces, and the boundaries of disciplines from anthropology, to meteorology, to art criticism, to music theory. it may indeed be argued that all ethnography is interdisciplinary following any issues that arise from encounters in the field as matters of concern. yet ingold’s contribution in the life of lines, in introducing the lineologist (who carefully and intricately knits a meshwork of concepts across many so called disciplines, spaces and points of reference) provides us with a useful and unique reminder of the possibilities weaving ideas across and beyond all sorts of boundaries may realise. on the in-between this question of the middle or, more accurately, the in-between is the final major preoccupation for the lineologist. ingold’s attention to the “meshwork” rather than the “network”, and the “knot” rather than the “chain”, are his attempts to think differently about relations of ‘the social’ and to re-imagine a broad praxis of life’s activities from building to standing upon the ground, as something else in the middle. part iii of the life of lines sees ingold also replacing the noun “human” with the verb “humaning”, perhaps the most telling demonstration in the book of the conceptual centrality of the in-between for his own conception of what it means to carry out research anthropologically. this is an attention to that which is without fixity, without origin or destination. whether this stems from broader preoccupations around the in-between (and related issues like liminality), or it results from the affinity which the life of lines demonstrates for the work of gilles deleuze and felix guattari, or whether the question of the in-between emerges spontaneously from the meshwork of the text, are questions only for speculation. however, in reflecting on these comments from a thousand plateaus: “a line of becoming has only a middle. [...] a becoming is always in the middle; one can only get it by the middle. a becoming is neither one nor two, nor the relation of the two; it is the in-between, the border or line of flight or descent running perpendicular to both.” (deleuze and guattari, 2005. p.293) the line of thought that is being developed becomes clear, particularly in the context of the parable of the river and the ferryman (p.150-151) which ingold invokes. while the ferryman is between when he is at the midpoint between the two known and identifiable banks, the river flows in-between the banks to and from the unknown and the untraceable. in short, the river becomes. we can see an attention to the in-between demonstrated in ingold’s previous work, particularly on walking and travel. in conjunction with jo vergunst (2008), ingold describes the initial steps of walking on a journey as those taken with neither clear comprehension of bearing and direction, nor clear understanding when the journey began and will end. this is placed in terms of the between and the inbetween in ingold’s (2007) differentiation of travelling and wayfaring, the former moving between the fixed points of a network and the latter moving in-between, that is, without definitive purpose, start or end point. similar to that of the lineologist, the life of the wayfarer and the line his movement draws is, read via the logic of the artist paul klee, a line out for a walk, a line in-between. in part iii of the life of lines ingold returns to the wayfarer and walking in-between, this time in the context of the maze and the labyrinth, the former entrapping the fixed point-to-point movements of a “navigator” with dead-ends while the wayfarer tracks uncharted trails within the labyrinth, always in a middle. ingold continues by invoking jan masschelein’s words to describe the act of walking in relation to education (p.135). we might elaborate these comments to say that, much like the wayfarer wandering the labyrinth, the lineologist learns with no final point of arrival, research goals or firm standpoint. in irreverently following her different lines with expressions and anecdotes from various disciplines, the life of the lineologist becomes one which is fundamentally out-of-position (p.135). the leading of life ingold conceives of as at once ‘not yet’ and ‘already there’ (p.118), is both this inbetween-ness and what is meant by his serious invitation to ‘lay down a line’ (p.118). it is the not being or going anywhere mapped out, that ties ingold’s concept of correspondence to the middle where proliferating lines of concepts, thinkers and histories meet, to ‘stretch the fabric of time’ from imagination and memories (p.157), and to walking ‘paths of observation’ that ingold invokes from james gibson’s work. rather, the correspondence of lines, most crucially for ingold, provides education in a life. to understand this we address ourselves to the senses and their role in ethnographic experience, as these provide a foundation for ingold in his discussion of the ‘in-between’. air, light, sound and touch all fall into this ontology for ingold, as senses are evoked as the ruffling of surfaces (p.150) of all kinds in the haptic modes of contact of the in-between. we might see this sensuality in the way ingold (2013) attends to the reading practices of eleventh century monks which, he suggests, required no spaces between words, hence text was made up of nothing but a middle, and was sensorially experienced, or “read out, following the line of letters” (ingold, 2013. p.741) by both touching and speaking them. this corporeality, the embodied experience of following a line is undoubtedly a part of “participant observation”; itself, as defined by ingold, a practice of correspondence (p.157). however, rather than using this to produce retrospective accounts as an ethnographer would, it would seem that the lineologist must bodily walk with others in the sense of “an ongoing exploration of what the possibilities and potentials of a life might be!” (p.157), a learning without end or aim. conclusion through developing a conceptual meshwork, practicing disciplinary irreverence via every knot of thought he ties and being committed to the in-between, it seems clear that ingold and the life of lines succeed in both drawing out and articulating a means of corresponding to the world that we might uniquely call lineology. we venture that lineology might indeed be a way of developing future academic praxis, particularly through the weaving which might take us beyond the divisions of disciplines and into studies of the weather, walking, the work of gilles deleuze or ontologies concerned with “humanifying” rather than the human (and perhaps what remains for future research is to place the conversations of the life of lines into the broader context of the ontological turn). while we have tried to draw out themes which relate to lines from ingold’s oeuvre and are thereby perhaps guilty of exaggerating them, ingold’s life of lines, over a decade of publication across multiple books and papers which clearly follows little other than the line, seems to present as a kind of obsession, an almost religious faith in the ‘correspondence of lines’ and the promise that they hold for rethinking anthropology. one can only wonder what ingold’s ethnography of the line, his lineology, might be able to contribute to organization studies. an interest in philosophy and a more robust engagement with its concepts? a reopening of questions around the ends of “organizational ethnography” or the “autoethnographic” though its provocation? perhaps, simply, helping us catch up to shifting definitions of “the field” or the debates around “the ontological turn”? rather than dismissing this work as abstract or disconnected, perhaps there is space within the current intellectual climate to appreciate this kind of dedication to finding and following lines. to return once more to ingold’s (2014) comments, perhaps what we need is not merely to say “that’s enough about ethnography”, but the courage to speak in support of lineology: a life of lines. references cited amit, v., 2000. constructing the field. london: routledge. de landa, m., 1995, homes: meshwork or hierarchy? [available at: http://www.mediamatic.nl/doors/doors2/delanda/delanda-doors2-e1.html] (accessed 30 march 2016). deleuze, g. &amp; guattari, f., 2005. a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. london: university of minnesota press. hatch, m. &amp; cunliffe, a., 2013. organization theory: modern, symbloic and postmodern perspectives. oxford: oxford university press. ingold, t., 1976. the skolt lapps today. cambridge : cambridge university press. ingold, t., 1980. hunters, pastoralists and ranchers. cambridge: cambridge university press. ingold, t., 2005. the eye of the storm: visual perception and the weather. visual studies, 20(2), pp. 97104. ingold, t., 2007. lines: a brief history. london: routledge. ingold, t., 2010. bringing things to life: creative entanglements in a world of materialsncrm working paper. [online] available at: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/1306/1/0510_creative_entanglements.pdf [accessed 10 january 2016]. ingold, t., 2011. being alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. oxon: routledge. ingold, t., 2012. looking for lines in nature. earthlines, 3(1), pp. 48-51. ingold, t., 2013. dreaming of dragons: on the imagination of real life. journal of the royal anthropological institute, 19(1), pp. 734-752. ingold, t., 2014. that's enough about ethnography. hau: journal of ethnographic theory, 4(1), p. 383–395. ingold, t., 2015. the life of lines. london: routledge. ingold, t. &amp; vergunst, j., 2008. introduction. in: t. ingold &amp; j. vergunst, eds. ways of walking: ethnography and practice on foot. surrey: ashgate publishing, pp. 1-21. jones, c. &amp; ten bos, r. eds., 2007. in: philosophy and organization. routledge: oxon. watson, t., 2011. ethnography, reality, and truth: the vital need for studies of ‘how things work’ in organizations and management. journal of management studies, 48(1), pp. 202-217. watson, t., 2012. marking organizational ethnography. journal of organizational ethnography, 1(1), pp. 15-22. wilson, w. &amp; chaddha, a., 2010. the role of theory in ethnographic research. ethnography, 10(4), pp. 549-564. felicity heathcote-márcz is a doctoral researcher at alliance manchester business school. her phd “managing the cyborg” follows an ethnography of the strategic technology centre of a global bank, and “ethnographic peeking” of a unique technology-arts organisation in the north of england. felicity is a member of the manchester ethnography network. sideeq mohammed is a doctoral researcher at alliance manchester business school. his phd project is an ethnography of one of the largest shopping centres in the uk which attempts to develop a research method out of the works of philosopher, gilles deleuze. sideeq is a member of the manchester ethnography network. © 2016 felicity heathcote-márcz & sideeq mohammed infertility: invisible disability review by naomi m. mcpherson cosmopolitan conceptions: ivf sojourns in global dubai by marcia inhorn duke university press, 2015 this book begins with a lengthy prologue, a verbatim transcript of an interview conducted by marcia inhorn with rahina, who relates her story of marital infertility and her quest for conception. the individual stories in this book are situated within larger cultural contexts that both inform and enlighten. rahina and her husband live a middle class life in the uk having left their east african cultures of origin, but not the pressures from their cultures of origin to have (many) children. as it is for most of the couples we meet here, reproduction is socially mandated and very much entangled with concepts of womanhood, manhood and patriarchy. a wife who does not or cannot birth several children to her husband’s patriline is considered a less than fully competent adult woman who can be (and often is) set aside, divorced or made to endure a polygamous marriage if her husband marries a second, hopefully fertile wife. as inhorn notes, infertile women endure “many forms of harm, including medical mistreatment, verbal abuse, social ostracism, divorce, economic abandonment, domestic violence, and even torture” (p. 151). rahina’s inability to conceive is due to chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection (sti) that leaves fallopian tubes obstructed by scar tissue. she considers herself to be “invisibly disabled.” while causally invisible, her infertility is entirely too visible to kin and clan whose “bullying” pressure on her and her husband to reproduce is a constant source of ongoing despair and desperation. marcia inhorn has spent decades studying and writing about infertility and assisted reproduction, much of her work focused in north africa and countries of the middle east. grounded in that long term research, this current study is based on six months of intense fieldwork in 2007 (plus several followups to 2013), during which she interviewed 125 married couples from some 50 different countries, whose quest brings them into the caring hands of dr. pankaj and his staff at conceive, an internationally renowned fertility clinic in the united arab republic (uae), near the border of sharjah and dubai. stories are the core of ethnographic research and these stories of the quest for conception are exceptionally intimate glimpses into the marital relationships these couples have created and the sacrifices they are willing make in order to have children. the analysis is organized around five “key tropes:” reprotravel stories, global assemblages, reproscapes, reproflows, and reproductive constraints. the married couples we meet are reproductive travellers or “reprotravellers,” a descriptor preferred by all respondents adamant that what they are going through is not reproductive “tourism,” not fun in the sun, not a holiday. respondents have accumulated huge debt, spending thousands on travel, accommodation, medical treatments, and ‘cycles’ in the hope that they can become one of the lucky “18-25 per cent” (p. 224) who “take home” a baby. reprotravellers are decidedly “cosmopolitan” as they travel the globe, crossing and recrossing international borders searching for facilities practicing cosmopolitan medicine—western, urban, scientific, biotechnological medicine—that offers hope to overcome infertility. citing collier and ong, inhorn discusses this cosmopolitanism as comprising a global assemblage, a multiplicity of phenomena, such as “technoscience, circuits of licit and illicit exchange, systems of administration or governance, and regimes of ethics or values” (p. 22), which coalesce, assemble, disassemble in particular places, spaces and time to become a “global assemblage.” inhorn then expands appadurai’s theory of “scapes” to include a medical or bioscape “of moving biological substances … and body parts” in those global assemblages that, in this instance, become part of a reproscape “combining globalization and global flows” (p. 20) of people, technology, bodies. this swirl of movements, bodies, technologies, commercialism, and border crossings fueled by despair and hope conjures up quite a surreal images. mobile biological substances and bodies constitute reproflows, that is, “flows of reproductive actors, reproductive technologies, and reproductive substances,” including of course, those reproductive bodies “required for the processes of assisted conception” (p. 24). but reproflows are not without reproductive constraints, which can be “structural, sociocultural, ideological, and practical obstacles and apprehensions” (p. 25) that impede the quest for conception. inhorn groups these reproductive constraints include resource categories include such things as finances and travellers’ lost wages, the high cost of treatments, which may or may not “take,” availability of specific treatments, access to clinics, waiting lists. many countries have legal and religious prohibitions on certain procedures and on categories of persons eligible for procedures. hindu, muslim and christian religions have a variety of prohibitions, not least on surrogacy, adoption, donor gametes, and pregnancy reductions; some countries have age constraints such that women (but not men) “age out” of art eligibility. the “medical horror stories” and too frequent iatrogenic harm (p. 255) emphasise the importance of choosing a clinic that provides safe, quality care and good success rates. sociocultural issues are always paramount as clinic staff and clinic clientele come from many cultural and linguistic backgrounds, a cosmopolitan fact than can lead to social barriers and miscommunication on many levels. issues of privacy, even secrecy, are critical to reprotravelers, whose immediate families and extended kin have no idea they are undergoing these treatments, and because some couples travel for procedures that contravene legal and religious constraints of their home countries. this culturally complex and detailed ethnography is only possible because of inhorn’s long term study of infertility in the middle east and contiguous countries. her awareness of the cultural and religious complexities enveloping her respondents meant she was able to approach this extremely intimate topic with compassion and sensitivity to elicit a rich story of married couples’ desires and needs for a biologically related child. marcia inhorn has gifted us with a very challenging book that is impossible to condense to a few words here. this ethnography challenges what we thought we knew about human fertility, the causes and consequences of marital infertility, and how women and men each come to grips with their “invisible disability” within their cultural construction of gendered reproduction. the global number of infertile persons and of women experiencing secondary infertility (inability to conceive a second child) is probably incalculable. but there are “many millions” of infertile persons, with “estimates ranging widely” from about 49-186 million; with infertile males contributing to more than half of “all cases of childlessness” (p. 107). she has also challenged the way in which much gendered research is undertaken in separate spheres, particularly when researching topics of sex, sexuality and marital relations, with women interviewing women and men interviewing men. inhorn rejects that practice, which often results in one-sided analyses, to engage in “marital ethnography,” that is, interviewing couples together. finally, when i think about what i have read, it occurred to me that feminism, writ large, has failed infertile women. feminism is about choices. many cosmopolitan women choose childlessness; many women in noncosmopolitan countries have no such choices and have more children than they want. the majority of women in the global south have no options for careers or alternate lifestyles; without children they have nothing and they are nobody, particularly in patriarchal, patrilineal societies where they are not members of a lineage. feminist analyses of assisted reproduction technologies (arts) have long decried the “highly gendered” bioscape, whereby reproductive technologies are “enacted on women’s and men’s bodies in highly differentiated ways” (p. 24). and there are the structural inequalities of who can and cannot access arts and the potential for exploitation of poor women as surrogates or gamete donors. while fighting for women’s rights to make reproductive choices, for contraception and abortion, and to not have children, feminists have not engaged equally strongly with a woman’s right to have children and to access arts in order to overcome their own or their husband’s infertility in order to have biological children. there is often an unacknowledged whiff of eugenics by default when talking about infertility in so-called less developed countries that are deemed overpopulated by cosmopolitan countries. hence, there is little sympathy for or resources allocated to reproductive assistance for infertile women who bear the social and cultural brunt of infertility and whose lives are made a living hell because they are childless. inhorn closes with a plea for “reproductive justice.” there needs to be more work and thought put into the prevention of infertility by treating sexually transmitted infections that “play havoc with male and female reproductive organs” (p. 302). there needs to be more “support of the infertile” starting with destigmatizing fertility and offering more support to infertile women and men, especially in “societies where parenthood is socially mandated” and not a matter of choice (p. 303). this could entail increasing education and career opportunities and providing choice; albeit changing cultural concepts of appropriate gender roles is easier said than done. and finally, infertility treatments need to be less costly. no surprise that inhorn’s activist passion is vested in the movement for low-cost ivf (lcivf) to “make safe, affordable, effective ivf accessible to everyone who needs it, but primarily to people in the global south” (p. 303). this book truly does take the reader into the “womb” of a cosmopolitan ivf clinic and the reprotravelers who are its clientele. it is a must read for students of anthropology, medicine, women’s history, whether or not they are involved in research on human reproduction. this is a must read for ngos, ministries of health, medical practitioners, and others who are deeply committed, particularly in noncosmopolitan states, to working for the improvement of women’s maternal and reproductive health. i highly recommend this enlightening, ethnographically rich and deeply compassionate book. references cited ahmed, sara 2006. queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others. london: duke university press hadžimuhamedović, safet 2016. waiting for elijah: time and encounter in a bosnian landscape. phd diss., goldsmiths, university of london hayden, robert 2002. ‘antagonistic tolerance: competitive sharing of religious sites in south east asia and the balkans’. current anthropology 43(2): 205-231 sharma, aradhana and akhil gupta (eds.) 2006. the anthropology of the state: a reader. malden, ma: blackwell sorabji, cornelia 2008. ‘bosnian neighbourhoods revisited: tolerance, commitment and komšiluk in sarajevo’. in frances pine and joao de pina-cabral (eds.) on the margins of religion. new york: berghahn books, 97-112 navaro-yashin, yael 2012. the make-believe space: affective geography in a postwar polity. durham, nc: duke university press naomi m. mcpherson is a cultural anthropologist and associate professor emeritus at the university of british columbia. she has returned six times between 1980 and 2009 to bariai, west new britain, papua new guinea where, among other topics, she has studied concepts of gender and gender relations, gendered violence, ethno-obstetrics, and women’s maternal and reproductive health. selected publications include: modern obstetrics in a rural setting: women and reproduction in northwest new britain (1994); women, childbirth and change in west new britain, papua new guinea, p. liamputtong, ed. (2007); sik aids: deconstructing the awareness campaign in rural west new britain, png. r. eves and l. butt, eds. (2008); anthropology of mothering. m. walks and n. mcpherson, eds. (2011); black and blue: shades of gendered violence in west new britain, png. c. stewart, ed. (2012); missing the mark? women and the millennium development goals in africa and oceania. naomi mcpherson, ed. demeter press, february 2016. © 2016 naomi m. mcpherson microsoft word 179-549-1-sm.docx 1 state, republic and the minority: the (un)making of muslims in france review by simi k. salim constructing muslims in france: discourse, public identity, and the politics of citizenship by jennifer fredette temple university press, 2014 key words: france, french muslim, modern state, republicanism, identity, immigrants, refugee jennifer fredette analyzes the construction of muslim citizenship in france by examining the discourses surrounding muslim identity primarily by elites and by muslims themselves. drawing on studies by ange marie hancock and kathleen moore on post 9/11 muslim identity formation in the united states, fredette correlates power politics and citizenship – with the elites, primarily bureaucrats and the media, framing muslims as the “radical other” (8). the book locates muslims as a heterogeneous category marked by diverse class locations and sociopolitical orientations. this is significant as former studies on muslims in france have centered primarily on religiosity, locating muslims as a homogenous social group. the first chapter problematizes the idea of citizenship and rights discourse in modern secular societies and discusses the “paradoxes of modern citizenship” (5) which involves the construction of a normative citizen and its ‘other’hence embodying a principle of exclusion. drawing on joan wallach scott, fredette regards the french idea of citizenship as centered on masculinity, cultural singularity, and irrelegiosity – with the muslims and immigrants becoming the religious and sexual aberrants. the french model of citizenship revolves around “difference-blind cultural republicanism” (154) which frames the normative culture as french and an exclusive model of equality overlooking class, race and gendered identities. fredette, through a series of interviews, traces the discursive formations of muslim identity centered on education, employment and housing for muslims in france. chapter 4 and 5 discusses the education and employment of french muslims. the presiding narrative on muslim education is centered upon religiosity and an anxiety over the hijab with scarce attention paid to the inequities muslims face in the education and employment sector. fredette regards schools as a replica of the state which plays a cardinal role in modeling the ‘ideal french citizen’marked by its exclusionary nature and overlooking of racial, ethnic and 2 gendered identities. the exclusionary nature of state institutions is not solely a muslim crisis and is shared by immigrants and working class french citizens. the elite discourse, fredette says, has framed muslims as “dangerous employees” (107) with the bureaucrats paralleling muslim employment to islamization of french society. the diverse experientiality and privilege locations among french muslims in response to fredette’s interview is significant – with white muslims narrating a significant lack of discrimination as compared to arab men who are often vilified in public discourses. the spatiality of french muslims as a territorial and psychic coordinate is central to this study with the housing and spatial location affecting the experientiality of being a muslim in france. tracing the historicity of muslim housing in france, fredette notes how the everydayness of muslims are linked to narratives of violence and riots in the suburbs and the emergence of fundamentalist islam. the idea of a muslim space is shifted to be a “radicalized, ethnic, religious danger” influenced by “macho/basement islam” (130). ghettoization of muslim communities has profound underpinnings socially and economically – with poorly maintained buildings and rampant rise of unemployment in the suburbs. intersectionality and locating structural iniquity of muslims demarcates fredette’s studyfor instance, on locating the spatial segregation of muslims, she brings in the predicament of immigrant north african women and the gendered nature of cultural, linguistic and economic inequity. extending her analysis to the french model of citizenship, fredette in the concluding chapter engages in a critique of the multiple models of republicanism. fredette extends scott’s critique of the modern democratic state and its racial, ethnic and gendered othering to the elite/public discourses on french citizenship. the republican model is portrayed as “difference-blind” (154) – similar to color blind racial politics in the us – overlooking racial, ethnic and gendered hardships of immigrants and hence invisibilising structural and cultural inequity. public discourse on french muslims depends primarily on narratives by french elites on muslim religiosity and homogeneity. these meaning makings on muslims are in short of oppositional claims due to “cultural and institutional” barriers and “centralized nature of french politics” (159). cardinal in fredette’s study is her analysis of the lack of a shared counter narrative among muslims with multiple muslims in her ethnographic interview embracing french republicanism while many others struggling with the hybrid identities of being french and a muslim. with xenophobia and anti-immigrant narratives gaining currency is europe and elsewhere, fredette’s study is extremely pertinent in its unraveling of the bleak underbellies of republicanism, democracy and the modern nation state in itself. rightly locating the anti-muslim discourse as a narrative and affirmative ideology in france, what earmarks fredette’s study is her intersectional positionality addressing simultaneously race, gender and ethnic locations of immigrants. breaking through the homogeneity of official claims on muslim religiosity, fredette has moved beyond – with the interviewees at times appropriating or even negating their hybrid identities. 3 works cited hancock, angemarie. 2004. the politics of disgust: the public identity of the welfare queen. new york: new york university press. moore, kathleen. 2010. the unfamiliar abode: islamic law in the united states and britain. new york: oxford university press. scott, joan wallach. 2005. parité! sexual equality and the crisis of french universalism. chicago: university of chicago press simi k. salim is a doctoral research scholar at the department of humanities and social sciences, indian institute of technology, madras. her broad research area includes narratives of muslim women, sacred spaces, postcolonial feminism(s), postsecular studies and post 9/11 literature. / © 2019 simi k. salim microsoft word clark final.docx 1 which type of bigfoot do you believe in?: strategies for managing deviance review by tom clark bader, christopher d., and joseph o. baker. deviance management: insiders, outsiders, hiders, and drifters. university of california press, 2019, pp. 232 isbn 9780520304499 do you think that you could be considered deviant in some way? perhaps you spend your weekends searching for ‘the wood ape,’ but are afraid of telling people at work? or have you found yourself trying to convince your family that your habit for smoking cannabis isn’t as bad as they think it might be? questions like these are at the heart of christopher bader and joseph baker’s new book – deviance management that seeks to examine how people who find themselves labelled ‘deviant’ attempt to manage their identities. their overarching answer to this problem is underwritten by the basic premise that like all identities, deviant identities are inherently social. indeed, actions or attributes that are labelled as deviant often come into conflict with other facets of our identities that are rooted in conformity and depending on the context, there is variation in the relative salience of those deviant/conforming identities. to this end, bader and baker argue that there are some very particular strategies that individuals and communities use in response to being labelled as ‘deviant.’ as you might have guessed, these are summarized in the subtitle of the book: ‘insiders, outsiders, hiders, and drifters.’ the ‘outsider’ is, of course, the classic version of the deviant that was first explored in howard becker’s examination of marijuana users in the jazz clubs of chicago. these 2 are the people who prefer to seek out deviant subcultures rather than be part of more mainstream ones. outsiders are not interested in being seen to act in accordance to social convention and instead actively incorporate their deviant status into how they see themselves. ‘insiders,’ on the other hand, are those who hold a strong commitment to a perceived deviant identity whilst simultaneously holding a strong attachment to a conventional lifestyle. as the authors highlight, as an active and visible member of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints (mormonism), this is exactly the position that mitt romney found himself in when he attempted to run for president in 2012: how could he become president when a significant number of the most ardent base of voters for the republican party found his religion heretical? the answer was to take an insider approach and try to convince conventional people that his religious conviction was not as strange as some might assume. ‘hiders’ have a different problem. they attempt to keep their deviant status from public view and will typically avoid making strong connections with deviant subcultures because they fear that discovery will result in public shame. this often leads to them exaggerating their conventionality. indeed, as is well discussed within the book, there are any number of public figures who have been vocal opponents of homosexuality, only to be later caught engaging in same-sex affairs. the final management strategy is, perhaps, the most nuanced because ‘drifters’ don’t really appear to actively manage their deviant status at all. they typically have weak attachments to both conventional society and the subcultures that they might otherwise be placed within. they do not feel motivated to conform and have little regard of any costs or informal sanctions they might incur because of their actions. whilst they might find themselves loosely connected to a particular deviant subculture, they are primarily led by impulse and opportunity. stanley, the protagonist in clifford shaw’s the jackroller (1930), spent much of his life falling in and out of work and crime, not to mention family life and social isolation. his life-course was marked by aimless diversity rather than purposeful planning. bader and baker’s framework is articulated and discussed in the first half of the book and they weave a number of insightful examples into the text to illuminate their ideal types. in this 3 respect, the strategies of deviance management they introduce are very useful because they help to further emphasise that not everyone approaches a deviant identity in the same way. instead, a deviant status is negotiated by those individuals and communities who are so labelled and context does clearly matter in respect to the substantive nature of the deviance and the particular response to it. but as intuitive as their framework might be, is there any empirical evidence for it? anyone who is familiar with their previous work – which includes paranormal america (2010), america’s four gods (2010), and american secularism (2015) will not be surprised to find a wealth of quantitative and qualitative material in support of their argument. the second half of the book is dedicated to making a detailed investigation of how their strategies might be realised within three subcultures that have, at one time or another, found themselves viewed as deviant. drawing on a mix of empirical evidence taken from participant observation, survey data, and a mix of historical and cultural analysis, they variously examine ‘bigfoot’ subcultures, lgbtq communities, and, the women’s organisation for national prohibition reform (wonpr). parallels are also drawn between the final case and more contemporary movements toward the normalisation of cannabis in the usa, and there’s even room for a visit to a small, but notorious, baptist church in kansas. given that it draws upon ethnographic data, perhaps the most interesting of these cases to readers of this forum is the chapter on bigfoot or ‘the wood ape’ as it’s known by some enthusiasts. according to bader and baker, there are two bigfoot subcultures: naturalists and paranormalists. those in ‘the flesh and blood’ camp see bigfoot as an undiscovered higher order primate and, as such, direct their attention to catching and documenting the creature often using scientific discourse to legitimate their activities. alternatively, there are those that believe bigfoot is actually an interdimensional being that has a supernatural capacity to move through time, space, and mind. their attempts to look for the creature are not designed to catalogue and record its existence, but to commune with a deeply spiritual entity. bigfoot naturalists typically attempt to disassociate themselves from the paranormalists, and the paranormalists, unsurprisingly enough, are horrified at the thought of trying to catch and kill such a liminal creature. 4 but here is where things get even more interesting. by taking a measurement of their investment in conventional and deviant identities, the authors are able to demonstrate that attendees at the 2009 texas bigfoot research conference can be classified into distinct groups of drifters, hiders, insiders and outsiders. more specifically, they offer some intriguing evidence to suggest that naturalists and paranormalists might also take different approaches to managing their deviant status. all those who selected a paranormal explanation for the bigfoot phenomena also demonstrate strong traits associated with outsiders, and all those who were appeared to be insiders selected the naturalistic explanation. the relatively small sample and the naturalist orientation of the conference means that the results cannot be considered exhaustive or conclusive, but they are certainly suggestive that the framework can have a useful degree of predictive validity. indeed, on one hand, the book serves as valuable demonstration of how to build a theoretical framework from general observation, and then test it using a variety of empirical evidence. on the other, it provides a valuable direction for scholars looking to examine how people negotiate the intersections of deviant and conforming identities. in this respect, the inclusion of a closing chapter that firmly argues for a renewed interest in the sociology of deviance, and the necessity to use mixed methods in such an investigation, is a very welcome one. as their book makes clear, taking such an approach is necessary because hard-line hiders and drifters are, by their very nature, not likely to show up in standard quantitative data. but as the book also repeatedly demonstrates, wide-ranging quantitative data can also be very usefully employed to reveal overarching patterns of deviance management across time and place. so, regardless of which type of bigfoot you believe in, there’s plenty of evidence on offer here to suggest that whilst all outsiders might be deviant, not all deviants are outsiders. dr tom clark is a lecturer in research methods at the university of sheffield. he is interested in all aspects of method and methodology, particularly with respect to learning and teaching. his other interests have variously focussed on the sociology of evil, student experiences of higher education, and football fandom. 5 works cited: bader, christopher, and froese, paul. 2010. america’s four gods. oxford: oxford university press. bader, christopher, mencken, frederick carson, and baker, joseph. 2010. paranormal america: ghost encounters, ufo sightings, bigfoot hunts, and other curiosities in religion and culture. new york: nyu press. baker, joseph, and smith, buster. 2015. american secularism: cultural contours of nonreligious belief systems. new york: nyu press. becker, howard. 1963. outsiders: studies in the sociology of deviance. new york: the free press. shaw, clifford. 1930. the jackroller: a delinquent boy’s own story. chicago: university of chicago press. © 2020 tom clark 1 "history making" and the problem of religion in the neolithic review by mattia cartolano religion, history, and place in the origin of settled life by ian hodder university press of colorado, 2018 religion, history, and place in the origin of settled life is a new episode of the templeton saga led by ian hodder and is about the concept of “history-making”. this volume follows previous work on the nine-thousand-year old town, çatalhöyük, supported by the john templeton foundation, in particular, another publication titled religion in the emergence of civilization (2010) when hodder and pels introduced the idea of “history houses.” here again, a team of specialists tries to unveil the spirituality and possible religious beliefs of early farming communities, who practiced ritual ceremonies and constructed special buildings that have constituted the fundamental cultural framework of their new sedentary life. the leitmotif of this book goes around the continuous endeavors of neolithic populations to make connections with the ancient past, in other words, to establish a history line that strengthens affiliation and commitment to a place and a group identity. this idea is supported by a series of archaeological examples, such as the repetitive construction of buildings on the same location, in-house burial practices, circulation of plastered skulls and reuse of older architectural features that are frequently present in the neolithic world. this book is constituted by ten papers, including hodder’s introductory chapter, that generally focuses on some aspects and archaeological examples in which the idea of “history-making” is traceable. most of the contributors are well-known experts in the neolithic in southwest asia who have worked in important neolithic sites and have a thorough understanding of the archaeological data under discussion, which gives strength to the arguments of this volume. in the introduction, hodder presents two types or scales of “history-making”: one that concerns the public attention and the other one that regards a more restricted, and private sphere. this interesting distinction offers the opportunity for a 2 productive debate on the private-public social differentiations that are visible among the pre-pottery neolithic communities as of the 9th millenium bc. in this regard, first hodder and then lecari in last chapter propose an interactive approach to the research issues through the 3d reconstruction of çatalhöyük “shrines” that would allow users to perceive the archaeological contexts under a different light and provide alternative interpretations of the data, which might not be visible through the traditional bi-dimensional picture. this digital approach is also suggested in chapter 1 by schults and widman who tried to simulate religious entanglement at çatalhöyük. the computer-based system is grounded on the amount (low/high) social investment that is determined by a complex system of variables, to which some are taken from experimental studies on contemporary societies (e.g., delay of gratification) that, i think, it might not appropriately reflect neolithic lifeway and decision making. a large part of this paper is dedicated to explain the model and to run the computer simulation along with a series of speculative assumptions (the entanglement theory in primis) that substantially limit and constrain the results of this work, as recognized by the authors in the conclusion. chapter 2 examines the relationships between the emergence of settle life in the central zagros (iran and iraq) and the one at çatalhöyük. here, wendy matthews’ presents a micro-stratigraphic and micromorphological analysis of deposits, profiles and residues. she argues that ritual activity in the zagros was much more intense than previously thought and, similarly to what happens in other regions of the near east, the communities of bestansur and at sheikh-e abad manifest a comparable behavior of “history-making” with regard to burial practices and the use of public structures. goring-morris and belfer-cohen in chapter 3 highlight the millenary ritual traditions of epipaleolithic and neolithic societies in south levant. they rightly argue that evidence of “history-making” appears well before the establishment of a delayed-return economy. already with the kebaran and, more predominantly, with the natufians, attempts in establishing a strong communal affiliation through the cult of ancestor and territorial attachment (e.g., living and returning to the same campsite). the two israeli archaeologists suggest the idea of ‘security blanket’ (p.108) which stands for the continuous attempt of early holocene individuals to connect with the past as a form of psychological need to cope with new life changes. the extraordinary enclosures at göbekli tepe have puzzled many researchers and it is still unclear whether the engravings on the t-shaped pillars represent links with former ancestors or they tell instead a mythical a temporal story. what lee clare and his colleagues propose in chapter 4 is to examine the life cycle of the enclosures mentioned above. the construction, management, and burial of such monumental structures suggest an intentional legitimization of the property and political power of 3 the elites, which must have been strengthened by an historical backup. strong commitment to a place and social memory is manifested in other archeological contexts, such as körtik tepe and aşıklı (chapters 5-7). circulation of stone vessel fragments, standardization of platelet motifs and rich burial practices are the main arguments that benz and colleagues use for criticizing hayden’s theory that intensification of food production and accumulation is led by ‘powerhungry aggrandizers’ (p.137). whereas anspach in chapter 7 is convinced that hearths have played a vital role in the development of ritual life. more than representing a simple domestic feature, duru (excellent review of the concept of neolithization on p.164s) highlights the increasing division between private and public sphere from the early to the late phases of occupation at aşıklı that fostered the phenomenon of alienation and privatization in the neolithic house life. the last chapters of this book is a return to çatalhöyük context. by borrowing from lévistrauss the concept of “house society,” joyce (chapter 8) raises the issue of property in circumstances where “history-making” attempts also imply a sense of ownership to land, a house, animals, etc. as manifested in some ethnographic examples, house property is not only determined by material estate but also significantly supported by its immaterial aspects such as names, styles, and titles. techniques of pottery production at çatalhöyük could represent this immaterial form of distinguishing group affiliation. in chapter 9, christine tsoraki instead looks at unusual cluster of ground stones in çatalhöyük building 77. the analysis suggests that fragments of worked stones have been deliberately deposited as part of a ritual related to building abandonment. knowing that ground stones have been important not only for food processing but also for manufacturing other tools and ornaments, it is suggested here that the practices of depositing a ground stone might be a sodality-based form of ritual/history making practices. religion, history, and place in the origin of settled life is a good book for engaging a discussion about religion, history, and ritual in the early sedentary communities of southwest asia. nevertheless, the question of religion in the neolithic is still unsolved and probably will never be thoroughly answered. some of the authors (e.g., goring-morris and belfer-cohen) have not even mentioned the word religion in their papers. as marion benz aptly pointed out (p.138), the term religion implies a broader discussion of a series of prerequisites and other concepts, such as dogma and authority, which also diverge from the archaeological themes discussed here. probably the concept of religion is not yet ready to be adequately included in the neolithic narratives. we hope that in the next episode hodder and colleagues will focus on other aspects (e.g., consciousness) more closely related to religious practices. 4 mattia cartolano is a phd student (arch funded) in the department of archaeology at university of liverpool. © 2018 mattia cartolano 1 the socialization of the financial instruments review by ehsan lor afshar the social life of financial derivatives: markets, risk, and time edward lipuma duke university press, 2017 according to edward lipuma, a dominant name in the anthropology of finance, we now live in a new and transformative phase of capitalism in which the proportion of wealth “held in financial as opposed to physical assets” is continually growing. this monetary capitalism is increasingly marked by financialization, speculation, risks, creation of derivative instruments, and circulation rather than production. to comprehend the economy of present and its politics, lipuma argues, we need an adequate theorization of the social life of the new financial instruments such as the derivatives (p. 2). his project, thus, aims to offer an articulate social theory of the derivative, its markets, and the agency of those who drive these markets. he investigates the interrelated dynamics between the social, the culture and the subjectivity that engender the derivative and simultaneously are transformed by it. institutions of knowledge and finance are central to this dynamic whose primary function is reproducing the derivative-driven capitalism. in ten chapters and close to 400 pages, lipuma tries to explore sociostructural aspects of this new phase of capitalism. as each chapter deals with only one aspect, such as temporality, performativity, and rituality of the derivative markets they could be read independently. lipuma’s argument is built on his two decades of experience and observations as both an active trader in the derivative markets and a researcher who has analyzed thousands of hours of financial media broadcasting. his background in economics in addition to his longtime engagement with the derivative markets have well positioned him to assess the financial markets. 2 having argued crises can best illuminate the hidden sociality of financial markets and the performativity of those markets, he takes the financial crisis of 2008 as his departing point. according to lipuma, the financial view is unable to capture the crisis because it tends to remove the sociostructural and is mainly interested in working only with “wayward individuals.” the social aspects of financial markets, for this reason, have remained invisible to the financial eye. a social theory of finance not only helps us to construct a better understanding of the crisis but also shows how a derivative-inspired crisis is fundamentally different from those motivated by a withdrawal of cash from banking systems. whereas the finance economics tries to naturalize and individualize financial markets and their participants, a social analysis illustrates markets are in fact relational and products of social life, infused with exchange and use values. the crisis, for lipuma, contains epistemological and intellectual merit. it was only because of the crisis that one was able to comprehend how the knowledge produced about economy and finance was to a great extent flawed and misleading. in fact, the crisis invited a reconsideration of such well-established economic theories as “markets are efficient and self-correcting” and “systematic failure is impossible,” that were previously imagined as unquestionable. the crisis has also revealed that how the financial markets are increasingly inclined towards risks, speculation and circulation rather than work and production. the book benefits from the concepts and perspectives developed in social sciences to portray the crisis and its nurturing environment as being generated through the relatively new circulatory capitalism. concepts like performativity, objectification and sociality were frequently employed to portray people’s lives and experiences as the social grounding of the derivative. therefore, the derivative is considered as a form of value production which requires and reproduces its own unique markets, culture, and subjectivity. subjects, for instance, in this monetary capitalism are required to advance their financial literacy and deepen their speculative ethos to sustain a life with some security. the first chapter of the book investigates the question of what a derivative is and how it works. the author’s answer to this question expands from ideology to phenomenology and history. at the ideological level derivatives are mechanisms for making money and profit. at the phenomenological level, however, derivatives are “relations about relations” (p. 28). time and volatility are the central parts of these relations and accordingly central parts of wealth-making strategies. what is at stake is the 3 relative change or volatility in the relationships between underliers over the specified time. an underlier is an entity, a commodity or a financial index, whose price gives value to the derivative. in other words, the derivative is a time-dependent wager on the volatility of underliers (p. 37). since the very existence of the derivative and its markets depend on volatility, they require the social world with its enormous disruptive forces to continually destabilize the market. from a temporal perspective, the derivative markets are the “historically determined yet arbitrary means by which capitalism assigns value to capital at risk when it evolves a transformed platform for selfexpansion whose mainspring is the circularization of nation state based production” (p. 29). this idea is developed under the author’s notion of “deterritorialization of economy.” deterritorialization of an economy refers to the conditions in which capitalism transforms from the independence of productive economies to interconnectedness of derivative markets. the second chapter explores the relationship between derivatives and production of knowledge (e.g., big data) in regard to the crisis. what kind of knowledge do agents use to reproduce the markets and how do those markets reproduce agents who populate them? high-money finance is getting increasingly complicated and invisible to academics as it tends to happen behind closed doors. lipuma suggests that “an alternative theorization of the social,” as a prerequisite to comprehend the financial markets, not only considers the derivatives as global and intrinsic to the production of (abstract) value, but also treats culture and the production of knowledge as intrinsic to the social form of derivative driven capitalism” (p. 114). a social theory of the practice of derivative creation and circulation is outlined in chapter 3. the first step to set out such an approach is to consider the financial markets as “socially imagined totalities.” the second principle is to understand the construction of the objects, be they the markets or the derivatives, the objects of investigation are the product of humans’ collective actions. in addition, the objectification of these markets requires scholars to account for a performative dimension that directs inherent rituality of social practices. a financial habitus founded on a speculative ethos constitutes the heart of lipuma’s social theory of the derivatives. the social theory of finance, according to lipuma, must entail eight principles: multiple determinations; historical specificity; theoretical openness; social collectivity; agency’s production; the doctrine of realism; social practice; and self-reflexivity. temporality is an essential part of each market. in fact, markets’ participants build their relationships on their assumptions about the continuity of those markets. the fourth chapter of the book explores the 4 temporality of the derivative markets which allows individual agents to construct the markets through their collective actions. here, lipuma’s argument is the derivative market’s internal temporal dynamic generates the propensity for instability through its inevitable continually risk-increasing process (p. 144). the idea of the temporality of the financial markets has been stretched to the fifth chapter which discusses the social grounds for producing and reproducing of the derivative markets. the derivative markets first and foremost enact a presupposition of the continuity of transactions. chapters seven and eight deal with the agents and their practices in the derivative markets. concepts such as the speculative ethos, the financial habitus, and the monetized subjectivity have been developed to take the analysis beyond the simplistic narrative of greed and egotism. in general, with little or no reference to the political system and power relations, this book remains relatively apolitical, despite the tremendous potential overlaps with political economy. specifically, when you come from a social sciences background, you expect a severe criticism of the political system while reading a book about capitalism. however, if you can neglect this shortcoming, you will find the book extremely interesting in terms of opening new windows to the financial landscape. ehsan lor afshar is a phd student of anthropology at binghamton university-state university of new york. his work explores the intersection of international borders and illegal economies. © 2018 ehsan lor afshar year in review 2020 has been a turbulent year – to put it mildly. and as the world has seemed at times to come to a standstill, academic publishing has continued, and in some corners increased. while the pandemic has in many ways enhanced and amplified various forms of connectivity, it has also engendered and exacerbated exclusions and disconnections in multiple ways. hence, the last year has provided many a challenge, but also opportunities to be inventive, to think about why we do things in certain ways and to look forward. in this year’s letter from the editors we will begin by addressing some of the issues motivating our continuous transformation of the forum and how we have been addressing the concerns we noted in 2019. thereafter, we will introduce even more possibilities for interactive reviews and scholarly conversation for the year to come, as well as an exciting new development for the anthropology book forum. looking back: 2020 year in review as an open access journal, committed to a set of principles that aims to reduce barriers to accessibility, the forum publishes reviews weekly, every monday. while we believe open access is a significant avenue towards increasingly accessibility, we also acknowledge the multiple experiences and modes of exclusion which we believe editors and academic publishers could play a greater role in addressing. to this end, we have been exploring and experimenting with new modes of engagement, new forms of written, audio and visual review formats, a broadened focus on more diverse titles relevant to anthropology while also developing new partnerships and relationships with academic publishers. in our previous year in review we noted that despite the four-field approach to anthropology in the united states, we saw less overall engagement from archaeologists. last year, we focused on addressing the gap between the number of reviews we receive and publish of archaeology titles and those of socio-cultural titles. this year, we have carried on our concern with a more representative publishing schedule with an aim to publish more equitably from the four fields. during 2020 we published a significant number of reviews of archaeology titles, and we also noticed an increasing interest in medical and biological anthropology titles. in the year to come, we hope to continue to cultivate more engagement from scholars and students working in these fields. during the past year, we began experimenting with audio reviews to complement the written form, and we also expanded review options to include joint reviews and review articles. this year we have also looked to include those titles that are of central interest to anthropologists, but which are often listed under fields such as ‘gender studies,’ ‘urban studies,’ or ‘african 1 https://www.anthropology-news.org/?book-review=anthropology-book-forum-year-in-review https://journals.sfu.ca/abf/index.php/abf/about/history studies,’ and thus overlooked by publishers uploading titles to our site. we have also focused on a more inclusive approach to those publishers with whom we work. while we continue to work closely with large academic publishers, we have also sought out small-scale publishers (including those especially run by women and minorities) in order to expand the titles available for review and our engagement with potentially marginalized conversations and scholarly contributions. currently, we work with approximately 100 publishers and are actively expanding our list of partners. in addition, we are encouraging reviewers to review non-english titles to expand the range of work featured by the forum. similarly, by allowing reviewers to also request titles not already listed on our site, we also hope that the variety of titles and subjects reviewed has and will be further diversified. looking forward: 2021 as delineated above, we believe book reviews are not just summaries of academic texts; they are engagements with scholarship, ideas and authors. as such, in the coming year we aim to experiment with new methods for engagement with scholarship relevant to anthropology, broadly defined. given the ongoing home-based nature of current research and academic engagement, we foresee spaces such as the anthropology book forum playing a crucial role in continuing a vibrant exchange of knowledge. while we will continue to publish weekly reviews in writing as well as in audio format, we also want to make the forum a more interactive, living space. we are therefore introducing author book talks, author interviews, and video reviews. let’s go over these different formats a little bit more in detail: author book talks: here we will offer the author a platform to tell the story behind their book/video. the idea is not to provide their own summary of the book, but rather to contextualize their research, point the audience towards the larger contribution of their work, for both academia and a more general public. these talks will be published alongside a written review (not authored by the book author). author interviews: this will be a space similar to the author talks but now directed by an interviewer. we will work to facilitate connections between those interested in producing an interview as a form of review with the book author as well as providing a copy of the book under discussion. we hope that this mode of review will also provide an opportunity to bring researchers, faculty, and students together for a conversation that might otherwise not be possible. video reviews: these reviews will function much as a regular written/audio review, only with the reviewer present ‘physically’ reading the review. we find that during these times of social distancing, in addition to more enduring forms of separation, it is important to offer spaces where not only written letters or recorded words can be offered at the forum, but that authors and reviewers alike can be ‘present,’ albeit virtually. finally, we are excited to announce that the forum will be expanding and moving to a site of its own in the spring of 2021! the new site will facilitate the expansion of review formats, 2 cross-disciplinary conversations as well as provide a space for ongoing experimentation and dialogue. summing up we hope that by continuing to keep reviews coming regularly, and by offering these more interactive formats and expanded opportunities for engagement, the anthropology book forum can play a part in vivid and intellectually stimulating conversations. last, but not least, we want to thank our readers and the increasing number of publishers offering us their titles for review. we are confident that the forum will continue to grow during 2021 and that we will, with your help, continue to offer a useful and dynamic resource for knowledge exchange. your editors, emilia groupp and rasmus rodineliussen facebook book reviews books available for review © 2020 emilia groupp and rasmus rodineliussen 3 http://journals.sfu.ca/abf/index.php/abf/objectsforreview http://www.anthropology-news.org/?post_type=book-review https://www.facebook.com/anthropology-book-forum-117305059654437/?eid=ardvvc70avzjy4e4ahque5wwu7odra4lo8uhzvzxp6c1kvbtaekxymzu4sni6-rgfqm0_61dsqu2v7mt microsoft word bose review_final.docx 1 interrogating non-innocent kinship kathryn a mariner. 2019. contingent kinship: the flows and futures of adoption in the united states. university of california press, 256 pp. isbn: 9780520299566 keywords: kinship, adoption, futures, race, children kathryn mariner’s contingent kinship opens up the backstage work in adoption which she encounters through her collaboration with an adoption agency located between chicago’s affluent suburb and the city’s low-income neighbourhoods. mariner’s focus is pre-birth adoption, where a contract is drawn between expectant mothers (predominantly african american and ethnic minority women) and prospective parents. as is known in the case of surrogacy, intended parents lay claim on the womb of the surrogate; in the case of adoption, prospective parents lay claim on their ability to give the unborn child a better future. mariner acknowledges the loop this can create – an imagined future for an imagined child. mariner approaches adoption as an artefact and unpacks the way this artefact is constructed and given value. her theoretical framework draws from viviana zelizer’s construction of kinship not only as a field of cultural production, but also structured by and in turn structuring several economic and political factors. kinship through adoption does not reside only in the innocent space of intimacy, but rather mirrors speculation one finds in the market. this vocabulary of the market is maintained throughout the monograph with debates and discussions pegged around investments and futures. it is this ‘intimate speculation,’ which may or may not result in ‘futures’ of parenting that mariner calls ‘contingent kinship.’ contingency is conceptualized as a characteristic barrier between investments in kinship and desired futures. mariner demonstrates how contingency, 2 conceived as a disruptive experience for adoptive parents and the adoption agency masks, and is privileged over the systematic and structural contingencies that mark the everyday lives of expectant mothers, who are primarily women of colour, migrant workers and the disenfranchised in america. this book is about a specific moment in the history of adoption in america, after the recession, and how state and market tactics of disciplining and governing citizen bodies through social welfare, employment, housing, and inflation come to determine politics of reproduction, of which adoption is an important element. the first chapter looks at the way in which the figure and body of the expectant mother are both constructed and subject to surveillance. the body of the expectant mother, mariner says is turned inside out by science and social workers’ enquires into her pregnancy to authenticate her status as an expectant mother. the expectant mother is always viewed with suspicion with regards to her intention to place her child for adoption. over the chapters mariner evokes the figure of the ‘welfare queen’ to discuss the cultural justifications that social worders encounter while reflecting upon a ‘fall through’ (technical term in case the expectant mother decides to eventually parent the child) as both an emotional as well as financial loss. the second chapter creates a diorama of the home study inspection (hsi), a crucial operation within the official adoption process. here mariner exposes the power relations that manifest during a hsi between social workers and adoptive parents. aspects of privacy as a valued commodity within middle-class american society are breached by the presence of the state (in the form of the social worker) in the houses of adoptive parents. the hsi then is a highly performative moment when adoptive parents have to stage (with a certain degree of disdain) their selves, their everyday lives and the physical spaces within which these unravel. the third chapter unpacks the critical role of social workers by highlighting their work as ‘brokers, therapists, fortune-tellers, and risk managers’ (97). the adoption process is rife with contingency and uncertainty for both the social workers and adoptive parents – ranging from the disappearance of the expectant mother, to the appearance of the birth father, to the health of the child. this period is marked by the affective labour of social workers who devise various informal and organized strategies to both manage and mitigate the risks and contingencies that surround adoption. the fourth chapter draws upon discussions around ‘the value of children’ (zelizer 1985) to address the moral discomfort that is 3 anticipated when adoption of children is viewed through a commercial lens, namely as a monetary transaction between concerned parties. here mariner focuses on the many ways both social workers and adoptive parents articulate or rather de-articulate the role of money involved in fulfilling one’s desire for a child by adoption. last, mariner provides a micro perspective to understand a more global phenomenon, through the closure of the agency with she collaborated throughout her ethnography. her specific enquiry in this chapter is about the manner in which ‘the quiet death of a small adoption agency’ (161) can reveal how kinship as intimate speculation is contingent upon politics of endowments, donations, and public financial support in the united states after recession. borrowing marcus’ classic markers of a multi-sited ethnography, the author follows people, things and metaphors (marcus 1995). she follows and works with social workers who, like all brokers, occupy a liminal space that allows them access to the houses of middleand upper-class white americans, and low-income neighbourhoods where expectant mothers usually reside. the book maps the localized world of the adoption agency and neighbourhoods in chicago. the spaces that we traverse indicate the way capital, affective networks and geography intermingle. the author follows things. there are a number of ways in which we may understand ‘things’ in this ethnography. money as a thing, legitimized through ‘allowable legal expenses to expectant mothers,’ yet recalling anxieties and discomforts about the entanglement of intimacy and economics. the adoption agency as a thing, which has its own agentive function of weaving futures (through successful adoptive kinships) as well as severing them (separating birth mothers from their children). the author follows the metaphor of the child. mariner theorizes the way race and capital in america determines who counts as a child, based on who has the possibility for a future. this conceptualization excludes children who are parented in low-income single women-led african american and ethnic minority households. on the other hand, a child desired through adoption by white heterosexual couples is no longer an african american or ethnic child, but is constructed as a gift, ‘a positive investment in everyone’s future, in a national future.’ (17) the descriptions in this book are thick while being generative of data. the author explores multiple subject positions, while not meandering from her political commitment to systematically marginalized expectant mothers, to small not-for-profit agencies, and to scholarship that exposes 4 the way cultural determinants of who deserves to be a parent ensures the production of surplus capital. we meet people. we visit neighbourhoods. we visit homes. we encounter hope. we encounter hopelessness. we encounter limbo. the book is also a brilliant example of collaborative ethnography, where the author and the social workers within the agency share and inform each other’s’ works. one usually finds the author in the backseat of a social worker usually driving an expectant mother for a clinical appointment or running errands to buy daily groceries for expectant mothers or trying to strategize in anticipation of a fall-through. authorship is therefore an emergent effect that reveals its own construction through dialogue, shared performance and intimate exchanges. this book will be of use to those interested in and can be taught as part of graduate courses on kinship and race in the united states, gender and reproduction, and objects, gifts and commodities. references marcus, george e. “ethnography in/of the world system: the emergence of multi-sited ethnography.” annual review of anthropology, 24 (1995): 95-117. zelizer, viviana. pricing the priceless child: the changing social value of children. princeton, nj: princeton university press (1985). chandan bose is assistant professor of anthropology at the indian institute of technology hyderabad. he divides his research and writing between material culture in south asia, and emerging practices in adoption in contemporary india. © 2020 chandan bose microsoft word fazzino development.doc 1 disciplinary progress, progressivism, and professionalism: re-politicizing d/development paths forward review by david fazzino anthropology and development: challenges for the twenty-first century by: katy gardner and david lewis pluto press, 2015 in light of two decades of changes within and outside the practice and study of development, katy gardner and david lewis build off their earlier edition of this same book, anthropology and development, by adding a clear and accessible review of the pertinent literature published in the last twenty years. they revisit old debates within anthropology between the applied and academic aspects of the discipline in the contemporary context of neoliberalism and its cooptation of radical critique. this second edition of anthropology and development: challenges for the twenty-first century provides an excellent overview of the ideology and materiality of development. there is a clear discussion of the evolution of the concept of development both within and outside anthropology, highlighted by the decision to include a glossary (separated into two sections: 1. “development jargon” and 2. “anthropological jargon”) and a list of acronyms prior to the prelude of the book. many of the issues, debates, case studies, theories, and ethical considerations raised in this book overlapped with the topics i addressed this past semester in my teaching of applied anthropology; it is clear the book will make an excellent accompaniment to many undergraduate anthropology classes that seek to demonstrate the value of ethnography to re-politicize economic development, progress narratives, and neoliberalism generally. in chapter 1, “understanding development: theory and practice into the twenty-first century”, gardner and lewis sketch out the history of development and the changes that it has undergone since 2 1996. amongst these changes are increasing management of development by the private sector and the, “rise of non-western donor countries such as china that offer low-income countries new choices in relation to aid and projects.” (p. 9). gardner and lewis consider the ‘aid industry’ as something that is not going away, and hence do not put too much credence in “simply condemning aid and development work”, but rather focus on, “how anthropology might be used to critique, improve and suggest alternatives to it” (p. 18). they trace out various theories of development from darwin to truman noting the pitfalls of ethnocentrism inherent in evolutionary perspectives in dependency theory which deny agency to supposedly “underdeveloped” countries. gardner and lewis note that neoliberal perspectives have shifted much development work, at all scales, including among ngos, towards an increased emphasis on auditing, managing of resources, and collecting results-driven data for donors (p. 36-37). chapter 2, “applying anthropology”, delves into the history of anthropology highlighting key concepts and discussing the relationship between academic, applied, and engaged anthropology, with special stress on the importance of ethical issues that arise in the practice of anthropology. rather than reify the boundary between applied and academic silos, gardner and lewis argue that emphasis should be placed on, “building a critically engaged, ethically grounded form of public anthropology that can transcend this unhelpfully dichotomous way of thinking. (p. 47). in chapter 3, “the anthropology of development, the authors first revisit their analysis of d/development from 1996 and then move on to consider how, from 2000 onwards, the anthropology of development has shifted in order to avoid what some critics had predicted would be its inevitable demise. development, through its agents and agencies, has morphed time and time again since the success of the projects pursued in its name is superficial, or as the authors put it, “appearance of success is the actual outcome, a performance for a particular audience, for projects involve particular conceptual and linguistic devices which inspire allegiance and conceal ideological differences (mosse, 2005: 12)” (p. 107). gardner and lewis also note the new directions in the anthropology of development that, in some instances, return to the core theoretical works of our discipline, such as those written by mauss and foucault. chapter 4, “anthropologists in development: access, effects and control”, considers the liberating potential, following habermas (1971 [1968]), of anthropological work to reframe development in light 3 of three lenses: access (p. 127), effects (p. 135) and control (p. 140). throughout the text, but particularly in this chapter, gardner and lewis provide the reader with numerous case studies to support their framework for an analysis of development projects. this chapter also includes boxes which indicate key questions to consider for each of the three lenses: access (box p. 134), effects (box p. 137) and control (box p. 140). these lenses are particularly useful frameworks for utilizing critical thinking in regards to project development at all scales, further illustrating the value of anthropological analysis. chapter 5, “when good ideas turn bad: the dominant discourse bites back”, highlights discursive shifts driven by the proponents of neoliberal ideologies who seek to depoliticize development by maintaining a veneer of concern over social inequality. this terminological redefinition should remind us of the debates among anthropologists concerning the concept of culture after lay commentators increasingly hijacked its use for their own purposes. correspondingly, some anthropologists sought to distance the discipline from our core concept, however as gardner and lewis point out, “simply because some agencies or organisations are misusing or abusing terms or practices does not mean that in other contexts they have lost their bite” (p. 151). in their final words to the reader, “conclusion: anthropology, development and twenty-first-century challenges”, gardner and lewis again note the synergistic potential of applied and academic works in anthropology. it is in this conclusion where the authors forcibly lay out their call to action for anthropology, stating, “while the study of ‘schemes of improvement’ and ‘aidnography’ has been useful, it is time for a newly invigorated anthropology of development that places poverty and inequality at the centre of the enquiry.” (p.180). gardner and lewis lay out the challenges we, as scholars, face moving forward: first, to document and explain continuing and deepening inequality at all scales; second, to identify, analyse and challenge the anti-politics of development; third, to challenge normative frameworks, for example of sexuality, gender, race, and western secularism (p. 181); finally, to describe alternative ways of seeing and doing, which aim to improve the wider wellbeing of populations but move beyond growth, development, and modernisation. (p. 182). they call on anthropologists to continue our ethnographic work, whether this be in applied or academic contexts, to transform our approach to and outlook on development, and to move beyond the projects of development. given the various and sometimes contradictory renderings of development by differentially situated organizations, entities, activists, and scholars this book is a useful overview of 4 key debates, theoretical predispositions, and actions in the world that should be read by those who are active in the fields associated with development. by introducing important anthropological works, it also serves as a primer and a key foundational text ideal for undergraduates but also suitable for anyone seeking to acquire greater familiarity with the concept and study of development. works cited: habermas, juergen. 1971 [1968]. knowledge and human interests (trans.) j. shapiro. boston: beacon press david fazzino, assistant professor of anthropology at bloomsburg university of pennsylvania, is a cultural anthropologist trained in law and agro-ecology. his research interests include environmental anthropology, structural violence, intellectual property rights, food and energy policy, and medical anthropology. his website is: https://bloomu.academia.edu/davidfazzino © 2018 david fazzino welfare for profits' sake review by francisco arqueros university of almería, spain maggie, d. 2019. feeding the crisis: care and abandonment in america's food safety net. university of california press. the return to nearly full employment rates after the great recession (20082009) has not palliated the need for mass food assistance in the united states. in 2012, over 40 million americans received food assistance from emergency food providers (efps) such as faith-based institutions, senior centers, grassroots community organizations and college campuses; 47 million received (public) food stamps. after the “recovery” of the economy those on food stamps were still numbered at over 42 million in 2017 and over 40 million received food from efps. hunger is an everyday reality in the usa. why has there been such a high number of people receiving food assistance in an expanding economy close to full employment? according to feeding the crisis, the role of the growing food safety net is “to create the optimal conditions for companies and individuals to act in ways that promote economic growth” (15). large scale changes in the economy since the 1980s (not described in the book) have brought about the expansion of a low-wage labor force (18) and policies designed to push people into the labor market (16). in that context, public assistance has been reconfigured as “work support” to subsidize lowwage workers (4). therefore, increasing state support for food assistance programs helps to keep wages low as a basis for economic growth (32, 14). on the other hand, the unemployed have been cut off from public assistance programs and made dependent on charity thanks to the contracting out of social assistance to non-for-profit organizations (11). this second development implies a retreat from previously achieved entitlements and basic rights. the twenty-first century in the us is characterized by the emergence of a public-private partnership to govern hunger and food insecurity in new ways (4, 8), but this partnership is not concerned with dealing with the structural causes of precarious employment. feeding the crisis is grounded in fieldwork carried out during two years in a non-for-profit organization, north brooklyn pantry (new york city), where the author worked delivering pantry bags and helped service users with (public assistance) supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap) applications. in the introductory chapter, the author characterizes social assistance (welfare for the poor) in the us as a two-tiered system: snap for the working poor and emergency food programs for the officially unemployed. both tiers are part of the state apparatus though only the latter is run by private, voluntary, non-forprofit organizations (4). here is also where the line is drawn between the deserving and undeserving poor, with (officially recognized) work as the marker of deservingness. another point is that welfare programs in the us rather than being dismantled are expanding. however, their character has changed (3). we are shown in chapter 2 that the food stamps program was introduced and developed in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the war on poverty initiative. it was a universal entitlement as long as citizens met the income requirements and represented an attempt to extend economic citizenship rights (24). the first challenge, under reagan’s administration, was framed as a war against the “culture of dependency,” with work as the path to independence and voluntarism as the solution to poverty, which was the forerunner of workfare. it was also at that time, the 1980s, when emergency food providers started to proliferate. however, “work requirements first” (workfare) did not take off until 1996 under clinton’s administration. chapter 3 introduces the first informants from the food pantry, prototypes of the deserving and undeserving poor. for example, nydia is a worker on maternity leave. when she applies for food stamps, she argues with conviction to the welfare officer, “i work. i pay taxes. i think i'm entitled to this.” adwa, on the other hand, is unemployed and is asked to do a workfare assignment, part of the work experience program, wep, cleaning public parks. she ends up missing days, losing her food stamps and having to work informally to compensate. new york has one of the toughest work requirements in the us (64). although initially intended for cash assistance, these have been extended to food-stamp-only cases. in chapter 4, the focus turns to the under-researched topic of family support and men on welfare. since well-paid work is not an option anymore for many as in the fordist period, food assistance helps men on precarious employment to maintain family ties. chapter 5 deals with volunteers who are also service users in the food pantry. we meet fabiola, diego, angela, and ana. unlike the “truly” well-off volunteers of charity organizations, these volunteers-clients also receive help from the pantry. they work for food. this chapter also deals with the rise of efps. they receive funds from state institutions and constitute “a third rail of the contemporary welfare state” and a “direct response to cutbacks to federal entitlements” (100-101) in the name of “efficiency” (good, altruistic, wageless work). in 2012, efps mobilized 2 million volunteers in the us. however, as one of the informants illustrate, volunteers, particularly those who are also pantry clients, cannot present to welfare officials their free labor as a job to get exempted from work requirements in exchange for assistance (112). chapter 6 deals with the role of food stamps in promoting healthy eating among poor (deserving) workers. the question is a political economy one: unhealthy eating increases public health spending due to high rates of obesity and diabetes which also deteriorate the working capacity and efficiency of the working poor. for the underserving unemployed, on charity, there is no such consideration: new york local authorities do not care about them as they are of no use. the book's main conclusions (chapter 7) are that the huge growth of the food safety net has had very little impact on food security (139) and that addressing the interlocking issues of food insecurity, obesity, and diet-related disease among the poor would require a restoration of economic rights; that is, food and health as basic human rights (142), not in the form of charity (153), and expanding what counts as work (161). this book is timely and important, particularly since the recent recession precipitated by the coronavirus sars-cov2 is consolidating the extension of inequality, poverty and destitution initiated in 2008-9 (the reversal of the tendency in the fordist period). a question is how welfare states (on both sides of the atlantic) will cope with the situation and how the poor will react. in that regard, the tendency appears to be towards increasing workfare and loss of rights and entitlements, particularly for immigrants. the author makes the point that this is particularly the case in the “trump era.” therefore, she makes an appeal to democrats “to admit that welfare reform was a mistake” (169) and to return to a right based approach to hunger and poverty. however, as the author admits workfare was introduced by clinton’s administration and never challenged under obama’s administration. why would democrats revert to a right based approach and challenge a status quo that they have built? this paradox points at one of the gaps in the book. we see how informants struggle individually to survive by working informally or in low paid jobs, applying for food stamps and going to the food pantry. a number of them, the unemployed, refuse work requirements (workfare) because they are paid below minimum wage and lose their stamps. informal jobs or working as volunteers for the pantry are their alternatives. there is no mentioning of any form of organized resistance to workfare whether through work centers, social movements or trade unions. we do not know anything about the grassroot pressure to which some sections of the democratic party, in the absence of a labor party, could be receptive. the book is also difficult to classify as an ethnography since it prioritizes the political economy of the us food security network, based on a review of literature, over ethnographic data, which seems to be brief and lacking depth. it does not engage either with anthropological debates on poverty or social exclusion. its main strength lies in its clarity in characterizing america’s food safety net for a broad audience, making it an excellent text for those working in ngos and policy making in the fields of social assistance, poverty and social exclusion. francisco arqueros holds a phd from maynooth university (ireland). at present he is a research associate in the laboratory of social and cultural anthropology (lasc) at the university of almería, spain. his two lines of research are industrial agriculture and the moral economy of social assistance (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7084-9147). © 2020 francisco arqueros microsoft word douglas sucessful aging.doc 1 success is not all: when ‘failure’ becomes meaningful in late life review by cristina douglas successful aging as a contemporary obsession: global perspectives edited by sarah lamb rutgers university press 2017 successful aging as a contemporary obsession, edited by sarah lamb, is a timely, thought-provoking collection of sociological and anthropological studies that critically tackles the neoliberal, global north paradigm of healthy-active-successful aging. the authors are reputable scholars in the field of aging studies and/or medical anthropology, who have spent their careers investigating the various cultural understandings and practices of aging meaningfully. ‘successful aging’ is understood here, as elsewhere in lamb’s (2014) writings, to refer to a culturalhistorical model of growing old, deeply ingrained in philosophical principles of individualistic personhood, bio-political ideologies of aging as a controllable process rather than a normal life stage, and neoliberal values of productivity in later life. although intending to create a positive view of old age, the paradigm of successful aging ironically ends up, as some of the contributors argue, reinforcing ageist attitudes by “pursuing the goals of agelessness and avoiding oldness” (p. 7). the book does not set out to target directly the tensions and contradictions inherent in the very model and practices of the successful aging ideology; rather, the contributors take a reverse approach. the failures implied by ‘successful aging’ (i.e. being interdependent, relying on families and communities, frailty and decline, both physical and cognitive) are presented as alternative and, more often than not, desirable ways of aging. in this respect, the book does not demonize the ‘successful aging’ movement as altogether wrong – “who wouldn’t want to be healthy, active, fulfilled, and successful?” (p. 3). instead, it aims “to ask such questions [about frailty and vulnerabilities that are independent of 2 individual action], not to offer easy answers but to invite critical dialogue on a wider set of possibilities for imagining what it is to live meaningfully in later life” (p. xii.) the contributions are organized in four parts: “gender, sexuality, and the allure of anti-aging”; “ideals of independence, interdependence, and intimate sociality in later life”; “national policies and everyday practices: individual and collective projects of aging well”; and “medicine, morality, and self: lessons from life’s ends”. these titles allude to the major parameters of the bio-political and philosophical paradigm of successful-aging in late life (i.e. gender and sexuality; autonomy and independence; global and national political agendas; biomedicalization and end of life), but the authors go beyond these theories to point to everyday practices of challenging, negotiating and creating alternative modes of aging meaningfully. these practices not only deny the uniformizing character of the contemporary paradigm, as the cultural and individual differences presented vary greatly, but they also destigmatise frailty, which is antithetical to an ideology of aging focused on maintaining able/unchanging bodies and minds throughout the life course. the authors’ implicit critiques of this paradigm frequently point to the gendered, hetero-normative and individualistic character of what is considered to be successful aging. for example, in north america, older women are pressured to maintain their youthful bodily appearance, while men, whose signs of aging, such as grey hair, are considered appealing, find themselves expected to maintain sexual functionality all the way into late life (chapter 1). the feminine model of successful aging contains similar contradictions: while some women view ‘choosing’ not to maintain a youthful appearance as a condemnable example of self-neglect, others find the refusal of cosmetic intervention, and corresponding opportunity for self-exploration beyond youthful beauty norms and bodily appearance, liberating (chapter 2). in intersection with gender, the authors further explore the hetero-normative ‘white’ character of the successful aging ideology with an account of african-american lesbians and gay men who must contend with ageism as yet another type of discrimination over the course of their lives (chapter 3). the extreme relativity of what it means to age ‘successfully’ is further problematized by models of ‘successful failure’ in other cultures. for example, in mexico, some men embrace erectile disfunction in late life as a moral opportunity to engage in deeper, more responsible, and more affectionate relations with family, rather than understanding it as a shameful malfunction to be fixed (chapter 4). through other empirical cases, the authors expose various articulations of the concept, ‘aging in place’. 3 practices of professional-assisted care, for example, foreground the independence experienced by many late-life chicagoans still residing in their own homes (chapter 5). this form of silenced (inter-) independence, while highly valued by the older beneficiaries, obscures burgeoning social stratification in the realms of health, economics and ethnic status. some professional care-givers put their own health, financial remuneration, and immigration status second to their clients’ needs for comfort, independence, and autonomy. this self-disregard, in turn, can affect the care-givers’ own potential for ‘successfully aging’, by increasing their likelihood of impairment, economic insecurity, and residence distant from support networks later in life. when studied through the network of a religious community, such as catholic nuns (chapter 6), the carer-cared dyad is understood in terms of valuing one’s (permanent) personhood and autonomy—fundamental aspects of successful aging—on a relational basis: the relations within the community of faith that continue after death. in a spiritual community that is experienced as extending past physical death, the personhood of an older individual, even in advanced stages of cognitive decline, is acknowledged and understood as not limited to its earthly embodiment. such a view centres on reciprocal interdependence and a reverse of the activity-passivity divide between physical activity of the young and spiritual activity (i.e. prayer) of the elderly. the authors (chapter 7) go on to present an example of old age understood as opportunity, in the polish national policies of active aging, which include practices of attending third-age universities and gardening. while highly gendered, these practices point to the fact that those experiencing old age are afforded certain opportunities they could not attain in their younger years. these polish policies reveal an interesting aspect of the materiality of old age in the cultural practice of maintaining a tidy garden on a rented plot— also highlighting the value of self-discipline in old age. in chapter 8, the authors move on to more emotional discussions of people living with alzheimer’s, in which the great challenge brought about by cognitive decline is seen as an opportunity for creating moral, compassionate communities. this approach mirrors a later chapter of tales from brazil, in which heroic care for people with alzheimer’s is seen as a dynamic cultural story that shifts the moral focus of sacrifice between the various parties involved (chapter 13). while some papers focus on discourses of ageing at the national level, such as the complicated inheritance of a colonial history in regards to cultural valuations of life stages and family ties (e.g. the case of kenya and uganda; chapter 12; epilogue), others shift focus to the individual level of value negotiations. one example is the case of an older japanese woman who, in spite of her culture’s norms of seriousness, modesty, and endurance, offers a more malleable view on life, frailty and mortality by 4 approaching these life stages with humorous acceptance or, as the author calls it, ‘foolish vitality’ (chapter 10). in other examples from new york city’s elderly, people resist adding positive or negative value to activity and passivity by reframing the aging paradigm as one of ‘comfortable aging’, a model focused on finding ways to cope with pain, frailty and reduced mobility (chapter 14). all these examples point to the importance of positionality of the individuals involved in societies’ ongoing negotiation of value, such as the valuation of physical and mental fitness. these negotiations can become more flexible as people who engage in them age themselves, pointing to the potentiality of old age as a position from which to explore and embrace, rather than deny, late life’s challenges. as someone who approaches the study of aging from an anthropology of death and dying viewpoint, i found the book to offer highly rewarding critical analysis about coming to terms with one’s frailty, vulnerability, and mortality during the stages before death. the book does not draw any parallels from the ‘dying well’ movement, one of the biggest counterparts to the successful aging paradigm, but it can still be quite useful for scholars of both aging and of death and dying studies more generally. the book’s greatest strength, i believe, resides in its range of examples on renegotiating aging as a reflective process that incorporates persons and communities in-the-making, counter to performative, pre-established, and morally-loaded ideologies of individual success. this clearly written and refreshing text could also be read by a larger audience interested or involved in various aspects of aging: policy makers; care-givers; social and health care workers. ultimately, the book offers insightful and sometimes highly emotional accounts of how we find meaning in the limits of our human condition, making it a delightful read regardless of one’s professional orientation. works cited lamb, s. 2014. “permanent personhood or meaningful decline? toward a critical anthropology of successful aging” journal of aging studies 29: 41–52. works cited: cristina douglas is a phd candidate in social anthropology at the university of aberdeen, uk. her research focuses on the relations between people living with a dementia diagnosis and therapyanimals. © 2018 cristina douglas microsoft word danely_final.docx 1 rocking the boat pandian, anand and stuart mclean, eds. 2017. crumpled paper boat: experiments in ethnographic writing. durham, nc: duke university press. pp.242. isbn: 978-8223-6340-8 it is a modest title, maybe, even self-effacing. a crumpled paper boat does not inspire with its swift and sure slicing through the waves, or by the grandiose power of a ship; it’s a creature of whimsy and risk, the fleeting quotidian moment whose poignancy echoes in humble ripples. the image was borrowed from a line in rimbaud’s poem, “the drunken boat,” and indeed, the poetic urge that seems to animate the “paper boat collective” is one that sways and surfs on waves of words and images, deep and bracing. this is the sort of boat i imagine that foucault had in mind when he wrote his essay ‘on other places’ (1986), in which he writes, “a ship is the heterotopia par excellence,” a “place without a place” that is “given over to the infinity of the sea” (1986:27). “in civilization without boats,” he continues, “dreams dry up, espionage takes place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates” (1986: 27). dreams and adventure are passages to other worlds, other modes of knowing, altered states of being, new possibilities. and so the paper boat never seems to rest long in any harbor of theory or style, preferring the “spectral horizons, in-between and looking beyond” (19), beckoning the reader on a journey past well-charted shorelines of ethnographic convention and across a fragile fanning “archipelago” of loosely associated dots of imagination. “what we want,” the authors write, “is an incontinent writing, words that face up to the threat of overflowing, the danger of being overrun” (25). how then, can ethnography, which so often stands in as the ‘face’ of the anthropologist, ‘face up’ to the crash of critiques still rippling from the wake of writing culture? the paper boat collective’s answer demonstrates that not only can ethnography survive, but by incorporating an aesthetic mode of uncertainty, vulnerability, and adventure, it is better equipped to connect with the violent storms and hopeful struggles of a complex and untidy world. the experimental aesthetic is evident before the reader even embarks on the main text. the layout of the contents lists twenty-one dots on the itinerary, bookended by a prologue and an epilogue. the prologue provides a launching point, with the editors boldly declaring “an ethnography carries beings of one world into another one” (1). from there, they set the tone for the introduction, which extends and elaborates on the themes of transportation, transgression, and 2 transcendence.1 the sense of journey is palpable in the persistent exhortation to go beyond: beyond the tangible, beyond the human, beyond oneself, beyond the real. yet this call to move beyond, we are told, does not mean that ethnography, even in unconventional forms such as poetry or fiction, can or should neglect its empirical basis or its responsibility to those whose lives and worlds we seek to (and often fail to) inhabit. this is crucial, since, as michael jackson points out in his chapter, it throws the ethnographer into the conflict between their sense of responsibility to recognize their interlocutors with a humanistic sensitivity on the one hand, and the disciplining demands of scientific rigor on the other. the collected chapters do not resolve this dilemma, but by actively resisting closure, by constantly and carefully shifting voice and register, each, in its own way, creates something new. one of the pleasures of reading crumpled paper boat is imagining oneself in the company of the contributors, gathered around a table in an adobe bungalow in santa fe, new mexico and telling stories-some weaving, others unraveling it again. the atmosphere of relaxed camaraderie, outside of the contexts of academic precarity and professional pressures, not only allows the papers to take more playful risks than usual, but it transports the reader to a dreamlike intellectual exchange with fellow explorers, sharing in a utopian community. angela garcia is the first to tell her story, really a series of stories, told across times, places and media (telephone, letter, prison visitation). here we not only find the expert interweaving of voices, but also the frayed edges, where voices and worlds fail to connect but remain or are kept waiting. garcia demonstrates the possibilities for care in spite of, or even because of the lack clear answers about what to do when entrusted with stories. adrie kusserow’s poetic intervention takes up this theme with a different kind of literary flexibility, her words carving out forms of intermediary and transitional spaces for ethnographic pondering. in doing so, she drums out the rhythms and disruptions that permeate the lives of displaced people and of the anthropologist who listens, keeps time, and deeply cares for the subject and it haunted by them. mclean’s ‘sea’ is the only other poetic entry in the book, and forces the reader even further into the confusing and alien terrain of image-making. sea, writes mclean, is “an idiom through which the dead might speak” (166) not in ways that anchor them to the page, but that make them to move, crest and dissolve. in her response to sea, lisa stevenson draws out the ways this stirring up of spectral voices can become a way of “tending the otherwise” by writing and writing again, “just as we walk and then begin to walk all over again.” the creative becoming of ethnographic subjects as mirror to the ethnographer and their work is a theme that runs throughout nearly all of the chapters, clearly evident in the work with artists (the chapters by pandolfo and pandian) but it is also strikingly evident in the kinds of imagination that animate the ecstatic rituals of the bembe (ochoa) and the inter-species intimacy of hunting (gandolfo). imagination, in all of its many textures and tones flows through these experiences, spilling out over the edges of the pages, resisting coherence and comprehensibility-“ethnography 3 struggles against its very lifeblood” write gandolfo and ochoa (187). perhaps, as tobias hecht suggests in his chapter, fiction provides a better mode of capturing what overflow ethnography, engaging more directly and openly, as it does, with imagination and speculation (133). lisa stevenson’s chapter takes another approach, fragmenting and collaging images from fieldwork in ways that fight against a single interpretation or message, but suggest the haunting presence of something more that must remain unspoken. i am not sure if such inventive writing is, as garcia argues, a form a “fidelity,” but it is a gesture of responsibility and of care, and as such, holds lessons for any ethnographer hoping to respond to the complexity of their encounters with other lives. when speaking to non-anthropologists, i often find myself in a position of defending research methods that to others, are ‘merely’ anecdotal, haphazard, and idiosyncratic. even within anthropology, many view more poetic writing with suspicion, an aesthetic decision that comes at the cost of analytical sharpness. some readers of crumpled paper boat may react the same way. does ethnography sacrifice too much of its own identity and value by taking on the experimental forms of literary and cultural studies? or can it emerge from its experiments reinvigorated with new possibilities for telling stories that can transport and even transform the reader? for those readers, including students, who are looking for inspiration to write and read ethnography differently, this book will not disappoint. as the contributors demonstrate, unsettling conventions gives stories openings to speak in new ways, or in ways that had not been adequately acknowledged in the past. to move the field forward, we would all do well to consider how this openness creates potential for our work to be heard. references sharpe, christina 2016. in the wake: on blackness and being. durham: duke university press. jason danely is senior lecturer in anthropology at oxford brookes university. he is author of aging and loss: mourning and maturity in contemporary japan (rutgers up, 2014) and co-editor of vulnerability and the politics of care: transdisciplinary dialogues (oxford up, early 2021). his two current research projects focus on unpaid carers of older relatives and older ex-offender resettlement (both in japan and the uk). © 2021 jason danely 1 christina sharpe’s (2016) use of “trans*” explaining, “the asterix after the prefix ‘trans’ holds the place open for thinking (from and into that position [of the unthought])” (30). microsoft word 185-585-1-rv.docx at the crossroads of care work and conversion: how female migrant domestic workers are reworking islam in the arab gulf review by schuyler marquez, new york university everyday conversions: islam, domestic work, and south asian migrant women in kuwait. by: attiya ahmad duke university press 2017 in recent decades, the arab gulf has emerged as a site of spectacle, marked by the extravagant architecture and capitalist development projects financed by the region’s oil wealth. attiya ahmad’s ethnography “everyday conversions,” however, beckons readers to focus on what may seem to be a far more banal locale as a site of emergence and transformation in the region: the household. ahmad’s book centers on the tens of thousands of female domestic workers who come from south and southeast asia to work for kuwaiti citizens’ families. according to ahmad, domestic workers make up one in six of the population and work in ninety percent of kuwaiti households (27). however, the numbers alone do not convey the complex hierarchies that these workers navigate. domestic workers, like other foreign workers, enter the gulf through the kafeel system, a sponsorship program in which citizens of good legal standing can act as sponsors for migrant workers. scholars of the gulf have demonstrated how the kafeel system has produced a complex scenario in which the majority of the population is in fact composed of non-citizen foreign workers. although they are in the majority, these workers are mostly excluded from the protections of the state, benefits that are reserved for kuwaiti citizens. such a situation has left many workers in situations of high vulnerability and exploitability. however, ahmad is keen to tell the story from a more intimate view—through the narratives of the domestic workers who help reproduce citizens’ households. ahmad highlights that such work cannot only be read through a lens of precarity, and while subject to hierarchies and exclusion, domestic workers also in many ways traverse these boundaries as they perform affective labor for citizens’ families. through this work they become critical to the reproduction of the household and therefore of kuwaiti society. through her ethnographic fieldwork among domestic workers, ahmad illustrates how their work is a generative site for new transnational subjectivities and affinities. ahmad characterizes domestic workers as “dual agents of reproduction,” highlighting how their work is integral to both their sponsors’ and their households in their home countries. in ahmad’s analysis, domestic workers prove to be adaptable, as they wield new power in their home countries by sending capital to their families back home and through negotiating their positions as workers inside households in kuwait. through a discussion of these women’s narratives, ahmad emphasizes that these women are not mere victims, but agents as they reconfigure new transnational subjectivities. such subjectivities crosscut traditional ideas of family and market, nation and religion. for example, as women provide capital for their households back home, their relations with their own families become more mediated by the market, whereas their relations to their work households come to be mediated by rules typically reserved for kin. ahmad also investigates why many domestic workers have begun converting to islam. rejecting two popular explanations for conversion, a secular liberal explanation that posits workers convert to receive better treatment and an explanation that emphasizes the influence of islamic reform, ahmad contends that domestic workers’ conversions must be understood as taking place within the everyday rhythms and routines of their work. conversion for these women is not a one-time event, but a gradual process that takes place over time as they attune to their lives and work in kuwait. through their conversions, women can make sense of and deliberate on tough decisions they find themselves in as they seek to relate to their families, find partners in marriage, and navigate their workplaces. ahmad emphasizes that women’s participation in this new religious movement is cosmopolitan, stressing the emergent and novel ways these women bring islam into their everyday lives. while women engage with the al-huda movement that originated in pakistan, ahmad contends that this movement takes on its own character in the gulf, as workers from south asia and africa mingle and make sense of their transnational experiences through islamic precepts and practices. a key idea is that women do not leave behind their old religions and practices, but reinterpret them in their new trajectories. what emerges throughout the book is that domestic workers do not form a mere diasporic relation to their homeland, but navigate a complex picture involving crosscutting vectors and asymmetries. in some ways, workers relate more to their sponsors than their own homeland, an affinity that demonstrates their reconfiguring of national and religious imaginaries. a particularly useful concept in the book is the hindi concept of naram, referring to the malleability and adaptability that women must demonstrate in new contexts, most typically applied to adapting to marriage. while people back home may see workers as engaging in nefarious work, women characterize their ability to adapt as naram, emphasizing their cosmopolitan agency they exercise in navigating their lives in the gulf. other key themes are ahmad’s concepts of suspension and temporariness to describe the ways of domestic workers are both apart from and in between worlds. while the book is extremely detailed in its storytelling, more discussion of ahmad’s relationships with her interlocutors would make for an even richer experience. while she makes it clear that she is a muslim woman that has navigated muslim networks in south asia, middle east, and canada, the book would benefit from more discussion of what challenges she may have faced in making connections with these women as an academic researcher. in a similar vein, the ethnography could also benefit from more discussion on the dynamics between women in the movement. for example, in one part of the book she mentions how filipina women are seen as the most prized domestic workers and how women were critical of one another’s clothing. more attention to these kinds of hierarchies would be a fascinating contribution to understanding the power dynamics at stake in this area of work. overall “everyday conversions” is an excellent ethnography for scholars interested in examining how work, islam, gender, and kinship are recast in transnational arenas. the book is an outstanding demonstration of how household activities are in fact embedded in transnational dynamics, as gendered, racialized, and religious subjectivities are reworked in this surprisingly turbulent space. schuyler marquez is a phd candidate in sociocultural anthropology at nyu. her research examines the rise of industrial halal meat production in brazil, examining the implications that this industry has for how muslims imagine and materially produce understandings about a global and modern islam. in addition to her work in brazil, she has conducted research on muslim communities in the united states and denmark. © 2019 schuyler marquez microsoft word cearns_final.docx 1 (dis)connections: migration, transnationalism, and global capitalism between haiti and the united states karen e. richman, 2018 (2nd edition), migration and vodou, university press of florida, pp. 384, isbn: 9780813064864 in migration and vodou, karen richman presents a fascinatingly rich ethnography that draws on over two decades of multi-sited research across haiti and the united states, embedded within an extended transnational family of migrant workers and remittance recipients. through the lens of this one family, richman draws us into a dynamic world of transnational interconnection that will be familiar to scholars of various parts of the caribbean region. richman’s ethnography details a community from ti rivyè, a coastal fishing village in the léogane plain in the south of haiti. in recent decades, the region has seen many of its inhabitants migrate to the united states, in order to provide economic support for those left back at home. most find work as agricultural workers in south florida, although in the first instance richman met her main interlocutor of the book whilst at a state-licensed labor camp in virginia. the book opens with a detailed presentation of an exchange of ‘letters’ between these separated family members through the exchange of audio-cassettes. richman details how these ‘letters’ mix spoken word and ritual song, creating a transnational performative space of rhetorical and ritual exchange. for communities stretched between rural haiti and south florida, creative uses of these audio technologies result in a reconfiguration of the boundaries of ritual performance space, allowing migrants to continue to serve their spirits (lwa) and participate in rituals even from a distance. richman further argues that this genre (which was subsequently supplanted by the introduction of cell phones in the 2000s) was far more congenial for extending an emphatically oral creole 2 aesthetic that prizes proverbs, figurative language, indirection, antiphony, and shifting between speech and song. an accompanying audio cd to the book also allows readers to hear these performances alongside the detailed textual analysis richman provides, whilst situating these exchanges within a larger african diasporic genre of verbal exchange, analogous to africanamerican ‘signifying,’ jamaican ‘throwing’ or barbadian ‘dropping’ of remarks. the migrants that richman portrays within a haitian diaspora occupy a difficult position: on the one hand they are essential to their communities’ survival back home (due to their economic remittances), yet they are at the same time subject to stigma and disdain for their decision to leave. as richman points out, these individuals ‘slave away in hostile, foreign countries for the sake of people who resent them for ever having left’ (p. 26). richman’s decision to focus her book around these audio exchanges thus serves as a particularly evocative lens not only onto the economic power relations developing in this increasingly transnational context, but also upon the microtensions that develop within families and communities as these power dynamics are navigated and communicated. migration and vodou makes several important contributions to anthropological debates. firstly, richman provides a detailed analysis of the development of a labor export economy within a region that has continued to become increasingly transnational in the decades since this ethnographic research was undertaken. richman’s work reveals how members of a rural, peasant class in neo-colonial haiti adapt to increasingly transnational and capitalizing models of production and globalization. for anthropologists of haiti and the caribbean more broadly, richman provides a rich history of the region, considering how colonial practices alongside agricultural production of sugar and coffee have created the socioeconomic context demanding labor migration within a global system of capital reproduction. throughout chapters 2-4, richman does an excellent job of combining such economic theories with local haitian theories of production, in which feeding is a dominant metaphor, and traces this through various other syncretic african diasporic practices elsewhere in the region. in so doing, the author grounds her account within a discussion of the transformation of land and labor relations among the haitian peasantry, and situates her later theoretical arguments within a context of haiti as a producer and exporter of migrant labor, which in turn has created a structural dependence upon imports and remittances from migrant labor abroad. 3 the author then moves to consider processes of ritual and kinship change in ti rivyè’s response to broader demographic and socioeconomic transformations during the early 20th century. throughout chapters 5-8, richman explores the structures of vodou religious cosmology and haitian understandings of migration within this framework, and presents a central dialectic between “guinea” (africa), which represents the long-term orientation of peasant communities, hierarchies, and the importance of family and land, and “magic,” representing shorter-term and more individualistic behaviours. richman then proceeds to explore this dialectic of guinea/magic as a crucial backdrop against which to interpret relationships between those who remain on the island, and those who leave to seek a livelihood elsewhere, arguing that the watershed of ritual change in turn introduced new professional ritual leadership, and that discourses of “guinean authenticity” served to legitimize these changes. ritual songs (also presented on the accompanying cd) capture this tension, and richman uses textual analysis of these verbal contests to document these changing relations of ritual and kinship in the light of increased migration. in chapters 8 and 9, by way of conclusion, richman returns to the relationships between those who have left and those who have stayed, arguing that ritual songs and the moral discourses that are so central to them are used to cast migrants as morally inferior, albeit economically necessary. in response, some migrants rebel against their home-kin and convert to protestantism, which richman sees as a strategy employed to contest criticisms made by home communities, whilst still positioning one’s actions within the wider moral discourses of vodou, or what richman calls the dialectic of guinea and magic. as richman explains, the evil enemy is “not a discrete person but rather a vast, sorcerous system that turns poor haitians neighbors against one another" (p. 266). the book could have made a more comprehensive effort to contextualise this central dialectic — guinea and magic — within other syncretic african diasporic practices and cosmological frameworks elsewhere in the region, and readers who are not familiar with the specifically haitian context may find this dualism more frustrating than enlightening in places. one must applaud the author’s dedication to relaying rich ethnography within the terms of its own interlocutors, however, and in this regard the book offers one of the richest ethnographic accounts of transnational kinship networks in the region. 4 the book also benefits from great scholarship in drawing together literatures on migration, transnationalism, and global capitalism, as well as from anthropological perspectives on religion and cosmology, and ethnomusicology. all of this is also situated within one of the richest and most concise discussions of agricapitalist and (neo)colonial history within haiti that can be found. some might critique the book for its narrow focus upon one single, rural community, yet richman documents sociocultural processes so pervasive throughout haiti and the caribbean at large, that the book arguably benefits from this most specific lens upon one particular community, and the ethnographic rigour it then supplies to richman’s wider theoretical analysis. scholars of political economies in formation, transnational kinship structures, and the creation and performance of cosmologies and ritual spaces in emerging globalized contexts, will find rich ethnographic material and analysis to emulate migration and vodou. jennifer cearns is a postdoctoral researcher at university college london, whose own research has centred upon transnational migrant communities between cuba and south florida, and the informal circuits of material and digital exchange that underpin these communities. she is leach fellow in public anthropology at the royal anthropological institute of great britain & ireland, and author of ‘the mula ring: material networks of circulation through the cuban world’ (2020) in the journal of latin american and caribbean anthropology. © 2020 jennifer cearns 1 articulation as a political act? on a study of palestinian shrines review by safet hadžimuhamedović bones of contention: muslim shrines in palestine by andrew petersen palgrave macmillan, 2018 bones of contention will be valuable to historians and archaeologists, as much as social scientists, although it does require a particular kind of reading (at times, against its own grain). the introduction does not fully anticipate the arguments to come, and the reader is sometimes left to their own devices in interpreting the predicament of shrines in palestine. andrew petersen considers these shrines through their, often intersected, political, economic, religious and academic histories. the “bones”, however, are mostly implied: the author focuses on shrines as architectural structures related to actual or purported burial sites. the “contention” is, likewise, not dealt with explicitly and requires further analytical unpacking. firstly, in its sense of disagreement or dispute, “contention” fails to capture the workings of the nationalist violence in israel and palestine. the longevous, continued destruction of landscapes (and the shrines therein), the expulsion of communities, and the disintegration of collective memory, do not fit neatly into this rather reserved wording. on the other hand, “contention”, without some qualification, also works to smooth out the differences between historical episodes (so that one might even fall into the trap of reading the book as yet another portrayal of the “holy land” with its historically multiple and antagonistic stakeholders). petersen opens the book with the difficult task of outlining “shrine” as a concept, and by indicating the historical developments and the contemporary significance of shrines. muslim shrines in palestine and the region, he notes, are usually, but not exclusively, burial places (7), which have been variously politically endorsed or resisted during their history. whether they have been taken as “idolatrous” or as “territorial markers” and proof of “ancient claims to land”, their existence had become a ubiquitous element of palestinian landscapes, particularly since the twelfth century (7, 10). petersen 2 notes several reasons for the increased importance of shrines, from the inclusion of jerusalem in the hajj itineraries, the influence of christian veneration and the crusades, to the “growth of sufism as part of mainstream religious life” and the influence of the mausoleums often forming sections of tekkes, the sufi lodges (9-17). petersen considers the historiography on palestinian muslim shrines (chapters 2 and 3), which, he argues, had been split between the european and the muslim production. the accounts of europeans, who reached the shrines firstly as pilgrims and then as crusaders, were based on interests that ranged “from curiosity to a deep fascination” (27), but were also “characterized by ignorance, suspicion and often hostility” (28). petersen’s inclusion of depictions by both muslim and christian authors makes for a valuable comparative understanding of the shrines’ historical reception. his examples are compelling: from the seventeenth-century account of a merchant of the english levant company, through the visitors scavenging for biblical associations of the region, the scholars looking for signals of “primitive religion” (33) and the “persistence of ancient and universal impulses” (35) in muslim shrines, to the detailed orientalist mappings and the academic study of the region after napoleon’s invasion of egypt in 1799 and the founding of the palestine exploration society in 1863. since the 1990s, petersen notes, the attention to muslim shrines in the region was renewed, partly due to the focus on their political aspects. chapter 4 considers the impact of the mamluk sultans and officials in the increased visibility and importance of shrines after the crusades. petersen looks at three shrines sponsored by the mamluk sultan baybars. in chapter 5, petersen discusses the development of sufism with attention to the qadiriyya and the yashurtiyya tariqas, arguing that the rise of sufism and its reverence of saints are directly related to the proliferation of shrines, and, likewise, that the reduced importance of shrines followed the decline of sufism. in chapter 6, petersen looks at “shaykh’s tombs”, which, despite being the most frequent form of muslim shrine in palestine, were seldom documented in historical sources, but are well known to the locals and are the subject of most of the academic literature. in chapter 7, petersen considers the shi‘i, druze and bahá‘í shrines, suggesting that these structures were architecturally indistinguishable from the sunni shrines. he argues that israel placed its emphasis on druze sites in part “as a means of claiming territory within a predominantly muslim and christian galilee” (113). given that the israeli law protected sites with built structures, buildings were added to druze sacred places like trees and springs in order to gain protected status (113). through this process, petersen notes, shrines were “converted” to accommodate the political climate (117). the third section of the book is generally about the “destruction and neglect” of palestinian shrines in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as about the possibilities of their preservation. 3 in chapter 8, petersen notes that: “the creation of the state of israel in 1948 has resulted in the destruction of some muslim shrines, the abandonment and neglect of many more and the appropriation of others” (123). he also notes that, “whilst some of the damage to tombs might be a direct result of israeli actions, it is suggested that a large number of muslim shrines have suffered because of a decline of sufism and the growth of fundamentalist islam” (123). the latter claim is, however, not substantially explored, so the reader is left to wonder about the extent of this “fundamentalist islamic” impact in palestine. petersen argues that “outright targeted destruction of muslim shrines appears to be fairly rare and was mostly carried out during the early years of israeli independence” (124-125). he cites mordechai bar-on, a company commander of the israeli central command, who said that sacred sites were not destroyed deliberately (125). this quote, i believe, should be read as satirical rather than denotative, as petersen continues to provide several examples of targeted israeli destruction. he shows that the destruction of mashhad ras husayn in ascalon, and other similar shrines, may be understood as part of ethnic cleansing. although petersen does not use this term, he does write that the devastation in ascalon was perpetrated “to encourage the arab inhabitants of the region to leave the country”, and “because it was a major centre of pilgrimage for the local population and held one of the five major annual festivals” (125). in other words, the state understood the social significance of the places destroyed. petersen discusses the shrines in israel and the shrines in the palestinian territories separately. for the shrines in israel, he notes that the ones that were not destroyed, but rather “fell into ruin”, have experienced such a fate “because the local arab palestinian population has been dispersed and is no longer in a position to maintain the shrine” (129). he also gives some examples were such shrines are still taken care off, despite expulsions (129-13). in the palestinian territories, petersen writes, shrines are used and maintained, but sometimes, new mosques are built next to, or over the shrines (no examples are provided) (130). some shrines are officially in the palestinian territories but are effectively inaccessible due to israeli control (131). finally, petersen mentions that some muslim shrines were appropriated, so that “muslims are either excluded or have very restricted and partial access to particular holy places” (131). looking at contested shrines, petersen notes briefly the case of hebron and the division of the mosque and the shrine (132). he also gives the example of rachel’s tomb (132-134), respected by christians, jews and muslims, which has been surrounded by a six-meter high wall and made into an exclusively jewish shrine since 2000 (133). another example of israeli hegemony is the nabi samwil (shrine of prophet samuel), where muslims were likewise excluded from visits to the tomb, despite it being in de facto palestinian territories (134). such was the faith of another “multi-confessional” site, 4 qabr yusef (the tomb of joseph) in nablus (134-136). in chapter 9, petersen discusses shrines as heritage sites and the possibilities of their conservation, suggesting: 1) “the documentation and presentation of existing and destroyed shrines on the internet”; 2) “the use of shrines for the promotion of tourism”; 3) “the preservation of shrines as a form of resistance to extremist interpretations of islam”, and 4) “the role of shrines in the promotion of interfaith understanding” (141). these suggestions do not consider the capacity of shrines to act as a form of resistance to the occupation of palestine. rather, petersen makes an argument for “virtual preservation”, noting some useful websites and blogs (145-147). the actual preservation, conservation and rehabilitation of shrines is, he notes, “much more complex and expensive” (147). the reconstruction and the “repatriation” of shrines are not considered. as reconstruction is reentering the heritage vocabulary, it would be apt to evaluate its prospects in palestine/israel. it is not clear whether petersen endorses the israeli appropriation of some sites when he notes that “the fabric of the buildings concerned have been maintained and well conserved” (149), “protected from atmospheric pollution” and, by way of a caretaker, “protected from vandalism” (150). the question remains, who is to decide whether these buildings have been maintained, protected and conserved? the state that had violently taken them into its custody? the heritage specialist? or, is it rather the community to whose cosmology these shrines belong and from whose caretaking these shrines were seized? on the whole, this chapter envisages shrines as documents of the past; their social significance, or their value for sustainable return of the displaced communities, unfortunately, remains unexplored. in the concluding remarks, petersen asks how these shrines relate to the expression of palestinian national identity, although it would be more interesting to understand how they relate to the expression of israeli nationalism. he notes that, often “the whole landscape lay within the protection of holy places” (154), which, i think, is exactly what makes these places such effective symbols of both belonging and dispossession. guided by the book’s subtitle, muslim shrines in palestine, i harbored hopes that this manuscript would attempt to unpack the notion of the adjective “muslim”, as related to palestinian shrines. just think of the tomb of saint george/khiḍr in al-ludd, nestled in a byzantine crypt, within the remains of a twelfth-century crusader church, below a greek orthodox church and the adjoining mosque – a place where being muslim and christian is intimately intertwined in practice and belief in the miraculous fertility and healing powers of the green saintly figure (and a place where a synagogue has been more recently erected). the general absence of george/khiḍr, so important for palestinian landscapes, is somewhat puzzling. in the end, petersen discusses “the future of shrines within the context of global islam”. he notes 5 that the threats to these shrines mainly come from the deliberate destruction and neglect (159), although, i would argue, making a clear difference between the two is certainly problematic in palestine. the exiled communities cannot take care of a shrine (see also petersen’s argument, 161). the author argues that “since the 1990s, there has been a growing awareness of the value of muslim shrines within the israeli archaeology and heritage community” (159-160), resulting in the cessation of “deliberate and targeted destruction of muslim shrines” (160). he, however, sees the growing threat from “fundamentalist islam” since the 1990s, whilst noting that, to date, “no shrines within palestine have been destroyed as a result of salafist ideology” (160-161). therefore, it is difficult to understand why the author draws attention to this “lurking” problem rather than foregrounding the obvious obstacle of israeli exclusion? the book finishes on a strange note – arguing that “the most promising future for these shrines” (162) is one in which they are to be preserved as “historical documents” of what he calls “a diverse and more complex history of muslim society than that which is presented by mainstream sunni islam” (162). so, the conclusion relates to a form of destruction that is barely indicated in the book. as the author’s introductory disclaimer signals, bones of contention focuses on the context for the creation of shrines, their architecture and history, rather than their use. yet, it is impossible to fully comprehend the “architecture and history” of sacred sites without comprehending their contexts of practice and, in the palestinian case, also their contexts of hegemonic practice. the “architectural” partition (by way of military check points and bullet-proof glass) of the “tomb of the patriarchs” in alkhalil/hebron cannot be understood without the setting of the israeli apartheid. however, in another introductory disclaimer, the reader is advised that al-khalil/hebron and the haram in jerusalem will not be discussed, as they are not representative of medieval and ottoman palestine, as they have been considered extensively by other authors, but also because “their inclusion would tend to overshadow the many important issues surrounding the other shrines” (4). there is much to appreciate about petersen’s book: he guides the reader through centuries of archival material, depicts the changing political climates in palestine, details the architectural designs of shrines and explores the possibilities of their conservation. my review comes with the caveats of a (perhaps unfair) cross-disciplinary reading and the fact that petersen’s project is not an intentionally political one. try as i might, as a social anthropologist i could not escape the fact that “descriptive” academic publications – be they historical, ethnographic, or else – are a political act. what is left unsaid or unaccentuated also articulates and the book would do better to firmly recognize and set out the research context (with its political), the methodological framework, and the author’s own positionality. to sum up, this is a clearly written, valuable contribution to the understanding of shrines in 6 palestine. as an exercise in historiography, it does not falter. my (anthropological) reading reveals certain gaps, which the author might fill in during his next consideration of palestinian muslim shrines. the book offers much, yet its most valuable offerings are not explicitly framed. i warmly recommend this publication as a companion to undergraduate and postgraduate classes on religious and political histories, as well as to the wider public interested in palestine and the interpretations of its sacral landscapes. safet hadžimuhamedović is an anthropologist of sacral landscapes, time and home. he teaches at the university of bristol and is the author of waiting for elijah: time and encounter in a bosnian landscape. © 2018 safet hadžimuhamedović two perspectives on decolonizing ethnography review by hussein masimbi and paula uimonen carolina alonso bejarano, lucia lopez juarez, mirian a. mijangos garcia, and daniel m. goldstein. decolonizing ethnography: undocumented immigrants and new directions in social science. durham, nc, duke university press. 2019, xiii + 183pp, isbn 1478003626. let us start with a perspective that takes careful note of the words “dominant anthropology—like all academic disciplines—remains part of a larger colonial project” to underline “the inscription of coloniality in anthropology’s dna” (19). responding to such statements, some readers may mumble something about flogging dead horses, or smirk at yet another passing trend in anthropology, and possibly stop reading any further. yet there is something to be said for a growing number of voices calling for the decolonization of the discipline, urging for new ways of doing anthropology. at the prestigious american anthropological association (aaa) conference in vancouver in 2019, decolonization had as many as 44 entries in the conference program index, more than any other keyword, and one of the fifteen executive sessions was entitled decolonial methods: changing anthropological climates through methodological disruptions. it seems high time to take the inscription of coloniality in dominant anthropology seriously and explore alternatives. the co-authored book decolonizing ethnography aims to “offer a guide for those wishing to expand the potential of ethnography to serve as a means for social transformation and decolonization,” as stated on the back cover. decolonizing ethnography is of course a tall task, which the authors address succinctly, not only in theory, but also in practice. the authors situate their work in the epistemic trajectory of decolonial feminist theory, foregrounding alternative anthropologies such as feminist anthropology, collaborative ethnography, world anthropology and activist anthropology. their critical overview of the discipline’s history and alternatives to dominant anthropology provides a solid introduction to decoloniality, which is not to be confused with postcolonialism, while their own research project offers insights into how decolonial ethnography can work in practice. although their project focused on undocumented immigrants in the united states, their approach is applicable to many other research topics and research contexts, emphasising techniques of collaborative and participatory research. the authors argue convincingly that decolonizing ethnography is about working with and for people, from collective research design and active involvement of interlocutors as research collaborators to recognizing the subjects of anthropological research as knowledge producers and theory builders in their own right. this is a far cry from the extractive anthropology that relies on theory from the global north and data from the global south for career building in elite academic environments, with little or no benefit to the people cast as objects rather than subjects. from another perspective, anthropology being a study based on people and their culture uses different approaches, and has a good chance of playing a major role to bring out the voices of marginalized groups, the other, thus advancing decolonization. the authors make a good contribution to raising awareness among anthropologists and other social scientists to treat their subjects fairly and help them to be the change they want to be, rather than making them victims of academics’ interpretations and misconceptions. the authors show how their co-authors have helped them shift their approach, as they acknowledge them as co-authors based on their work and the role they played, instead of research assistants. decolonizing anthropology is a challenge, especially developing enough studies that are not biased or based on colonial interpretations and approaches of the so-called west. the authors have chosen music and theatrical performances for disseminating their findings and engaging the research subjects directly. that was a very good approach for presenting results, especially to reach more people. this may not apply to some topics, but it is the anthropologist’s responsibility to think of the best approach to bring the feedback and share the results of their study with the locals/subjects, rather than only focus on their own personal academic benefits and status. activism and advocacy in anthropology is also addressed in this book. the authors spend the first four chapters educating us about their approach, methodology and analysing the situation in relation to their project. we think this will be an important book for those interested in becoming anthropologists as well as for established anthropologists. it will help them understand their role better not only as academics but also in engaging their subjects in the research process. the book is encouraging us to open our minds, addressing the colonial impact in academia, to decolonize and liberate ourselves from intellectual and academic colonization. this is a call for anthropologists to empower others to speak for themselves, to interpret, theorize and work on developing themselves, as per their own interests and to contribute their local knowledge to the rest of the world. hussein masimbi is a musician and teacher at the national arts institute tasuba in tanzania, with an ma in music education from texas tech university. paula uimonen is professor of social anthropology at stockholm university, sweden, with fieldwork experience from nigeria and tanzania. hussein masimbi and paula uimonen are research collaborators in a new project on swahili ocean worlds, which explores sea sustainability with fishing communities in coastal tanzania. © 2021 hussein masimbi & paula uimonen microsoft word water is life_final.doc 1 “water is life” hames, m. 2019. thirst for power. the video project. “water is life” are the first words the viewer encounters when setting out to watch “thirst for power,” and i find them capturing the overall theme of the movie well. “thirst for power” is a media production based on the book by michael e. webber with the same name (webber 2016). yet, the title of the book continues with “energy, water, and human survival,” which are the three core aspects of the movie – and which seem also to connect to webber’s later writing with his book “power tripp: the story of energy” (2019). the first book takes the vantage point of water, while the second takes that of energy. however, as shown in the movie: they are interconnected, and both are critical for human survival in a so-called modern world. the narrative of the movie is with the author in centre, explaining his reasons for writing the book and some of the events in his life that put him in the position he is now. it is a very personal narrative, trying to talk to the viewer instead of lecturing, using personal vignettes to illustrate large issues and how they interconnect. the movie does for example depict the author and his family visiting the famous roman aqueduct in france, pont du gard, which he visited as a child and it had a profound impact on him. now webber shows this ancient construction also to his children – mimicking the core tenet of the movie: save what we have for the next generation to come. this scene also illustrates another of the movie’s main points, that the capacity to move water over distances, to control its flow, is power – which later is shown with dams along for example the colorado river. “thirst for power” starts by showing how water has been used as a de facto symbol of wealth, doing so with examples from the roman empire and its aqueducts, royal palaces 2 with their fountains and lush gardens, but also more recently with the construction of large dams to end floods, irrigate land, and provide energy – control over water equals power, and politicians and rulers knew and still know that, according to webber. he jokingly retells a saying from the american west: “whisky is for drinking and water is to fight for.” the movie then continues to outline how water, energy, and modern urban cities are tied together – illustrating with a few examples how a deficit of water or energy often leads to a deficit of the other which then have grave consequences for society. this is for example clear with the case of waste. humans generate waste, this waste ends up in water, and this wastewater needs to be cleaned – which demands energy. but today a lot of the world’s energy is produced by water. so, under circumstances of drought there might be a lack of both water for drinking and for producing the energy needed to transport water to humans, and to clean that water before and after use. the demand and supply relationship can crash, and following on this a potential blackout – as was the case in 2012 where large parts of india ended up without electricity for weeks. situations as this clearly show how modern societies are addicted to energy and vulnerable to shortages – and water is a key component of this relationship. this discussion on drought moved the plot towards potential dangers posed by climate change – with increasing temperatures, risks for drought and water shortage escalates. webber asks ‘us’ to be conservative with the amount of water ‘we’ use, and to think about the energy consumed running our devices. saving energy equals saving water, as less water will be required to provide the needed energy, more is left for human consumption. webber argues that sustainability is an important tool that should be the first one used as it buys time for other ‘solutions’ to be invented and implemented. and this is where the movie ends, with webber urging the viewer to think through the way we use water and energy so that there will be some left for generations to come. “thirst for power” is an important movie as it provides an easy-to-access narrative for a general public on otherwise hard-to-access topics. and the movie is recommended for a general but curious audience, as well as scholars on topics of water, energy, power, and climate change that seek ways to talk about these topics accessibly. the movie resonates 3 with what has been told by various anthropologists, such as orlov and caton (2010) when they describe water as “a total social fact,” or the way that andrea ballestero (2019) engages water from a “future history” perspective – for webber does say that history has taught us much but that we got much more to learn – the future history of water to come. what i find troubling with the movie is its heavy focus on the human – the wellbeing of other living organisms are not dealt with or recognised. in the middle of the plot the idea of engineering and taming nature is mentioned but never followed up. water is throughout the movie treated as a resource to be used by humans, and saved for humans to use in the future. the ‘human’ is also not problematized much, in this narrative it is as if all humans have the same impact on and resources to make a difference in relation to the water humans use. from an anthropological standpoint these are issues i’d like to think careful about in relation to this movie. despite these caveats, “thirst for power” is a thought-provoking movie that i am happy to recommend. rasmus rodineliussen is a phd student at the department of social anthropology, stockholm university. his current research lies within the domain/intersection of environmental anthropology and political ecology focusing on the relationship between water and waste. he has worked with migration and refugee studies, mainly focusing on syria. rasmus has published in peer-reviewed journals such as anthropology now, anthrovision, irish journal of anthropology, and visual studies and is currently co-editor of the anthropology book forum. references ballestero, andrea. 2019. a future history of water. duke university press: durham and london. orlove, b., and caton, s. c. “water sustainability: anthropological approaches and prospects,” annual review of anthropology, vol. 39, 2010, pp. 401-415. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.105045 webber, michael e. 2016. thirst for power. energy, water, and human survival. yale university press: danburry. webber, michael e. 2019. power tripp: the story of energy. ingram publisher services us: new york. 4 © 2020 rasmus rodineliussen microsoft word del nido 2021_final.doc 1 fixations, charismatic technologies and the perennial enthusiasm of techno-solutionism disruptive fixation: school reform and the pitfalls of techno-idealism, by christo sims, princeton, nj: princeton university press, 2017, 232 pp., (paperback), isbn: 9780691163994 the charisma machine: the life, death, and legacy of one laptop per child, by morgan ames, 328 pp., cambridge, ma: mit press, 2019, (paperback), isbn: 9780262537445 keywords: techno-idealism, disruption, technology, developmentalism, education hundreds of ethnographies have followed in the steps of james ferguson’s the anti-politics machine to document the failure of developmental or “disruptive projects.” through them, ferguson’s point that technical solutions are fundamentally unable to solve other-thantechnical problems and tend to reproduce them became a sort of anthropological common sense. relatively few, however, take on ferguson’s other exhortation: to examine how developmentalist enthusiasm remains impervious to these failures and what it is that such projects do accomplish, how, and for whom. avowedly heirs to this tradition, sims and ames address these last questions in their ethnographies of education reforms, disruptive fixation and the charisma machine respectively, with a twist: how do certain technological imaginations mediate the ghost of failure and shield and buttress these enthusiasms? disruptive fixation examines the planning, concretisation and functioning of the “disruptive,” tech-oriented downtown school in manhattan; the charisma machine traces the one laptop per child (olpc) project, from its inception at the mit’s media lab to its deployment, and by most metrics failure, in rural paraguay. both projects involved similar understandings of 21st century children. downtown school planners imagined children as inherently creative, active learners failed by an antiquated, inflexible schooling system disconnected from reality and unfit to train them in coding, design thinking and the technological skills they are allegedly both keen on and in need of (40; 48). these commitments and imaginations of children, technology and the role of the school congealed in moral imperatives (53), and as such entered the design of a student experience were social 2 media networks, hacking, coding, programming, and media production were built into lessons and school-sponsored extracurricular activities. similarly, from the outset, addressed to the children of nations lacking in schooling budgets and infrastructure, the olpc project hinged on disembodied universal notions of children’s autonomy, free-thinking rebelliousness and technological curiosity, able to learn on their own regardless of peers, teachers, funds and culture. this imagined “technically precocious boy” (38), echoing mit hackers’ self-image, was built into a machine whose affordances were loftily aimed at enabling play, connectivity and freedom (47-61). mit media lab’s founder and best-selling author nicholas negroponte had been scouring markets to place this developmental fantasy of his for years, and paraguay agreed. these projects flopped for reasons fundamentally similar to those that led to the failure of lesotho’s developmental overhaul in the anti-politics machine. imagined as a racially and socioeconomically inclusive space, the downtown school did not actually engage any of the racial or socioeconomic inequalities of new york society it interacted with, inevitably reproducing them. sims’s nuanced ethnographic gaze is particularly sharp in showing how bipoc families struggled to place their kids in the school to begin with (60-62), how these children’s extracurricular activities did not count as “creative” to the school’s “disruptive” gaze (135) and how vaguely-coded moral panics around bullying worked through socioeconomic and racial inequalities with an obsessive, differential policing that resulted in these students leaving the school (152). many of these students were by all metrics among the highest academic achievers in their classes. similarly, although the school’s pedagogic project was constantly vaunted as innovative, when facing technological malfunction, students’ disinterest, poor exam results or other unexpected hurdles, educators reached for age-old, canonical discipline and control measures to stabilise the project (96). all of these issues were compounded by an increasingly active clique of parents with greater cultural, economic and logistical resources: aggressively lobbying for zero-tolerance policies, monitoring the school’s exam performance and teaching techniques, they effectively co-ran the school (144-148). meanwhile, olpc’s materialisation in caacupé, in rural paraguay, was spectacularly short of utopian from the outset. infrastructurally speaking, the computers cost almost twice as much as originally advertised, spare parts were hard to find, computers froze and broke down regularly, batteries were deficient, children uninstalled software, schools and village homes 3 had no or little electricity and there were not enough qualified trainers to provide it support. in a despairing, brilliant vignette tracing a single morning at school, ames shows how ¾ of already preciously scarce lesson time was lost trying to get enough computers to work as intended (81-92). dreamed of as a trojan horse pregnant with freedom, autonomy and the promise of progress, the computer hijacked the learning experience with so many breakdowns that teachers dreaded using them and engaging in the onerous and unpaid labour of reorganising classes to fit laptops’ affordances. the precious few children who coded, designed, and used the computer as the learning and exploratory tool it was supposed to be were those who had familial and institutional encouragement, support and infrastructure, from celebratory remarks to electricity at home (140-152) – that is, the other-than-technical structures that, as ames shrewdly points out, were all allegedly ancillary in olpc’s technosolutionism. so far these are well-chartered dynamics in anthropology; the key to both books’ contribution lies in their examination of how those involved in these projects sustained their belief in their promises despite mounting evidence to the contrary. sims refers to this phenomenon as a work of repairing idealism, which in the downtown school project meant an array of “as if” dispositions: the affects, sensibilities and orientations of educators, designers and many parents helped them inhabit these experiences as if they were really ground-breaking. this “as if-ness” hinged greatly on what the author calls sanctioned counterpractices: “the periodic orchestration, documentation, circulation and ritualistic celebration of practices that appear to fulfil the intervention’s innovative philanthropic promise” (18). these included the overperforming of enthusiasm, the constant signalling out of novelty and a general emotional and performative work that, even if openly acknowledged as contrived and occasionally cringe-y, allowed the framing of the school’s activities as innovative. this was the case even when, as sims repeatedly shows, pedagogies, disciplining techniques, use of time and resources and kinds of activities were increasingly identical to those of “traditional” schools, sometimes enhanced and sometimes encumbered by gadgetry and the fixation with innovation (87-88, 94-95). the author’s argument against cynicism here is subtle and convincing: the point of these counterpractices was less to produce actual change than to work as ritual reparations of the moral feeling of the goodness of the intervention many of these people genuinely believed in (105). 4 “as if” dispositions also generated a rationale to protect utopianism from failures in the form of unsanctioned counterpractices, that is, new or unscripted practices that challenge or do not pay heed to this utopianism. when high academic achieving bipoc students were effectively chased out of the school for not being disruptive in “the right ways,” a rhetoric of personal choice and of not being “a good fit” morally shielded the experience of innovative disruption, ironically touted as striving for social justice, from coming to terms with its own inequalities (153). readers coming to this book from ferguson’s tradition will recognize in this legerdemain a variation of the de-politicizing logics of technical intervention, working in this case by bleaching structural issues with a grammar of choice and individual responsibility. sims spotted it too, and convincingly extended it to the school’s dealing with elite parents who described themselves as risk takers and unconventional but increasingly lobbied to run the school in the logics of a depoliticized “community” as they forced the curriculum and its pedagogy down increasingly conventional paths (143-145, 158). the point is that the project now had rationalities and affects to experience the failure, or at least inconsistency, of being openly taken over by neurotic, privileged parents, in a manner that did not threaten the promise of its success. this is how techno-idealism, as sims calls it, outlives its blatant failures and inconsistencies: through immense work to repair it “live,” on the go, a kind of work that is emotional, performative, rhetorical, ritualized and fundamentally, even if in other guises, ideological (99). through the case of the olpc project, ames argues that techno-solutionism is impervious to its own failures because its appeal is less premised on actual results and more on their charisma. in the genealogy of the notion of the technological sublime, charismatic technologies seduce through the promise of a possibility of action: it is not about what they are or do, but what we imagine they could possibly do (9). this charismatic quality is not only immune to the pettiness of evidence against its promises and the messy complexity of reality: particular kinds of charismatic performances create a salvific distance that ensures charisma and its promises remain unsullied by “facts.” when a funders’ envoy was sent to paraguay to check on the project’s progress, educators, state officials and selected children participated in a ceremonious, scripted performance to “show” how much progress the computers had brought about. in a sophisticated spin, ames argues that what matters here is not to unmask the contrived character of these performances, because the fact that they are obviously contrived to everyone involved was always beside the point: the visit’s actual purpose was less to assess progress and more to uphold and reinforce the imaginations that 5 what everyone was doing was keeping alive the promise of progress. all actors involved had internalised through this promise what success should look like (170-173), in a purifying ritualization akin to that identified by sims in new york. there’s yet more to the story of how charisma survives the disenchantment of reality checks. charismatic technologies make sense within various different social imaginaries, and titillate in different ways those that come be invested in their promise. in the universe inhabited by nicholas negroponte, mit hackers, paraguayan elites and other globalist, highly educated, socioeconomically resourceful actors, charismatic technologies promise to reproduce the world those people already thrive in. for paraguayan children, however, the charisma of olpc hinged on their investment in other kinds of promises. on the one hand, these laptops generated, exacerbated, and offered a way to satisfy desire for access to media like youtube, gaming portals and nickelodeon (120, 134), enfolding these children as consumers of global products designed precisely to (re)produce their condition as consumers. on the other hand, the computers allowed some enthusiastic and programming-oriented children to prepare for and participate in competitions awarding trips to the us and other kinds of recognition of entrepreneurialism, coding and digital shrewdness. in so doing, these children were not seeking the promise of the hacker and coding identity of mit ideologues: the charismatic promise laptops sustained for them pointed to a horizon of well-paid jobs, english language proficiency, and what they identified as a land of opportunities. the fact that, unsurprisingly, english-speaking students from well-resourced schools and families in asunción, paraguay’s capital, won every year, may confirm how structurally naïve techno-utopianism can be, but if anything it exacerbates its cruel optimism around the charismatic promise of being included (156-163). in the immensely crowded subfield of studies of how developmentalism does not work, sims and ames manage to stand out through highly nuanced contributions. their arguments are persuasive, their prose is lively and both books will capture readerships across social sciences and would make excellent course reading material, separate and together. in a sense, too, beyond the solidity of their arguments, perhaps the greatest contribution they both make is epochal. across disciplines, researchers of technologies algorithms, ai, social media platforms, platform economies, robotics – seem to be converging in the peculiar conclusion that techno-utopianism is dead. the recently published (ironically, in light of ames’ work, by mit press) your computer is on fire confidently claims that people and societies are 6 increasingly aware of the dystopian effect technologies have on our lives. the subset of “people” that academics of a certain ideological extraction make may be in near-universal agreement here, and would probably discount the study of techno-utopianism as “old news,” committed as we are to our endogamic pursuit to go “beyond” what “we” know already. disruptive fixation and the charisma machine are sobering, sophisticated invitations to realise not only that techno-utopianism is as alive and well in the centre of the developed world as it is in a remote rural enclave, but that dismissing the study of how it sustains itself despite all “we” know about its shortcomings could well be, ironically, extending it a new lease on life. juan m. del nido is a philomathia research associate at the max planck cambridge centre for ethics, economy and social change, university of cambridge, uk. his research focuses on political and economic reasoning; the logics, rhetoric and affect of neoclassical economics, consumption, markets and popular sovereignty; and new technologies. his book taxis vs. uber is forthcoming with stanford university press. © 2021 juan m. del nido microsoft word destrée final.docx 1 the struggle for capacity: a historical ethnography of toxicology in senegal noémi tousignant. 2018. edges of exposure: toxicology and the problem of capacity in postcolonial senegal. durham, london: duke university press, pp. 224, isbn: 978-0-82237124-3 keywords: medical anthropology; sts; toxicity; west africa; temporality. exposure to toxic pollution and contamination in africa has loomed large on the global imagination of the continent since the 1990s adoption of the basel, bamako and abidjan conventions on hazardous waste and environmental pollution. more recently, renewed attention to the afterlives of western industrial capitalism through the circulation of wide-audience (and at times sensationalist) documentaries on hazardous waste and toxic poisons have reinforced a vision of toxicity in africa as one of exploitation or “toxic colonialism” abetted by a lack of capacity and regulation. in edges of exposure, tousignant turns to the challenges of building and maintaining scientific capacity for poison protection and control in postcolonial senegal. an important contribution to studies of toxicity, science and public health infrastructure in west africa, the book offers a painstaking account of local toxicologists’ frustrated yet creative efforts at establishing a routine regulatory science – a work fraught by dwindling public investment, deteriorating equipments and facilities, and dependence on foreign assistance. the book departs from a typical focus on the unequal geographies of waste and the consistent exposure of african bodies and lands to “poisonous global capital” (p. 2). instead, it documents the struggle for capacity and scientific diligence of senegalese toxicologists in conditions of chronic underfunding and material scarcity. against the postcolonial legacies of disinvestment and differential exposure, tousignant’s book pays homage to the “persistence, energy, and hopefulness of toxicologists’ pursuit” (p. 6) that attest to “the possibility of and the legitimacy of claims to a protective biopolitics of poison in africa” (p. 10). rather than situated from the perspective of 2 vulnerable communities exposed or at risk of exposure, tousignant writes from a different “edge” of exposure: scientists’ mundane and often-thwarted attempts to “do their job,” exercise expertise, and establish a lasting presence in senegal’s public health system. tousignant’s historical ethnography takes us through the fragmented chronology of senegalese toxicological science: from the establishment of dakar’s university lab in the immediate postindependence period, and its subsequent deterioration under structural adjustment in the aftermath of the 1970s economic crisis; to the partially successful attempts at constructing a national poison control center in a neoliberal period of privatized healthcare and entrepreneurial science. the chapters are set in three different labs and institutions (a university teaching lab; an environmental chemistry lab; and a national poison control center) and follow scientists’ careers alongside the archives of the labs’ and center’s projects and contracts. the visions of an ill-equipped science exposed in the book’s photographs and descriptions – of a lab in disrepair, in need of renewed supplies, maintenance, and equipments (chapters 1 and 3), of centers partially built and projects suspended (chapter 5) – will be familiar to anyone with experience of public institutions and infrastructure in urban west africa. yet in tracing how capacity is “made, kept, and lost” (p. 146), tousignant applies a temporal lens to the problem of capacity, interrogating what it means to have, plan for, aspire to, preserve or indeed do without capacity. to what extent, she asks, does “capacity” translate into a functional and protective science? how does it come to define both the possibilities of and limits to “good science” – who makes or undoes it, and for whom? (p. 27). going beyond an understanding of capacity as contained by technical and material provision, she situates it instead “within moral economies and imaginations” (p. 57), in scientists’ aspirations for a protective science and professional excellence in a context of scarcity and dependence. in some ways, this is a story that, similarly to the toxins that it treats, is difficult to track – unfinished, uneven, partly invisible, often undetected and disregarded. influenced by studies of infrastructure and postcolonial critique, chapter 1 probes the gaps and absences that fill the lab’s fragmented archives across periods of investment and abandonment. machines in disrepair awaiting maintenance or calibration, expired chemicals, dusty glassware and kept samples and documents point to past periods of activity, as well as to hopes for future re-engagement (chapter 3 3). chapter 3 describes the longstanding effects of the 1980s structural adjustment programs’ funding cuts to public health on the working of the lab, increasingly dependent on short-lived projects and temporary foreign funding. subject to irregular funding, routine testing and continuity cannot be maintained, especially as scientific instruments, tousignant reminds us, require constant calibration and repair and rely on the continuous supply of chemicals and consumables to work effectively. in the absence of reliable provisioning, the possibility of a “protective science” in senegal appears more and more as a fiction (102), challenging what it means to be a scientist in a context of chronic under-funding. chapter 4 describes the case-study of a pilot project (project locustox) for ecotoxicological analysis of pesticide spraying for locust and grasshopper control. while the project was granted repeated funding and eventually established a fully-operating environmental chemistry lab, it also exposes the fragility of the public good in the increasing dependence on commercial contracts for its viability (p. 119). scientists are caught in this tension; striving to provide a public service – that of environmental protection and regulation – they are increasingly forced to turn into “entrepreneurs of public service” (p. 136), seeking commercial contracts and foreign funding (chapter 4) or using their own personal expenses and networks to transport samples to betterequipped labs in france and elsewhere for analysis or storage (pp. 48-49). throughout the book, tousignant justifies her focus on toxicologists’ careers as a way of charting more global histories of science and the unequal process of knowledge production and regulatory capacity in postcolonial locales of the global south. occupying positions of “partial privilege” rather than acute poverty (p. 148), senegalese toxicologists and their professional trajectories (chapter 2) give us a glimpse into the difficulties of establishing and keeping running a “science of protection” against unequal global geographies of risk and exposure to toxic harm. but the case could also be made for the neglect and relative privilege of toxicology itself – an implication that is only briefly mentioned at the end of the book and could have been considered throughout. this shifts the question from a problem of capacity to one of concern – or lack thereof. in a revealing vignette from diagne, the financial manager of the anti-poison centre, toxicology is described as a “luxury” compared to the more pressing public health issues of malaria or aids. capacity is undoubtedly an immense financial and material challenge facing public health 4 infrastructure in the global south. but paired with a lack of concern (or, indeed, an inability to care, and be concerned), the challenge of establishing an african science of toxicology appears unlikely to be met by simply ‘building capacity’ – raising different sets of questions for the viability of toxicology as a public good. pauline destrée is a research fellow in the department of social anthropology and a member of the centre for energy ethics at the university of st andrews. her work engages with resource extraction, infrastructure, climate change and postcolonial politics in west africa. she is currently working on a book manuscript on offshore oil extraction and carbon justice in ghana. her previous research looked at energy infrastructure, urban politics and popular culture in accra. © 2021 pauline destrée microsoft word kuiper final.docx 1 a collaborative ethnography on transnational capitalist collaborations rofel, lisa, and sylvia j. yanagisako. 2018. fabricating transnational capitalism: a collaborative ethnography of italian-chinese global fashion. durham: duke university press, pp. 392 isbn: 978-1-4780-0045-7 keywords: collaborative research; transnational capitalism; kinship; labor; fashion fabricating transnational capitalism is remarkable not only for its convincing argument but also for its form: the book is a collaborative ethnography about capitalist transnational collaborations. it is the outcome of a shared, multi-sited and long-term research project on collaborations between chinese and italian fashion firms, and will be of interest to anyone interested in processes of globalization. it contains a mix of co-authored and single-authored chapters by the main authors, lisa rofel and sylvia junko yanagisako, supplemented with a chapter by fashion studies scholar simona segre reinach. the co-authored introduction classically starts with a description of a social event, an italian fashion show in china, followed by an outline of the book's analytical framework. rofel and yanagisako have separately studied silk industries in china and italy respectively since 1984. the current book builds on the authors' previous work, both empirically and analytically, such as yanagisako's seminal conceptual work on kinship and gender and rofel's influential book on neoliberal subjectivities in china. the authors have moreover collaboratively studied italian fashion firms in china since 2002. they argue against perceiving transnational capitalist collaborations as an articulation of two distinct capitalist systems. the authors understand 2 capitalism to be dynamic and contingent, not predetermined by a certain (national) economic logic, but enabled, constrained and shaped by cultural practices and sentiments. rofel and yanagisako argue that it is their collaboration – which seems to have taken place primarily at the level of analysis rather than during actual fieldwork – that has enabled them to transcend common understandings of transnational capitalism. they point at their complementary linguistic skills and their combined knowledge on the different settings the italian and chinese entrepreneurs come from. whereas the empirical value of their collaboration is clear, it does not always transpire that this combined perspective was a sine qua non for their analytic insights. in my opinion, the analytic value of their collaboration is most convincingly present in the first section of the book. section i, titled "the negotiation of value," consists of an extensive co-authored chapter on manager's labor value. it describes career trajectories of italian and chinese managers, the changing division of labor between them, and their perceptions of themselves and each other. while the italians emphasize their "italianness" which is equated to fashion-ability (a skill that would not make their labor particularly noteworthy or valuable in italy), the chinese emphasize their cosmopolitanism, their overcoming of their "chineseness," which represents cheap rather than managerial labor. thus, the authors' collaborative approach, which reveals differential perspectives in such negotiations, shows that labor power (in the sense of capacities) is not pregiven but formed in the encounter and is based in the managers' mutual interdependence within existing hierarchies. section ii, titled "historical legacies and revisionist histories," argues against perceiving transnational capitalism as radically different from previous forms of capitalism. whereas transnational collaborations might occur more frequently than they did before, they are shaped by historical legacies and by specific understandings of the (non-)capitalist past, that for instance determine how parties involved perceive the role of the state in capitalist enterprise. rofel's chapter in this section shows how young chinese entrepreneurs' interpretation of china's socialist past have led them to embrace capitalism and to seek for joint ventures with foreign firms as a way to overcome (power) inequalities. yanagisako's chapter emphasizes the legacies of the decentralized structure of production by family firms in italy, which led italians to look for multiple partners in china, to the dismay of their existing partners. the chapter thus shows that 3 distrust or conflicts in transnational collaborations are not an inevitable result of cultural misunderstandings but stem from specific and contingent histories that shape the strategies and expectations of those involved. finally, segre reinach's chapter, based on the same interview material as the rest of the book, discusses the changing meaning of italian fashion in china. whereas italian firms and their joint ventures with chinese firms initially sourced material and produced in china for foreign markets, they at a later stage also produced for the domestic market. chinese-italian relations became more collaborative but also more competitive at this point, indicating that the collaborations themselves are dynamic, if persistently asymmetrical. section iii, straightforwardly titled "kinship and transnational capitalism," discusses how kinship is integral to both chinese and italian enterprises, albeit in highly different ways. yanagisako's chapter describes two types of "generation" that used to ensure the perseverance of family businesses in italy, but which are affected differently by transnational expansion. on the one hand, the succession of generations within family firms has been secured in those firms successful in a transnational context. on the other hand, whereas the demise of firms previously gave individual family members the opportunity to start anew and thus generated new firms, there is little demand for small subcontracting firms in italy anymore. this "generation" of firms is no longer possible, effectively restricting possibilities for social mobility. in china, in contrast, there are increasing opportunities for small entrepreneurs, as described in rofel's chapter in this section. these new firms might promote themselves as "family firms" towards (potential) italian partners, but they usually avoid at all cost to be perceived as such by other chinese in order to avoid accusations of corruption. rofel argues that the ambiguous relation between the state, family and business has to be seen in the light of the legacies of the socialist past yet is also shaped by the entrance of italian firms that evaluate family firms positively. the chapters in this section contradict narrow views on capitalism that perceive capitalist enterprise as solely focused on financial profit without taking possible affective and social benefits or ethical discussions on inequality into account. the chapters in section iii are for a considerable part based on data from yanagisako's and rofel's previous research. indeed, to me, the distinctive strength of the book is that it draws on longitudinal research on the fashion industry in both china and italy and on a decades-long conceptual engagement with the topic of capitalism. whereas the authors refer to this earlier work, they hardly discuss the particularities of their collaboration. for instance, the contribution 4 of segre reinach to the collaboration remains somewhat elusive, insightful as her chapter is. the book would have made an even stronger case for the method of collaborative ethnography if it had contained a more explicit reflection on the authors' respective positions, possibly points of disagreement and the resulting analytic value of the method. after all, as the authors themselves argue for capitalist collaborations, it matters greatly who the collaborators are and what kind of (scholarly) histories they bring to the project. it is, however, clear that in this case it is only because of the authors' decades of dedication to their respective research contexts that they have been able to provide such a comprehensive understanding of the shifts in italian-chinese capitalist collaborations in the fashion industry. dr. gerda kuiper is a research fellow at the global south studies center, university of cologne, and the author of agro-industrial labour in kenya. cut flower farms and migrant workers' settlements. her current research is on the trade in second-hand clothing in tanzania. © 2020 gerda kuiper 1 embracing democracy and market economy: lessons from kyrgyzstan review by tringa bytyqi where are all our sheep? : kyrgyzstan, a global political arena by boris petric, berghahn books, 2015 where are all our sheep?: kyrgyzstan, a global political arena is a result of ten years multi-sited fieldwork in kyrgyzstan (2001 2010), namely in the naryn region in the north, its capital naryn and bishkek, the country's capital. from the observation of the summer lifestyle of livestock herding up to the top politicians of the country and foreign election observers, petric explores the social change in the country and its actors by adopting a holistic approach. opening to the world after the independence for kyrgyzstan in 1991 meant introducing the market economy and democracy which led to an important movement of people and ideas. the fact that the country does not produce anything anymore engendered the businessman and the demokrat as emblematic figures, local expressions of the desire to adapt to the new reality. if the sheep once represented the wealth of kyrgyzstan, well, somebody ate them all. this very rich and accessible ethnography speaks to all social sciences researchers working in countries that live through major social, political, economic and symbolic restructuration due to their adoption of the market economy and democracy (central asia, the balkans). in the first chapter petric analyses the creation of the kyrgyz national identity. the manas epic, a part of cultural heritage shared by all the turkic peoples of central asia, came to embody the kyrgyz spirit. created by political, artistic and media cultural kirgiz elites, this identity was consolidated by the international community (p. 36). for petric, 2 the nationalization of heroes goes hand in hand with the desire to establish a specific relationship between land and nation and corresponds to a strong demand in the western imaginary. however, what’s more troubling is that the image (one country, one nation) does not reflect the kyrgyz society where the non-ethnic kyrgyz are simply excluded. having politicized the ethnic relations between the kyrgyz and the uzbeks in the south (p. 39), this ideology petric argues (p. 38), is becoming “a moral code defining a new social behavioral norm.” the second and the third chapters are dedicated to the world of the ngos and the internationals, namely the expatriates and consultants, promoters of democracy. the largest ngos (undp, ngo counterpart international, soros foundation and un) focus their work mainly on good governance and civil society. considered merely a technical problem that needs adjusting to the local reality (p. 48), the good governance ideology holds the state’s role in social life undesirable and thus promotes the development of the civil society. many local and national ngos in kyrgyzstan thus emerged as a response to the donor’s request. the fact that activism, initiative, and social mobilization are celebrated and passivity is negatively evaluated petric (p. 66) argues “aim to change the relations young people have towards values”. the electoral democracy is a cure-all for political and economic failures (p. 52) and has created a sort of “electoral fetishism” (p. 53). if the local ngos are independent of the state, their legitimacy in return is not dependent on local social forces. in the fourth chapter, petric tackles the migration inside kyrgyzstan and outside of the country. nearly a million of kyrgyz live and work temporarily or permanently in russia and kazakhstan. only a recent accepted phenomenon, the social and geographical mobility during the soviet era was controlled and highly monitored by the government (p.73-76). nowadays wide accepted and valued, social mobility is encouraged by the kyrgyz government. according to petric (p. 72), “the migratory experience is thus conceived as a circular movement where the individual essentially continues to picture his life in kyrgyzstan. it is a kind of rite of passage”. in 2008, more than a hundred racist murders occurred against central asians in russia. the independence liberalized the 3 mobility but also became the source of the exodus of the european population from kyrgyzstan. in the fifth chapter, petric takes us along the biggest marketplace in the bishkek, the dordoy bazaar. occupying over more than a square mile, the dordoy bazaar is the largest private bazaar in central asia. thousands of clients from all over the country and the former ussr come daily to do business. the collapse of livestock farming, the disappearance of industry and the partial privatization of agriculture has transformed the bazaar economy into the “vital locus of social organization” (p. 92). a large part of the contemporary kirgiz society is now made of merchants. askar salymbekov, the owner of the bazaar and one of the richest men in the country is the embodiment of the social, economic and political kirgiz dynamics. part of the soviet era administration, salymbekov has managed to surf through big structural changes and profit from every resource at his disposal. petric accompanies him around for some weeks, and we get a glimpse of the complexity of salymbekov’s navigation in different networks. petric argues (p. 102) that the owner of the bazaar is “at the heart of multiple social ties,” thus he can build a political clientele because the “economic relations overlap the solidarity networks.” the sixth chapter introduces us to a particular corps de métier, the election monitors. in the winter of 2005, petric himself enrolled in the mission of monitoring the elections in kyrgyzstan on behalf of the organization for security and cooperation in europe (osce). we follow the author in his journey, from the arrival at the airport, during the ride on a bus to the luxury hotels where the training took place onto the day of the monitoring and the evening to celebrate the monitoring. if the election observers think about their work in terms of neutrality and impartiality, this ethnography proves the opposite. they have a particular lifestyle and constitute a special social group. some monitors are even “professional international electoral expert contract workers” (p. 117). observers express pride in taking part in a potential revolution in the country, where the political situation was tense, they can even be convinced that their mission is to bring civilization (p. 121). petric argues that “an election observation mission is the continuation of struggles for influence between certain powerful countries. […] a political 4 arena where strong antagonisms exist between different countries and groups of countries” (p. 119). in the seventh and the last chapter of the book, the anthropologist returns to kyrgyzstan to film the presidential election monitoring. in the conclusion of the book, petric offers analyses that render this ethnography important for understanding the political sphere in the context of globalization. he argues that “beyond its specificity, the kyrgyz laboratory symbolizes the emergence of a new type of political space in the world” (p. 150). i have indeed encountered several effects of the democratization process described in the book, in my fieldwork in kosovo. though rich in description, the author uses very little theoretical framework in his work. thus, this ethnography is an excellent point of departure for future anthropology researchers who work in a very complex and paradoxical world of today. tringa bytyqi s a ph.d. student in the department of anthropology at the university of montreal. her research interests include political anthropology, social and cultural change. her current work focuses on new political spaces in kosovo. © 2018 tringa bytyqi microsoft word ce_189-593-1-sm_bt.docx 1 heritage-making review by brendan tuttle christoph brumann and david berliner, world heritage on the ground: ethnographic perspectives (new york, berghahn, 2016). keywords heritage, unesco, archaeology, ethnography “world heritage on the ground,” a collection of ethnographic essays edited by christoph brumann and david berliner, examines a wide range of the ways that places have come into relation with heritage regimes by being turned into world heritage properties. the book consists of an introduction (by the editors), eleven excellent essays on unesco-inscribed properties, and an ethnographic study of world heritage committee sessions and general assemblies. the essays that make up the book combine ethnographic and historical research in morocco, mali, china, lao pdr, cambodia, indonesia, china, mexico, italy, libya and tanzania, and nigeria. these are grouped into three sections of four essays. the first section consists of four essays about cities and town centers. the first and last chapters in this section involve the passionate ways that people relate to their surroundings. manon istasse describes affective and sensuous people-house relations in the medina of fez (morocco) to draw contrasts between different ways of caring for (and about) houses, and to show how heritage is made not only through the operations of heritage institutions and experts, but also through ordinary restoration and maintenance work, re-decorating, and the sensual experience of living in a house. in the last chapter, david berliner describes a kind of continuum of nostalgias attached 2 to luang prabang (lao pdr), ranging from foreigners’ ‘exo-nostalgia’ for a romanticized vision of a colonial past, (which they had not themselves experienced), to the ‘endo-nostalgia’ of longterm residents, who may have wished that young people dressed more like their grandparents, but were more concerned about home repairs and the restrictions placed by authenticity-crazed foreigners on the materials that they can use to make them. chapters 2 and 3 concern groups within states. in “heritage making in lijiang,” yujie zhu relates an observation made by a naxi man who had grown up in the old town of lijiang (china), an old trade town that had been turned into a “tourism marketplace” after its inscription in 1997: “when i walk in the street of the old town, i feel like a stranger. the food in restaurants is no longer good, but costs much more. i can only hear han chinese in the street, no more naxi being spoken” (87). the popularity of lijiang among tourists relegated long-term businesses and residents to the margins of the town: grocery stores and restaurants disappeared and were replaced by souvenir shops and restaurants set up for tourists by business people from other parts of china; shopkeepers were outfitted in traditional naxi clothing (to lend ‘authenticity’); and an exhibit developed for a nearby cultural theme park, ‘encountering a naxi family,’ was established to allow tourists to buy handicrafts and poke around naxi family homes (“even our bedroom”) while taking photographs (92). unesco’s work is premised on the idea that “global peace and development [are] achievable through intercultural dialogue and understanding,” charlotte joy writes; but, in actual practice, this dialogue is between states “and cannot easily include the voices of individuals or groups within nation states, such as the views of the tuareg in mali” (64). (neither does zhu suggest much understanding is gained by tourists encountering a naxi families.) joy contributes a chapter about the old towns of djenné (a serial property in mali inscribed in 1988), where concerns about safeguarding heritage objects have at times overshadowed concerns about safeguarding peoples’ livelihoods and safety, and how unesco participates in debates about mali’s islamic identity and the legitimacy of different forms of global politics. one of the key arguments of “world heritage on the ground” is that the sites, buildings, and landscapes inscribed on the world heritage list are not so much ‘things’ as heritage-making projects, or processes, which bring particular locales and their residents into relationship with global institutions and structure encounters between states and groups within states, and among long-term residents and visitors, tour guides, researchers, conservationists, and an array of 3 others. heritage sites are tangible but they are never fixed. rather than freezing monuments in time and place, or setting them off in wholly new historical directions, heritage-making entangles places in processes of change and transformation that involve struggles for control over establishing the meanings assigned to materials and what aspects of the past are identified as heritage and stabilized and preserved. “heritage … is a coproduction” of many differently situated actors, the editors write in the introduction, “but this should not be confounded with a consensus on values and meanings” (17). some of these disagreements are small: moroccan residents of fez do not share foreigners’ view that televisions are a threat to ‘authenticity.’ other disputes, such as those that led to the destruction of the tomb of sidi mahmoud ben amar in timbuktu, attract global attention. since “lived realities are linked to multiple heritages,” and differently situated groups tend to have different ideas about heritage, jasper chalcraft observes toward the end of the book (226), heritage preservation is always a kind of iconoclasm; some perspectives and heritages are excluded from preservation. the second section contains four essays about archaeological sites. keiko miura describes how, in cambodia, ankor’s inscription as a world heritage property created endless possibilities for struggles over the management of the ankor area between the unesco office in phnom penh and the minister of state, and between apsara (the authority tasked with protecting the angkor archaeological park) and provincial and ministerial authorities, all of which held overlapping claims on the property. within the angkor area, buddhist monks and other residents found themselves at odds with heritage police, who placed restrictions on building temples and houses and prevented farmers from cultivating rice, cutting trees, collecting firewood, or grazing livestock on monumental sites. noel salazar writes about two neighboring sites in indonesia, borobudur and prambanan, and how differently their places in a larger social order have been understood and valued at different times by different people; “despite their proclaimed universal value,” salazar shows, world heritage sites “have different meanings for different groups of actors” (164). shu-li wang relates how standards of living for residents within the protection zone of the yin xu archaeological site (china) abruptly dropped between 2001 and 2006, during preparations for world heritage inscription. while heritage officials put up sanctimonious posters (‘clean your hands before eating’) and worked to stage “an idealized image of civilization” (171), farmers were relocated into tiny apartments where, without land for 4 cultivation, they had to constantly scramble to get enough to eat. not surprisingly, many residents came to see the nearby archaeological site as a “ruin,” a kind of symbolic mirror of their own decline, rather than a monument of high civilization. lisa breglia contributes a chapter about chichén itzá (mexico), which sets off from a scandal that unfolded around an online voting campaign for the “new 7 wonders of the world” and revealed chichén itzá’s private ownership. but new7wonders.com can’t be blamed for introducing the profit motive into a once disinterested appreciation of the site; the property had been privately owned since 1894, when it was acquired by edward thompson, who sent what he dredged up from the sacred cenote to harvard’s peabody museum and the chicago field museum. during the 1930s, the barbachano family, “yucatan’s first family in tourism” (200), acquired the property piece by piece under somewhat dodgy circumstances which involved placing parcels under various relation’s names to avoid restrictions meant to afford the redistribution of land among peasants and indigenous mayan. the third section is about cultural landscapes. in “decolonizing the site,” a chapter about how much contemporary heritage practice recalls earlier colonial regimes (in kondoa-irangi rock art sites in tanzania, tadrart acacus in libya, and valcamonica in italy), jasper chalcraft writes about how he had “hoped that the realities, on the ground, would reveal the thrilling hybridity and cunning cultural brokerage of locals subjected to unesco’s universalizing world heritage gaze” (221). what he found, instead, was that ritual experts who used kondoa-irangi were banned from the site; in valcamonica, residents burnt down an archaeological reconstruction to register their antipathy toward heritage management and the management authority of one rock art site drilled holes into an engraved rock to build a walkway (“to improve the viewing angle for visitors” (236)); legislation that had long annoyed resident by prohibiting road construction, near another site in valcamonica, was suspended for the convenience of archaeologists; and in tadrart acacus, residents of the buffer zone maintained a relationship of mutual disregard with tourists and heritage workers. it is hard to creatively resist, appropriate, or reinterpret exogamous influences, form alternative imaginaries, or contest ‘unesco’s universalizing gaze’ when one has been overlooked altogether. (indeed, chalcraft remarks, graffiti as one of the few options actually available to people to register alternative views, or ‘decolonize’ heritage sites.) in the next chapter, peter probst writes about the osun-osogbo sacred grove, (a ‘cultural landscape’ 5 inscribed in 2005 and one of nigeria’s largest tourist attractions), where each year in august officials make a sacrifice said to go back to the city’s founding, when its first king made a sacrifice to osun, conveying the sincerity of the promise to protect the goddesses’ homestead. (the goddess, in return, agreed to ensure the city’s prosperity and protection.) probst draws on marcel mauss to discuss the double nature of heritage; it is an exchange that involves a “horizontal” politics of recognition among the living, that is, among states, and “vertical” obligations to remember ancestors and to pass along their benefits to generations to come. control over the media of the circulation of mutual recognition and obligation is fraught, then, because heritage can be converted not only into (global) recognition, but also economic capital. lynn meskell picks up these themes in her discussion of the mapungubwe cultural landscape in south africa, a collection of iron age sites and rock art that extends into botswana and zimbabwe. though the property was inscribed in 2003 on the merits of its archaeological remains, these aspects have been downplayed to encourage safari tourism: rhinos were moved into the park, fences were removed to allow elephants to roam the site, lions and leopards were encouraged to enter (making it too perilous to “enjoy the archaeology on foot” (280)), and mining licenses were issued within the buffer zone for open pit mining, threatening to obliterate archaeological remains. the fact that unesco is an institution dedicated to the high-minded pursuit of global peace through intercultural dialogue and the preservation of culture, but perennially short on cash and staffed by temporary workers, interns, and delegates who lack the time to read nomination documents and—“when they are not involved in often poorly concealed horse trading among peers” (13)—are more concerned with state-level international relations than local conservation, no doubt helps to explain why so much of this volume has been written in a mood of dejection. heritage encounters lead as often to conflict as to mutual understanding, and the benefits of global patrimony are unevenly distributed: the mapungubwe cultural landscape is threatened by open pit mining and residents of the yin xu archaeological site protection zone struggle to make a living; about ninety-five per cent of the income brought in by chichén itzá left the municipality; and naxi families in lijiang have been reduced to eking out a living by wearing “traditional” clothing for tourists, whose money goes to the local government, tourism operators, and businesspeople from elsewhere in china: “i feel like i am treated as a museum object, 6 instead of a human being,” a man whose courtyard had been opened to tourists tells yujie zhu (92). but this collection is not merely a catalogue of disappointments and failures, bleak indictments of heritage practice, or deconstructions of the idea of ‘authenticity’ (though readers looking for these things will not be disappointed). “world heritage on the ground” is particularly interesting for the light it sheds on the intermediary institutions that make up global heritage regimes: antiquities, tourism, and parks departments, heritage police, city councils and regional authorities, semi-public institutions and ngos, private tourism companies, heritage consultancies, departments of archaeology, and the like, which occupy the space between unesco and world heritage properties. with so many intermediaries, “stakeholder engagement” is rarely guided by the idea that everyone who might be affected by a decision ought to have a role in making it and residents are often overlooked. by providing a kind of buffer between unesco and “local residents” these institutions also risk putting up impediments to participation in heritage work and setting its priorities. and this risk has not always been avoided. in the collection’s conclusion christoph brumann explains why there is such a gap between committee sessions and the social situations at world heritage sites. the world heritage committee meets each year for about twelve days, during which time delegate review roughly 200 sites (nominations, renewals, changing listings to “in danger,” and so on). since reading all this information would mean reading many thousands of pages, delegates are very susceptible to being swayed by any official who turns up after having actually visited one of the sites and reluctant to challenge any given state’s official account of what is going on there, even when they receive a report, for instance, about a “huge, unapproved and problematiclooking reconstruction project” happening at a world heritage site (304). “world heritage on the ground” is an engaging collection of essays that be will be of interest to anthropologists, heritage practitioners, unand ngo-graphers, and others. readers are presented with a diverse range of theoretical approaches, themes and sub-themes, and rich ethnographic and historical work. the book would make an excellent contribution to syllabi on heritage studies, globalization, and critical development studies. 7 brendan tuttle lives and works in south sudan and is a research associate with the children’s environments research group (cerg) at the graduate center, city university of new york (cuny). © 2019 brendan tuttle microsoft word bikowski publish 2020-07.doc marketing to potential soldiers through video games reviewer: kyle s. bikowski allen, robertson. 2017, america’s digital army: games at work and war. university of nebraska press. keywords: play, marketing, institutions, u.s. military, video games video games, the military, and marketing might seem like disparate sections of society, but anthropologist robertson allen’s book, america’s digital army, aims to connect the dots and demonstrate ways in which persuasive technology has been used to change the methods of military soldier recruitment. through an examination of both military history and the history of commercial war games, allen discusses the blurring of the virtual and real worlds that occurred during the mid-2000s. at the time, the u.s. army attempted to recruit new soldiers by marketing military careers through the development of the video game, america’s army, the purpose of which was “the persuasion of players and users to enlist in the army or, failing that, to accept it more willingly as a legitimate, commonplace institution” (61). allen opens his introduction with a vignette from a typical round of the video game america’s army, the game that serves as the focal point for his ethnography. he then provides a brief history of the army game project (agp), before positioning himself as an avid player of the first-person shooter (fps) genre of video games. after describing his ethnographic approach to this project, he provides the social context of his research in relation to the rise in popularity and use of video games since the 1980s. next, allen discusses the various dichotomies he engages with and troubles in his book: war and game, soldier and civilian, and work and play. finally, he discusses how the diffusion of institutional power into a broader society of control has helped shape the use of games like america’s army for use in pervasive cultural militarization. allen’s second chapter focuses on the way america’s army serves as a marketing tool for the u.s. military. following a brief description of the office in charge of the game development, the office of economic and manpower analysis (oema) at west point, allen discusses how the game was conceptualized as a way to tap into an existing market of the military fps genre and target technologically competent and talented young men for recruitment. the remainder of the chapter is largely comprised of conversations between allen and dr. casey wardynski, the colonel who served as director of the army game project. one topic of conversation was ineffective marketing methods, such as unidirectional television advertisements, that only have a slight chance of being seen by the target demographic of young men, particularly in the age of video streaming. the chapter ends with a discussion about the frequent moral panic arguments surrounding violence in video games, as america’s army is often derided by the public as both glorifying violence and for not being realistic enough in depictions of the consequences of killing or being killed in combat. allen notes that wardynski claims america’s army is different than most military fps genre games because they add realistic consequences for violating army protocol. chapter 3 discusses ways in which the developers of america’s army tried to discourage racist messaging. they achieved this through randomizing the appearance of all characters so that there was no one race involved and used nondescript locations. at the same time, the agp allows oblique references to real conflicts and enemies because “the construction of an anonymous but proximal enemy, complete with its own ambiguous language, is one institutionalized effort at achieving a symbolic supremacy over potential enemies” (73). allen notes how all of these design choices mirror actual world training practices that the military conducts in rotc and military academy programs. further extending into the real, america’s army includes biographies and stories of actual world non-commissioned officers, referred to as “real heroes,” whom players are encouraged to see as role models. the chapter ends with a discussion between allen and one of the “real heroes,” tommy rieman, and his struggles with ptsd, an element sanitized out of the america’s army biography. the primary focus of chapter 4 is the virtual army experience (vae), a mobile mission simulator used by the agp at various events from 2007 to 2010. attendees of the events first fill out various questionnaires and speak with army recruiters, before entering either a mockup of a jeep or helicopter, rigged to vibrate and shake along with the simulation elements. participants also man light guns and then participate in a virtual simulation of a battle. while the stated goal is to provide a realistic experience for those considering a career in the military, allen notes that unlike america’s army, there is no way to fail the mission and all participants receive identical feedback. in chapter 5, allen discusses how academics have traditionally written about the military institution as a top down structure of inevitable progress through technology, rather than acknowledging that it also changes through bottom up and horizontal interactions. in an effort to change this, he examines the history of war themed commercial games, beginning in the nineteenth century, followed by the history of military training simulations. allen closes the chapter with a highly detailed account of the history of the development team who worked on america’s army. allen uses his final chapter to describe how the game developers blur the line between civilian and soldier, because they had “expert military knowledge” and “worked within a liminal space between so-called military and nonmilitary spheres to translate this knowledge to video gamers and the larger public” (149). although civilians, the development team were brought under the military umbrella and often thought of themselves as a squad, and many underwent a shortened version of bootcamp and wore fatigues to the office. in america’s digital army, allen seamlessly blends together elements of both military and gaming history with his own ethnographic work and interviews with members of the army games project to illuminate decision making processes and developments within the institution of the military that are rarely seen by the public. that being said, i was left wanting more engagement with the game itself and those who play it. by focusing almost entirely on the military and civilian developer side of the game, allen somewhat misses the mark in exploring one of his central arguments, that of the institutionalization of society, and he may have been more accurately exploring the corporatization of the military. considering his primary focus on virtual soldiers, those who are not yet soldiers but have the potential to be recruited, and only brief discussion of the digital, perhaps america’s virtual army would have been a more accurate title. in sum, portions of this book should appeal to those with an interest in video games or classes on virtual worlds, while the book as a whole should serve as a great resource to anyone with an interest in studying persuasive technology, the military, and business, specifically marketing. further, allen’s clear explanation of his methods and easy to understand writing style would make this book a great addition to any upper level or graduate class on those topics. kyle bikowski, ph.d. student at the university of iowa, studies the anthropology of video games, gender, science and technology, social media, and geek culture. his most recent research examined how the interplay between virtual and actual worlds has helped shape the gaymer identity. © kyle bikowski 2020 microsoft word contrarian anthropology final.docx 1 think like an anthropologist and act as a contrarian laura nader. contrarian anthropology: the unwritten rules of academia. berghahn books, 2018 504 pp. isbn 978-1-78533-706-2 keywords: contrarian anthropology; controlling processes; studying up; american anthropology; comparative anthropology contrarian anthropology is a collection of articles published by laura nader over the past 50 years that focus on the relationship between knowledge production and power. the book draws extensively on two seminal articles written by nader on “studying up” and “controlling processes,” both of which had a significant impact on several generations of anthropologists in the us and beyond. all of the articles use the approach of studying up, considering, in turn, the professions of science, law, gender studies, medicine, as well as anthropology. while believing that anthropology is “inherently contrarian” and well equipped as a discipline “caught between science and humanities” to unravel how power works, nader also subjects anthropology itself to critical interrogation (p. 1). the collection also works as an intellectual biography, a window into nader’s lifelong achievements. it was her original call to “study up” that allowed nader to turn the anthropological gaze from studying the powerless to studying the powerful, from studying the poor to studying the rich, from studying the other to studying one’s own (american, globally dominant) culture. studying up not only redirected the gaze of anthropologists, it pushed them to ask new questions that were only rarely asked in anthropology. why are the wealthy rich, not why are the poor, poor? why do we study what we study, the clients and the patients, but not the professionals tasked with “helping” them? why is science conceived as being scientific – or “when is science 2 scientific?” (p.1). more generally, how do the questions we are taught to ask act as silencing speech and work as a form of power as control? likewise, the method of making cross-cultural comparisons, as nader points out, is “particularly useful in illuminating processes that may otherwise remain invisible” (p.70). nader uses this method to unravel how “images of women in other societies can be prejudicial to women in one’s own society,” and how male dogmas in different societies use positional superiority in order to control women (p. 129). the comparative perspective also sheds light on the nature of the nation state as patriarchal everywhere, as all “the nation-states of the world are … male centered and all share an ideology or construct of male domination” (p. 73). it helps unravel how positional superiority within and between “civilizations takes different forms and makes use of different mechanisms” (p. 134). theoretically, the concept of controlling processes, defined as “the mechanisms by which ideas take hold and become institutional in relation to power” (p.268) is used by nader to unravel the processes of control in the daily lives of the professions. controlling processes helped lead to a shift in anthropology from studying social control – the control over groups or relationships – to putting cultural control – control over ideas – at the heart of the analysis of how power secures consent. since control over ideas is incremental, cultural control is more efficient as it naturalizes hegemonic ideas, leading them to seep into our everyday thinking. supporting this work is the committedly comparative nature of nader’s anthropological approach: this constituted a call to anthropologists to study their own societies while studying other societies as comparison, in order to help unravel how controlling processes work in different situations and contexts. as an example, nader studies “harmony ideology” in mexico, the usa and internationally, through ngo promotion of neoliberal discourses of the rule of law and good governance, analyzing in different settings how harmony becomes valued more than justice, with the goal of bringing an end to conflict superseding the need to address the injustices that triggered conflict in the first place. further, nader’s work is strengthened by her ability to conceptualize power not according to only one theoretical frame – e.g., marxian or foucauldian or gramscian – but to develop a dynamic conceptualization of power that incorporates all of these frameworks, as well as others, such as that developed by the polish anthropologist bronislaw malinowski. 3 contrarian anthropology also functions as a critical history of us anthropology, shedding light on prevailing anthropological mindsets from the 1960s on, when nader began her career. we see here the rise of “patriotic anthropologists” in the aftermath of the second world war, who supported the us state explicitly as an act of patriotism; and later, the emergence of “cold war anthropologists,” embedded within the state, supporting the us fight against global communism. rather than challenge hegemonic ideas of development and modernization, many american anthropologists embraced these ideas, dividing the world into the modern and traditional, the developed and underdeveloped, importing barely implicit convictions of us and western cultural, political and economic superiority. such models contributed to processes of control domestically as well, applied as they were to underprivileged populations in the united states itself. the us war on terror again brought back the patriotic anthropologist, contributing anthropological knowledge to state projects to combat global terrorism, now argued to be an inherent tendency of islam. nader, challenging such work in her article, “the three jihads,” instead points out how jihadism has historically been present in judaism, christianity and islam alike. if a contrarian anthropology seeks to shed light on how controlling processes operate in everyday life and how professional practices are shaped by power, now is a more important time than ever to be a contrarian anthropologist. control of the academy includes not only the state apparatus, but multinational corporations and other elite groups as well, and corporate funding has extended from the sciences to the social sciences and humanities. this influx of private sector funding shapes the kinds of questions that anthropologists and other academics are most likely to ask. as nader notes, “those who fund can determine what you study, and what you find, tax free” (p.230). following nader’s example here, we might point to the rise of the entrepreneurial anthropologist, ready to sell his/her skills to big funders, to follow the latest fashions in preferred funding, and even to cease doing fieldwork, subcontracting this work out to others. we might also note the rise of the impactful anthropologist, asked to quantify the impact of his/her research on society: and all too often, being impactful entails producing knowledge in congruence with dominant ideas. indeed, these dominant ideologies are enabled to travel across the academy and beyond through the recurrent injunction to have impact. a contrarian anthropology, as nader demonstrates, is a committed anthropology that seeks to unravel how professional mindsets are constructed and made hegemonic. it is a critical 4 anthropology that seeks to counter these mindsets, as a step towards committing to justice and not harmony, to the powerless through studying power, to the marginalized through pointing out how such mindsets allow for their continuing marginalization, and to colleagues in academia to unravel how they are themselves part of the system they sometimes criticize. nader’s own long body of work provides an example of how we can do this, methodologically and theoretically, and through being an academic whose widespread respect comes from a manifest integrity, intellectual honesty and aversion to power. mayssoun sukarieh is a senior lecturer at the department of international development in king’s college london. before king’s, mayssoun taught at the american university of beirut and brown university. she has articles published in political and legal anthropology, comparative studies of south asia, africa and the middle east, and race and class and sociology. © 2020 mayssoun sukarieh microsoft word atuk review.docx 1 the volatile possibilities and empty gestures of care under military occupation saiba varma, 2020, the occupied clinic: militarism and care in kashmir, durham: duke university press, 304 pp, isbn 978-1-4780-1098-2 keywords: trauma, psychiatry, military occupation, humanitarian care, shock the occupied clinic could hardly be any timelier. kashmir has been under siege by the indian national government for thirty years, and its residents disenfranchised. in 2019, in part to suppress the region’s independence movement, narendra modi and his bjp made international headlines when they stripped jammu and kashmir of its autonomy. in a land that lives under continuous military occupation and has witnessed countless curfews, saiba varma asks, ‘what kind of care leaves people in pieces?’ (xx). the occupied clinic is the result of arduous fieldwork conducted under occupation in the kashmir valley, during the period 2009-2016. in this eloquent ethnography of clinic and its militarization under siege, varma raises critically, ‘what is possible— clinically, ethically, socially, and politically—under occupation? what forms of care?’ (12). each chapter in the occupied clinic is named after a critical point that demonstrates how disturbing practices of counterinsurgency penetrate the spaces and encounters of psychiatric care insidiously. the introduction, care, outlines how care and militarism are radically entangled in kashmir and insists that their chronic inseparability exposes kashmiris to different forms of harm in the name of humanitarian love and psychiatric care. the chapter establishes what varma calls ‘a relational approach to occupation’ by addressing the biopolitical and necropolitical sides of the occupation in conjunction with, rather than in opposition to, each other. today, kashmir is the most densely militarized territory and may also be the most traumatized. many kashmiris suffer 2 from high levels of anxiety and trauma. the chapter probes the possibilities of psychiatric care in the occupied clinic where the cause of the trauma insists on being its antidote as well. ‘the libidinal logic’ of the occupation not only confluences state violence with love and care, but also renders medicine a tool of occupation. varma discusses spaces of care that are run by police, disturbed by counterinsurgency, or haunted by the specters of military violence, while, at the same time, emphasizing that care is not overdetermined by militarism or humanitarianism in kashmir. chapter 1, siege, centers on kamzorī, a pervasive malady that is characterized by loss of energy (élan vital) and persistent lethargy. kashmiris insist that kamzorī is not the same as depression, since the former has unique collective meanings as well as specific political etiologies. at the center of this chapter lies the crucial argument that kamzorī is not a ‘mark of care’s absence, but its presence’ (36). for kashmiris, kamzorī is the mark the occupation leaves on their bodies and psyche. the siege disrupts the normalcy and routineness of everyday life, which has direct mental health implications across generations of kashmiris. despite its ubiquitous presence, kamzorī is largely invisibilized by the biomedical logic dominant in the psychiatry clinic. chapter 1 also discusses the police de-addiction center (ddc) and its therapeutic capacity in a militarized context where the shooting of suspected militants by the police is incentivized. regardless of the police’s efforts to win the hearts and minds of kashmiris, the patients at ddc are inevitably haunted by the memories of themselves or their relatives being tortured in the same police edifice where they are to receive care and treatment. chapter 2, a disturbed area, parses out multiple definitions, impacts, and affects of disturbance in kashmir. the chapter is named after the historic jammu and kashmir disturbed areas act, which marked the beginning of an indefinite state of exception and suspension of fundamental rights in kashmir. disturbance is not only the consequence of lethal interruptions of everyday life for kashmiris—it is also a chronic problem rooted in the thirty year-long presence of military occupation and its ‘casual yet extraordinary violence’ (74). one of the most disturbed areas of life in kashmir is the clinic: hospitals are understaffed, the staff is underpaid, and the doctor-patient relations are jeopardized by the simple fact that doctors are state employees. whether in the form of a teargas or ineffable traumas woven into the very fabric of the clinic, disturbance always finds its way into the spaces of psychiatric care in kashmir because the 3 ‘occupation made the clinic a space contiguous and symbiotic with violence, neglect, and harm’ (100). chapter 3, aptly titled shock, offers poignant ethnography that sheds light on the counterintuitive use of electroconvulsive therapy, or ect, or shock, both as a method of torture and a clinical practice. kashmiris are expected to reconcile the irreconcilable by accepting shock as a psychiatric treatment even though many kashmiris had experienced torture in the hands of indian soldiers. the therapeutic capacity of shock is questioned by kashmiris as they widely witness that it does not heal but numb—it keeps you barely alive but dehumanized. the chapter also offers a rich analysis of the growing emphasis on the community-based care and the subsequent increase in the use of etc by psychiatrists. the ostensibly benevolent impetus to discharge patients sooner and allow them to be cared by their kin made shock a frequently used tool of treatment in the psychiatry clinic. shock is especially prescribed for “difficult patients” who didn’t positively respond to previous treatment and were abandoned in closed wards without any prospect of recovery. in chapter 4, debrief, varma turns her lenses toward humanitarian organizations and the manners in which they promote psychosocial care to rehabilitate the damages of the public health and militarism on kashmiris. there are, nevertheless, several epistemic gaps between what humanitarian organizations conceptualize as psychosocial care and what kashmiris experience and want. first, many kashmiris don’t seek therapy or counselling, and they have more immediate pharmaceutical needs. second, the humanitarian industry is unwilling to openly confront the central role of militarism in inflicting collective trauma on kashmiris. third, in their attempt to ‘count care’ (145), humanitarian organizations reduce the meaning of care into calculable practices and exploit vulnerability. lastly, ‘the elusive immateriality and heavy materiality of mental health problems’ (149) in kashmir make the translation and communication of trauma inescapably imperfect. resilience, endurance, agency, and inventiveness of life under occupation is the central themes of chapter 5 that calls attention to the violent irony and insult of the occupier’s asking for gratitude. the last chapter, gratitude, which could have alternatively been titled refusal, takes the 4 reader to the 2014 kashmir flood and the humanitarian response of the indian army. militarized humanitarianism is contingent upon ‘a relation of ongoing indebtedness to the apparatus of militarized care’ (173) and even a natural disaster can be used as an opportunity by the indian army to make kashmiris grateful for the occupation. kashmiris witnessed, however, that humanitarianism fails repeatedly to care for or care about them, hence they refused the assistance offered by ‘the army of heaven-sent angels’ (168). in that act of collective refusal, according to varma, lies the possibility of resistance and community-based modes of solidarity, which she carefully depicts in chapter 5. the occupied clinic is a thought-provoking and rigorously crafted ethnography that advances the growing discussions of care and its paradoxes in anthropology. by documenting the physiological and psychological traces of an ongoing siege ‘with no body counts’ (xviii), the occupied clinic makes a timely contribution to medical and psychological anthropology, south asian studies, and global health. the book also leaves the reader with a strong urge and necessity of wanting to know more about the role of care (-giving and -receiving) in ethnographic work. varma mentions the double bind of the term encounter as both a military and clinical phenomenon, yet she does go into detail about implications of care for ethnographic encounters. if care under occupation is by nature an ambivalent practice, what would that imply for already fragile ethnographic relations? part of the answer to this question is discussed in the epilogue where varma makes clear ethical and political duties of ethnographers. the occupied clinic is a timeless work that blends ethnography and prose deftly, and it is a must-read for scholars interested in the transdisciplinary discussions of clinical, governmental, nongovernmental, and communitarian modes of care. tankut atuk is a phd candidate in gender, women, and sexuality studies & sociocultural anthropology at the university of minnesota, twin cities. he holds two master’s degrees in gender studies and sociology/cultural studies. his current project looks at the socio-political dimensions of the world’s fastest growing hiv epidemic in turkey. he specifically asks, 'how do regimes of hiv care negotiate the double meaning of hiv as a moral and as a public health problem? and, how do queer activists imagine and enact community-based hiv care?' he seeks to understand and redress the ways in which the turkish state violates access to health(care) and 5 fails in responding to the hiv epidemic. tankut's work appeared in journal of sexualities, journal of men and masculinities, frontiers in medical sociology, international review of qualitative research, journal of urban studies, and gender, place, and culture. © 2021 tankut atuk microsoft word 181-555-1-rv.docx 1 when a victory: a long road to restoring trust in government review by natalia kovalyova 100 years: one woman’s fight for justice by: melinda janko fire in the belly productions, 2016 on june 10, 1996, eloise cobell did what very few people had attempted or imagined: she sued two agencies of the united states federal government (the department of the interior and the department of the treasury) for the mismanagement of indian trust funds and for the prolonged cheating of hundreds of thousands of native americans out of billions of dollars. the plaintiff’s purpose was to restore justice and to compel the federal government to fix the broken system that had been dysfunctional for quite a while. to be precise, some eighty years prior, the joint commission of the u.s. congress looked into the accounting methods used by the administration of the office of indian affairs and found that they were prone to “fraud, corruption, and institutional incompetence almost beyond the possibility of comprehension” (historical timeline). the facts of the case, that is, mismanagement of funds by the federal government, were never disputed. still, it took fifteen years and three presidential administrations for elouise cobell and her legal team to finally prevail in the largest class action suit and win a settlement of $3.4 billion. melinda janko’s film “100 years: one woman’ fight for justice” narrates a complicated path toward that victory. it relates major legal battles and important turning points of the case – lost and intentionally destroyed financial records, incompliance with court orders leading to the contempt trial of high profile officials, the removal of judge royce lamberth (initially assigned to the case) by the u.s. court of appeals for abuse of discretion in calling out racism in the federal government, etc. (garvey 2010:5). by triangulating the perspectives from many parties involved legal experts, accountants, defendants, and, central to the film, navajo and blackfeet indians on whose land oil 2 companies set up oil wells – the film creates a rich, multi-vocal narrative. it is abject poverty of the native american communities who reside on the lands holding the world’s richest oil and gas repositories yet who receive pennies in compensation for land use that strikes a nerve with the viewer. the apparently inadequate compensation and insufficient reporting on individual accounts caught the eye of elouise cobell, who was treasurer of her tribe. when her inquiries about individual indian money (as those accounts are designated on the books) only produced repeated dismissals or led to advice to write yet another letter, she decided it was time to “draw a line in the sand.” for the decade that it took to settle the case, elouise cobell never lost sight of the opponent she was taking on the u.s. government and always remembered that close to a quarter of her tribe once starved to death at the hands of that very same opponent. but the camera captures not only her determination and relentlessness but also her tears as she relates years of fruitless efforts to bring some relief to her community. narrating the story behind cobell v. salazar, the film taps into a larger context of the federal government’s relationship with native americans. it provides some background information regarding the federal policies that shaped the government’s involvement with indigenous peoples, stretching back to the nineteenth-century policy of assimilation and the decision to divide tribal lands, which resulted in assigning allotments to the heads of households but placing those allotments into the government’s trust for 25 years. the crafters of the allotment system strongly believed in private property and its power to instill “the habits of thrift, industry, and individualism, thought to be needed for assimilation into white culture” (carlson 1981:129). yet after decades of forced effort, native americans “had neither prospered as farmers nor retained ownership of their allotted lands” (130). since they did not turn into the farmers which the federal government envisioned them to become, the management of indian lands (and indian money) by the federal government became a permanent arrangement. when the settlement in cobell v. salazar was reached, the case contained some 3600 documents and over twenty federal court decisions. not to be lost in this veritable sea of documents, the film follows the logic of the plaintiff’s original claim for accurate accounting of indian money and never questions the continuity of flawed accounting practices beyond the given case or raises a concern about the continuity of the federal government in its capacity as trustee of indian assets (as the plaintiffs did not do either). while the film starts with elouise cobell talking about patronizing attitudes towards indians, it eventually offers a quite conventional story of an ordinary, albeit brave, person standing up to the system, a narrative that generally affirms the all too familiar ideological framework according to which american government works and self-corrects in the court of law. 3 however, a careful listener will notice another, stronger and more impactful, storyline surfacing at various points in the film, namely, the persistent paternalism by the u.s. government towards native americans, systemic injustice, and institutional racism. such framing of the events was publicly voiced by judge royce lamberth who summarized the facts of the case as disgracefully racist and imperialist on the part of the united states government. while lamberth appears on camera contemplating about his removal from the case, the film leaves out an important piece of the puzzle: judge lamberth called out what he believed to be continuous racist and anglo-centrist practices in the department of the interior. additionally, highlighting the inferior treatment of native americans by the federal government, larry echo hawk (one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs) draws attention to enron’s case which was quickly decided upon since congressmen saw that stealing from primarily white shareholders constitutes an emergency. yet, a similar case of theft from native american communities and injustice on an unprecedented scale has not disturbed the country, did not bring people to arms or cause ‘riots on the streets,’ least of all did it urge a speedy remedial action by the government. thus, as the film ends, we are left with an uneasy feeling that while elouise cobell won the case and checks were mailed out to individual account holders, the governing practices might not have radically changed in the aftermath of her victory and that colonial attitudes towards various ethnic groups may not have been affected at all, and are thus still keeping the empire afloat. references: “historical timeline of indian trust funds management.” (n.a)(n.d.). 100 years: one woman’s fight for justice. http://www.100yearsthemovies.com/fact-sheet carlson, leonard a. "land allotment and the decline of american indian farming." explorations in economic history18.2 (1981): 128 – 154. garvey, todd. “the indian trust fund litigation: an overview of cobell v. salazar. congressional research service (2010), rl34628. natalia kovalyova (ph.d., ut austin) studies the relationships between discourse and power in a variety of contexts from presidential communication to academic writing. her most recent research focuses on the role of the media in producing, maintaining, mending, or challenging social cohesion. 4 © 2019 natalia kovalyova microsoft word famished_review_anthropologybookforum_021420_cp_final.doc 1 famished for care: a clinical anthropology of eating disorders lester, rebecca. (2019). famished: eating disorders and failed care in america. university of california press. isbn: 9780520303935 pp. 416 famished: eating disorders and failed care in america is an ethnography of eating disorders, how they are elaborated in a nexus between personal experience, clinical logics, insurance exigencies and research agendas, within the us healthcare system. rebecca lester tacitly weaves together her ethnographic observations of an american eating disorder clinic, to her clinical work with patients in that clinic, and her own experience, personal struggles and visceral memories of anorexia. famished initiates us to the existential torment of eating disorders, nourished in the nefarious failures of an irresponsible healthcare system, but ultimately reads as an intimate letter of optimism and hope. it is a brutally beautiful clinical ethnography and an inspiring example of reflexivity and moral engagement. famished sets out to explore eating disorders and how they ‘emerge in and through the circulation of knowledge and practices among treatment providers, research agendas, and insurance companies.’ the book is a confluence of ethnographic and clinical vignettes, ranging from case studies of patients, discussions and dialogues between patients and the author, or between clinicians, group therapy sessions, clinical intake notes and reports, and autobiographical flashes. rebecca lester shares more than twenty years of material and experiences, while shifting positionalities throughout the book. she approaches eating disorders and their treatment as a medical and psychological anthropologist, working on extreme bodily practices and the meaning they take in cultural settings. as a licensed social worker, she gains unique insights of the clinical work with anorexic patients, the challenges clinicians face in dealing with insurance companies, and the ambivalences in their practice – aspects that would be 2 otherwise obfuscated in a purely ethnographic approach. finally, as someone who had an ongoing struggle with eating disorders from a young age, she delves into her past to offer us glimpses of what it might mean to experience the ever-presence of an eating disorder from the inside. the writing, organized around four interlaced thematic sections, juxtaposes these different voices that work in synergy to carry us through the book. in the first section, provocations, the author introduces us to the world of eating disorders. she considers eating disorders as spaces of knowledge production and clinical diagnosis in cedar grove, the clinic within which she conducted her ethnography and practiced as a social worker, but also in the broader context of psychiatry, healthcare and mental health in the us. she asserts that eating disorders are a major public health issue, which is heavily misunderstood, and largely underfunded both in research and caretaking with many patients neither getting enough, nor the right care, as a result of failing managed healthcare in the us. this opens to a discussion on what constitutes an eating disorder and where we might situate the malaise beyond the immediate symptoms. the author convincingly argues that eating disorders are a relational question, more than a medical or psychological one. they occupy spaces of subjectification and deep-rooted, existential and intersubjective struggles with being visible/invisible, speaking/silent, and an agent/object. following an exercise in historical epistemology, where the author traces the history of eating disorder, and briefly explains the layered theoretical and clinical approaches (from pre-freudian, psychodynamic and family-based therapies, all the way to biologicaland cognitive-centered models), the author discusses eating disorders as an existential project, as technologies of presence – practices for developing subjective and relational senses of being, becoming real, and mattering across affective, personal, structural and social fields. frameworks, the second section of the book, unpacks how institutionalized modes of managed care, research practices and clinical traditions concur in the definition of frameworks of care, understandings of eating disorder and the possible 'horizons of recovery.' they contribute to the sustainment of attitudes of distrust and suspicion towards eating disorder patients. the author craftily brings to light how the economic interests of insurance companies combine with notions of quantified evidenced-based research and biometric indicators in the treatment of eating disorders to form a looping, self-sustaining circuit of care that ultimately fails the patients. in describing the organization of care in cedar grove, the author underlines the importance of 3 milieu therapy (reminiscent of institutional psychotherapy), and how these diffracted frameworks of care carry into specific considerations of temporality and chronicity in eating disorders and their treatment. particularly, how anticipatory regimes and practical chronographies inevitably structure relationships of care in the clinic, deepening the rift between medical and recovery models of mental illness, and challenging notions of authenticity and the ethics of care – we end up wondering, how might we justify forms of care that 'look like – and feel like' more like harm and that perpetuate and reinforce the issues they set up to heal? the third section of the book, dynamics, focuses on the encounter between eating disorder patients and the clinic. the core of lester’s ethnography, this section focuses on the experiences of patients with treatment regimes at cedar grove. treatment is divided in three temporal phases, presented in sequence in this section: the initial introduction to the treatment during the first few weeks, the core of the treatment, and a final phase in preparation to leave the treatment and the clinic. after accepting that they are ‘in recovery,’ patients at cedar grove will dive into their relationship to food, which in broader terms simply means, into their relationship to others, to human attachment. the journey is neither smooth nor linear, and patients and clinicians will struggle in the renegotiation of relationships and in dealing with their respective existential angst, feelings of anger, shame, pain but also failure. eating disorder is foregrounded as a 'strategy of affective regulation and presencing,' intertwined to problems of recognition, erasure, and worthiness in relation to social relationships, especially regarding the parents of patients. as such, the clinical space at cedar grove is organized as a 'sort of substitute family system' aiming at helping the clients develop boundaries and achieve independence and autonomy. internal family systems therapy is enacted at cedar grove, and the author details the alternative vision of the self and subjectivity proposed by ifs theory – the self as a distributed network, 'a system of multiple, relatively differentiated parts,' closer to the buddhist vision of the 'non-self' – and explores issues of moral responsibility and the situation of moral agency within this therapeutic framework. therapy in cedar grove implicates affective recursions, whereby feelings and experiences are reproduced during the therapy, by being embedded in relational and institutional structures. in this last section, recursions, the author examines how the economic conditions of care for eating disorders affects the relationship between patients and caretakers, how assumptions of 4 manipulation and authenticity come to occupy the therapeutic relationship. following the thread of economic consequences and managed care, she discusses both the ingrained culture of therapreuneurism (from therapy and entrepreneurship) among clinicians trying to catch up with the latest trends and demands of a continuously evolving managerial healthcare landscape, and the extensive culture of precarity and dispossession facing the patients, these ‘failed neoliberal recruits’ within the contemporary us healthcare system. the author’s engagement with eating disorders and their treatment, leads to a final chapter detailing concrete steps we could take to remedy some of these problems – admittedly in a managerial system that is unlikely to be abolished any time soon. her suggestions, as an anthropologist, clinician, and survivor of eating disorder focus on discursive strategies and terminology, education for professionals and the public, much needed concrete research directions, and advice on hands on treatment practices. what makes famished an exceptional ethnography, however, is not simply the breadth and depth of the analyses, the multiple perspectives the author takes, or the richness of her twenty-year long observations. rebecca lester’s narrative dances to the rhythm of her autobiographical vignettes. each chapter is preceded by a short episode from the author’s own experience of eating disorders, reaching back to her childhood memories all the way to her twenties, and finally today. the book opens and closes with these vignettes, and they provide the structure, immediacy and intimacy of the story. if you ever wondered how anthropological theorizing, ethnographic descriptions and clinical accounts become embodied, read these passages, slowly and respectfully. they will drive rebecca’s points right to your gut – ground the ache, uncertainty, self-loath and hope of someone struggling with an eating disorder into your own flesh and blood. her personal vignettes read like punches. famished will leave you satiated. this is an ethnography standing at the core of anthropological engagements with care, ethics, and the body. scholars interested in medical and psychiatric anthropology, the anthropology of food and the body, as well as the anthropology of ethics and morality, will find little treasures dispersed throughout the book. finally, it is also another precious case of clinical anthropology, bridging the clinic to ethnography – posing key epistemic and ethical questions on the meddling and complementarity of these roles – while standing as a reminder of how marvelous it is when anthropologists engage personally with their objects of 5 study, blurring the lines between ethnographic and autobiographic experience. this is psychological anthropology at its best. christos panagiotopoulos is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at cornell university (us) and an invited french government scholar at ehess/cnrs (france). he works at the intersections of psychological anthropology, the anthropology of ethics and morality, and the anthropology of religion, with a particular focus on psychotherapy, mental health and care regimes. for his doctoral thesis he studies conflicting models of care within the juvenile rehabilitation system in france. © 2020 christos panagiotopoulos 1 becoming elite in a contested terrain: the post-colonial experiences of the francomauritian population in mauritius review by serah shani the franco-mauritian elite: power and anxiety in the face of change by tijo salverda berghahn books, 2015 reading postcolonial sub-saharan african political history books usually evokes a sense that african indigenous people, mostly phenotypically black sub-saharan people, were subject to a heroic european colonial conquest and suffered the effects of political domination at every level of society thereafter. such books portray militant control, identity reclamation, and spatial ownership tied to pre-conquest origins. in this sense, indigenous africans are perceived as the rightful claimants of geographic ownership and identity. however, according to author tijo slaverda, the case of mauritius is unique, in that there were no original inhabitants in the country by the time the first europeans arrived. through an anthropological approach, the author writes an ethnography of the franco-mauritian elite in six chapters. in his writings, he breaks down the contested elite category of the francomauritians and discusses the struggles they experience in order to defend and maintain their elite positions. the author traces franco-mauritians’ history, politics, and culture within a complex, diverse population of people who arrived in mauritius much later and whose elite status is continually threatened. the author argues that, “this absence of natives facilitated white settlers to establish an elite position without much competition or resistance” (p. 2). according to the author, the island was empty at the beginning of the colonial period, and europeans of french origin were the first to inhabit and populate the island. other immigrants from africa and other parts the world arrived later and became subservient to europeans. later, immigrants were brought to mauritius mainly as indentured workers and slaves to boost and further european economic and political dominance. 2 the author points to another factor contributing to the uniqueness of this island: the arrival and presence of the indo-mauritians, who, at the dawn of independence, became the leading political elites. in the case of mauritius, indo-mauritians, a group that migrated as indentured workers, won a majority of political contests. regardless of the indo-mauritians advantage of power in numbers, the island’s population was very ethnically diverse at the time of independence: “…the island was overpopulated, rife with ethnic tension” (p. 1). and yet, the author shows how, despite ethnic political competition, franco-mauritians have historically carved out ways to maintain and negotiate their elite social position and dominance in the country, even after losing their elite such places within the political arena. salverda describes elite positions and categories as contested and fluid terrains. he argues that, contrary to the traditional notions of elite positions as an all-powerful and all-controlling group, the franco-mauritian elites display insecurity and conflict, and they employ persistence as a technique to maintain their status quo—a status perceived to be attractive to competitors vying for those very privileges. during his fieldwork, salverda noted that “elites often seem to be perfectly aware of their vulnerability” (p. 3), and “this shows, in my opinion, that for understanding elite practices, we have to take seriously these feelings of anxiety (p. 34). historically, the franco-mauritian ethnic category is understood as having enjoyed elite positions of privilege in several ways, such as pre-independence political, economic, and social spaces. traditional notions of elites’ use of power based on political and economic privilege worked well when unchallenged or minimally challenged. however, when new forms of political elites emerged, dominated by the indo-mauritians, the franco-mauritian elite’s expressions had to be adjusted and deconstructed to adapt to the new government, where excessive power use became rationed or expressed in non-coercive ways, taking, instead, more influential and persuasive forms. the author states that “this is a clear departure from the colonial heyday, undermining, moreover the assumption that the elite are more powerful and only use their power expansively…. franco-mauritians oppose, fear and have an attitude of adopting a low profile” (p. 2–3). tied to a motherland that is shared by a large and diverse population, franco-mauritians struggle to maintain their elite position while also working to develop their country and striving to “maintain a balance between continuity and change” (p. 4). salverda also explains how, in former colonies, historical and political transformations, and sometimes oppressive pasts, are used to legitimize the political power of the majority over the masses and to 3 denigrate minority elite as unfit for contemporary political arenas. these trends cut across many countries in africa where economically and politically viable minority white populations, though economically powerful, could not take political positions at independence. the examples of countries in africa that the author cites most are south africa and zimbabwe. in mauritius, such invocations involved fossilized reminders of many years of slavery, indentured labor, and white political and economic dominance during the colonial regime. when these bygone days were invoked, the francomauritian elites chose to refrain from public political debate, and instead take a more passive political approach by remotely participating from the margins of society. however, because of their economic dominance and influence, they own the most suitable land for sugar plantations — the primary economic base for the island—they are able to transform their economic power into political influence, negotiating the political arena surreptitiously with the political elites from another ethnic majority group, mainly the indo-mauritians. hence franco-mauritians adapt to political change over time, addressing challenges as they appear, prompting the author to state, “i start from the premise that franco-mauritians and elite more generally do not necessarily act with a predetermined plan.” (p. 5). however, the author demonstrates how modes of inclusion into and exclusion from the elite category can play a significant role in maintaining status, such as controlling who is allowed into the elite networks, social clubs, job opportunities, schools, and neighborhoods. the franco-mauritian case demonstrates how these inclusionary and exclusionary undercurrents become more complex when physical characteristics become a prerequisite. physically, “franco-mauritians’ most prominent sign of elite superiority is their white skin color” (p. 15), a controversial reminder of the bitter past of colonialism and slavery. whites are also widely acknowledged as the main custodian of the islands’ economic power. these economic power spaces are a terrain that franco-mauritians “jealously” guard from other ethnic groups, especially the indo-mauritians, the custodians of the political arena. the author portrays the configuration and consolidation of elite categories as continuous activities. franco-mauritians strive to maintain their white hegemony and cohesion by adhering to a system that perpetuates a reproduction of white elites. culture becomes crucial as a mechanism for social reproduction. ethnic endogamous marriages are reinforced, and exogamy is frowned upon to the extreme; marrying outside of the elite could mean the loss of elite inclusion. phenotypical attributes become crucial, and genealogies are used as a form of social control to prove “absence of non-white genes” (p. 123), and patriarchy demands that wealth is passed on from generation to generation. while culture plays a big role in maintaining boundaries, the author argues, elites use other means to compete 4 and excel beyond their challengers. for example, the author speaks of how the elite take their children to elite schools and are also able to take them for further studies abroad, especially to france. their children later come back to compete for better-paying jobs within their networks. in a country where ethnic seclusion and identity is acceptable, franco-mauritians are also able to have their own elite social clubs, where most elites gather for networking, job information, dating opportunities, and political discussion. social clubs act as spaces where they educate their young on elite habitus. consequently, these particularistic approaches (p. 147), coupled with the control of land, sugar markets, and banks, position them as the main economic power on the island and increase cohesion and solidarity. hence, the author states that “they share a number of characteristics, a habitus, which shapes a strong, multidimensional sense of belonging and eliteness” (p.147). elite studies can sound conventionally obvious, mostly in relation to economic power and political power, until one considers the dynamics of how elite statuses are configured, consolidated, maintained, protected, transformed, challenged, changed, and manipulated over long historical periods and within different political regimes. the elite status may become even more complex when associated with skin color, specifically “whites,” in 21st century africa, where elites, by an almost agreed-upon political consensus, are meant to be legitimately and selectively indigenous ethnic groups. the author acknowledges these complexities by stating, “but what if the elite position is not only defined by its (economic, political or other) function, but also by its distinctive physical characteristics” (p. 4), referring to franco-mauritians, where their white skin operates as a symbol of eliteness. from an ethnographic perspective, salverda used a holistic anthropological approach to capture how franco-mauritians have managed to prolong and protect their elite status over a long period of time. the author precisely states the role of the research: “this ethnography of franco-mauritian elite aims to analyze the intricacies of an elite position—and its prolongation over time—by unraveling the multidimensionality of an elite position. certainly, i try to grasp how an elite tries to maintain its position over time” (p. 5). the book aims to reveal the many complexities that exist in elite power, particularly the anxieties encountered in maintaining their status. serah shani is an assistant professor of anthropology at westmont college. her research interest lies broadly in exploring the social life of cities, and more particularly the informal and innovative strategies by which different ethnic and racial urban residents claim their rights to the city. her current research looks at urban migration, transnational movements, identities and the sociocultural, economic adaptation of recent african immigrants to the united states. dr. shani graduated from columbia 5 university, where she did her fieldwork among african immigrants in new york city. her research has been published in harvard educational review. her research in africa seeks to examine how market economies influence parenting strategies among marginalized and indigenous groups and how these strategies inform children’s future economic trajectories. dr. shani is also conducting research on elite formation among indigenous groups in east africa. © 2018 serah shani microsoft word aldenderfer publish.doc learning andean landscapes through travel review by mark aldenderfer incidence of travel: recent travels in ancient south america. jerry d. moore. university press of colorado, 2017. keywords: south america, andes, landscapes, archaeology, travel narrative. some people are said to have a special affinity with certain species of animals and have the ability to understand their feelings and even what they think. these people are known as whisperers, and among the best known of these are horse, dog, cat, and even ghost, whisperers. alright, the latter is the title of a now-cancelled television show, but i hope you get the point. some people just understand animals and yes, things. so, i think jerry moore is a landscapewhisperer. i mean this with all respect so please let me explain. he understands landscapes at a deeply personal level and shows a remarkable ability to describe them and their cultural nuances to people who might otherwise find them wholly alien. incidence of travel: recent travels in ancient south america amply displays his whispering abilities. moore has had a long and distinguished career as an academic archaeologist. he is broadly interested in south american prehistory, has published widely in the journals of the field, edited one of the premier regional journals (ñawpa pacha) and has authored a very important (and successful) textbook—a prehistory of south america: ancient cultural diversity on the least known continent (2014). in this book, however, he forgoes a purely academic or technical presentation and swerves personal, adopting a narrative style. the result is a mélange of his experiences, aspects of his career, and his finely-honed insights into the past. he clearly defines his vision for the book: “…(it) is about journeys and what i have learned in the course of travel about the archaeology of south america, particularly by looking at the creation of ancient cultural landscapes. my journeys are lines of movement—sometimes planned, often diverted by unforeseen events—that intersect with the lives and acts of other humans, past and present” (5). the result is a combination of autobiography, memoir, and travel narrative. the book is unusual because, at least in my experience, there are relatively few similar books written by archaeologists. there are, of course, plenty of autobiographies penned by our intellectual ancestors. prominent examples among many include sir mortimer wheeler’s (1966) alms for oblivion: an antiquary’s scrapbook; mary leakey’s (1984), disclosing the past; and michael d. coe’s 2006) final report: an archaeologist excavates his past. memoirs are somewhat less common. although the line between autobiography and memoir is often blurred, a memoir usually does not have a fairly strict chronological ordering and tends to emphasize personal experience and emotional reflection on a set of themes. jesse jenning’s (1994) accidental archaeologist has been reviewed by colleagues as a blend of memoir and autobiography. a more recent example of a memoir that is thematically organized is anna marie prentiss’ field seasons: reflections on career paths and research in american archaeology (2012). the archaeological travel narrative, however, remains quite elusive but one that compares well to moore’s book is denis byrne’s (2007) surface collection: archaeological travels in southeast asia. byrne, a specialist in archaeological heritage conservation, focuses his attention, as does moore, on the intersection of landscapes and people. understanding these literary variants helps to place moore’s book into a fuller context and shows just how unique it is. this book is a pleasure to read because it is a deftly written travel narrative about andean landscapes that wraps around deep scholarship about these places and which is leavened not only with personal reflection but anecdotes, some funny, others tragic, that most field archaeologists will find familiar. in nine chapters moore takes us traveling through the present and the past. in chapter 1 we are in central peru at the qoyllur rit’i pilgrimage; chapter 2 finds us in northern peru via a discussion about archaeological research on mound cultures in central chile; we return to a ritual procession in ecuador in chapter 3 which he uses to discuss ancient pilgrimages in the andes; in one of my favorite entries (chapter 4), moore takes us to the cueva de las manos in patagonia to discuss how foragers in the region inscribed their identities in it more than 10,000 years ago; the geoglyphs of northern chile and southern peru are the subject of chapter 5; we swing to northern colombia in chapter 6, which is devoted to his long, arduous journey to visit the famous “ciudad perdida” of that region; chapter 7 takes back south again to the volcanic zone of ecuador where moore describes how eruptions over the millennia shaped the cultures of the past and those of the present; once again starting in ecuador we veer south to cusco in chapter 8 where moore describes the ceque system of sacred stones of the inca and relates a narrative of the differences between how the inca in the 15th c and french scholars in the 18th c attempted to measure the cosmos; chapter 9 has us back in ecuador but eventually returns us to the cusco of the incas via the qhapac ñan, the inca imperial road which francisco pizarro followed in his effort to conquer the inca polity. finally, in the epilogue, one of the most engaging chapters of the book, moore concludes his travels on the continent with a delightful but rather trying story of a recalcitrant land cruiser which only seems to favor moving when in reverse and an epic odyssey to seek a mechanic or anyone else who can repair the vehicle. he failed to find one but in so doing, that failure offered an insight, one that he characterized thusly: “i drove in reverse toward la paz, the past was there in front of me, but the future of this particular journey was invisible and behind me—as it always, actually is” (269). for moore, the journey is how he has made himself a landscape-whisperer. his journeys and travels molded both his intellectual rigor as an academic while simultaneously expanding his empathy to think about how meaning has been various inscribed across the continent over thousands of years of prehistory. he makes no claim to know how these ancient peoples thought, but through his stories and tales, he invites us to reflect on the past and how these reflections can help us understand our common humanity. i don’t know of a single archaeologist who does not have tales to rival those that moore describes. but i think few of us can emulate his skillful narrative and the way in which he has woven his experiences, reflections, and stories into a readable and deeply engaging tapestry of andean landscapes and their meanings, not only for those people who live upon them, but for readers who seek to catch a whisper of their pasts. byrne, denis 2012. surface collection: archaeological travels in southeast asia. worlds of archaeology series, altamira press, lanham, maryland. coe, michael d. 2006. final report: an archaeologist excavates his past. thames and hudson, london. jennings, jesse. 1994. accidental archaeologist: memoirs of jesse d. jennings. university of utah press, salt lake city, utah. leakey, mary. 1984 disclosing the past. doubleday, new york. moore, jerry 2014. a prehistory of south america: ancient cultural diversity in the least known continent. university press of colorado, boulder, colorado. prentiss, anna marie. 2012 field seasons: reflections on career paths and research in american archaeology. university of utah press, salt lake city, utah. wheeler, robert eric mortimer, sir. 1966 alms for oblivion: an antiquary’s scrapbook. weidenfeld and nicolson, london. mark aldenderfer is a distinguished professor emeritus and the edward a. dickson emeriti professorship endowed chair at the university of california, merced. although his current archaeological research is the himalayas of nepal, he worked in the highlands of southern peru for more than 20 years. © 2020 mark aldenderfer microsoft word ojani final.docx 1 aeolian politics and the duograph boyer, dominic. 2019. energopolitics: wind and power in the anthropocene. durham, nc: duke university press, pp. 280, isbn 978-1-4780-0377-9 howe, cymene. 2019. ecologics: wind and power in the anthropocene. durham, nc: duke university press, pp. 272, isbn 978-1-4780-0385-4 keywords: capitalism, energy, environment, infrastructure, power cymene howe and dominic boyer have crafted two eloquent accounts of the turbulent, aeolian politics that unfolded during their 16-month-long field research in mexico’s isthmus of tehuantepec, between 2009 and 2013. a gap in the sierra madre mountain range forms an extraordinary wind tunnel in the isthmus, making the region a convenient site for renewable energy production. yet, local expectations have been overlooked. at the same time, the model of wind development that dominates the isthmus has failed “to disrupt the toxic kinds of relatedness that made it necessary to build wind parks in the first place” (194). these contradictions become pivotal in the stories that unfold throughout howe’s and boyer’s duograph wind and power in the anthropocene. in their joint preface, the authors posit the duograph form as an attempt to better account for the complexities they encountered in the isthmus. howe’s ecologics focuses on “the salience of human-nonhuman relations” (vii). by contrast, boyer’s energopolitics attends mainly to “the political complexity of wind power” (viii). considered together, they share a common objective: to find ways whereby energy transition can go hand in hand with political, social, and economic transformations. while critical of the political configurations that characterized their field, the authors approach these with a genuine concern about the way our current infrastructures have impacted upon the planet to the point of no return. as they declare in their 2 joint conclusion, “we went to the isthmus of tehuantepec as ardent supporters of renewable energy transition, and we left with that conviction intact” (191). i am thus tempted to situate this duograph alongside studies that hint at not yet actualized potentialities in the present, regardless of the scale or speculative nature of the examples in question (e.g. tsing et al. 2017; watts 2018). as howe writes in her introductory chapter, “wind that blew [ships] toward the new world led to certain kinds of futures. captured within it, then and now, are other, potentially more equitable, possibilities” (19). the challenge is to stay with the turbulence, inhabit the paradox, and seek a transition that asks what exactly is being maintained. ecologics takes on these challenges in what is perhaps the most evocative half of the duograph. by bringing into relief the myriad more-than-human relations that constitute wind power in the isthmus, the book enacts a form of anthropological inquiry that acknowledges the role of the very beings and material processes that extractivist frameworks deliberately omit. howe further seeks to critically address the centrality of “man” in the notion of the anthropocene by adopting a citational practice that prioritizes feminist scholars. not only in content but also in form, the book gestures toward ways in which the more-than-human relations that the author so productively foregrounds may become differently assembled. whereas the duograph as a whole follows several cases that all unfold in the isthmus, ecologics focuses exclusively on the mareña renovables wind park, obstructed by oaxacan protesters to the point of finally being suspended. chapter 2, chapter 4, and chapter 6 detail this story vividly. chapter 2 introduces the mareña renovables project, its objectives, and conditions of emergence. it provides insight into expectations about corporate-sponsored development benefits that failed to materialize, including the missteps and misrecognitions behind the project’s eventual demise. chapter 4 in turn dwells deeper into the ambivalences around the park, with voices from opponents and activists occupying several pages. for them, the park “epitomized foreign domination” (104), but rather than oppose wind power as such, much of the resentment around the megaproject is stirred by the way indigenous and agricultural lands and seashores become occupied by transnational capital and corporate stewardship. the story comes to an end in chapter 6, which recounts how investors in midst of fashioning new financial proposals would finally be challenged by national and international human rights 3 organizations. upon inquiries into the project’s practices, the inter-american development bank withdrew its funding and mareña renovables was finally suspended. inspired by feminist studies, multispecies studies, and recent new materialisms, chapter 1, chapter 3, and chapter 5 of howe’s ecologics approach the wind park from a somewhat different angle. echoing recent turns to the atmospheric (choy and zee 2015; stewart 2011), the first chapter suggests that necessary reconfigurations of material, human, and nonhuman worlds might be better conceptualized if we avoid the material determinisms of terrestrial ontologies and instead “deterrestrialize” thought. what follows is a beautiful account of wind’s relationality and material traits, as well as zapotec understandings of wind as an animating force intrinsic to life. we read accounts both about those who have benefited financially from wind power and people for whom the potential environmental impacts of wind turbines raise deep anxieties. in the isthmus, wind is enacted as something that can be possessed and stolen, and a “public property.” wind becomes “swept up in grander environmental discourses as well as local struggles for recognition” (42). chapter 3 shifts attention to machines. the ecology of energy transition depends not only on the presence of wind but also enfolds the affective capacities of trucks. perhaps the most emblematic symbol of petromodernity, trucks are nonetheless essential for bringing wind parks and renewable energy into existence. as such, the work trucks do exceeds their status as metaphors for the carbon age, positing them as “transitional objects” (76) positioned as a passage between two stages. they are carbon fuelled yet channel the politics of wind power. men are attacked through attacks on their trucks, some even taken prisoner. trucks can intimidate and arouse speculation. some even kill. echoing recent prominent voices (e.g. haraway 2016), chapter 5 asks us to imagine a way of affirming “the coincident formation of human lives with other-than-human lives and the material worlds through which we are all mutually composed” (140). howe speculates whether this mode of thinking, together with shared fears of extinction, might be able to “allow for nonhuman others to differently direct human life” (140) and thus move us beyond human exceptionalism. drawing on isabelle stengers (2011), the chapter productively adopts the concept of “animal testing” to discuss classification practices and notions of the “greater good.” opponents to the megaproject are expected to forward their claims within predetermined value 4 scales. as a result, certain more-than-human relations—including those between people and various amphibious critters—remain in obscurity. boyer’s book seeks ways around human-centered notions of politics. rather than drawing on recent nonhuman turns, energopolitics begins with an exposition of three analytics: capital, biopower, and energopower. these should be understood as “conceptual minima.” the anthropocentrism of the former two concepts is challenged by the anthropocene. conversely, boyer’s neologism, energopower, steers attention also to the “impacts of fuel and electricity upon the domain of the anthropolitical” (14). more important than his theoretical discussion is his contention that in order to understand aeolian politics in the isthmus of tehuantepec, one must attend to situated, historical processes with which transitions to renewable energy become intimately entangled. in line with the duograph’s overall objective to seek ways of doing wind power differently, chapter 1 starts with the story of a community-owned wind park in ixtepec. while imperfect and ultimately unsuccessful, this initiative is framed as a potential alternative to models promoted by transnational green capitalism. we follow the work of sergio, who, through boyer’s accessible prose, comes across as a sympathetic representative of a community wind production proponent, yansa group. together with local residents, sergio nevertheless encounters a set of obstacles, not least a policy regime that favors foreign capital before community-driven development models. the subsequent chapter takes us to la ventosa, considered by developers as an optimal location for wind parks. however, boyer’s account reveals division among locals. it turns out that wind has brought prosperity predominantly to families that own land, and dissatisfaction runs deep in parts of the community where land ownership is non-existent. still, the latter group tended to be not “critical of the wind parks themselves but rather of how the income from the parks is not being redistributed more widely” (89). in boyer’s assessment, the problem is located primarily in the development models and how they converge with the politics of land tenure and other deep-seated asymmetries. chapter 3 begins in an empty office in the oaxacan ministry of tourism and economic development. as he explores the network of relations that make up aeolian politics in the isthmus, boyer discovers that he had previously overestimated the role of state government. detailed accounts of speeches given by various authorities at a renewable energy forum instead give a sense of the central role of party politics. the chapter likewise provides insight into the 5 infrastructures that afford indigenous municipios and activist organizations with the capacity to challenge political elites. chapter 4 moves farther afield to mexico city. interviews and conversations take us between a wide array of influential actors, including ministry of environment officials and company representatives. what comes through is an image of infrastructure, energy, finance, and state governance characterized by “internal contradictions and dense, turbulent entanglements” (156). whereas the federal government promotes privatepublic partnership to attract foreign capital, the electricity parastatal in charge of the grid struggles desperately against its own dissolution. the book’s fifth and final chapter returns to the isthmus. we learn that contemporary divisions over wind should be understood against the background of more long-running histories of resistance against colonial conquest and imposition. local residents fear that capitulation to megaprojects will entail losing things that have been central to a long tradition of resistance, above all land and livelihood. conveniently, the chapter ends by suggesting that alternatives to the anthropocene trajectory demand attention to “what is meaningful and valuable in the localities where the wind blows” (193). in their joint conclusion, howe and boyer encourage collaborative anthropology as a means to address the complexity of our shared, contemporary problems. their duograph is one such attempt. the two volumes can be read separately or in any order of choice, but the chosen order will inevitably influence the reader’s impression of the duograph as a whole. my personal research interests steered me to ecologics first, after which energopolitics fleshed out my understanding of the broader processes at play. even so, i am left wondering what would be lost and/or gained had the authors opted for a longer, joint volume. something that the duograph accomplishes well is to raise paramount questions about ethnographic description. surely, howe and boyer have had the opportunity to control their accounts against one another, yet overlaps between their various stories serve as a welcome reminder of the persistence of questions around representation in ethnographic writing more generally. references choy, timothy and jerry zee. 2015. “condition-suspension.” cultural anthropology 30 (2): 210-223. doi: 10.14506/ca30.2.04. 6 haraway, donna. 2016. staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene. durham, nc: duke university press. stengers, isabelle. 2011. cosmopolitics i and ii. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. stewart, kathleen. 2011. “atmospheric attunements.” environment and planning d: society and space 29 (3): 445-453. doi: 10.1068/d9109. tsing, anna, heather swanson, elaine gan and nils bubandt (eds.). 2017. arts of living on a damaged planet: ghosts and monsters of the anthropocene. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. watts, laura. 2018. energy at the end of the world: an orkney islands saga. cambridge, ma: mit press. chakad ojani is a phd candidate in social anthropology at the university of manchester. his doctoral research is on fog capture and atmospheric attunements in coastal peru. © 2021 chakad ojani to love and to kill: everyday moralities in the parallel lives of human and non-human laboratory animals reviewed by carrie friese sharp, lesley a. (2019) animal ethos: the morality of human-animal encounters in experimental lab science. oakland, ca: university of california press. lesley sharp opens her book on the moralities of animal life and death in laboratory science with john berger’s famous question that entitles his essay: “why look at animals?” berger’s answer to this question is: because of the ways in which human and animal lives are both similar and dissimilar, a parallelism that only converges at death. it is this moment of convergence, of death broadly speaking, that sharp focuses her attention upon, providing a thorough analysis of what it means to systematically kill another today. and lest anyone think that this systematic killing is a sign of uncaringness at best or wonton cruelty at worst, there is another useful quote from john berger’s essay that sharp’s analysis similarly rotates around: “a peasant becomes fond of his pig and is glad to salt away its pork. what is significant, and is so difficult for the urban stranger to understand, is that the two statements in that sentence are connected by an and and not by a but” (berger (1980) 2009). sharp’s analysis hinges upon the parallel fact that, in science, animal technicians and scientists are both fond of and even love the laboratory animals in their care as sentient subjects and as objectified units of data, which requires that the animals they care for will potentially suffer and almost certainly die (see in particular sharp, 2019: 217-218). sharp draws on more than two decades of ethnographic research conducted largely in the us but also in the uk in order to consider the everyday moralities that make this and possible. sharp (2019: 15) points out that “human ‘pre-eminence’ is a foundational principle of lab research, where experimental animals are used specifically to avoid causing undue harm to (more highly valued) human subjects” but that this is never the sole logic shaping life in the lab. sharp argues the reason for this is because lab animals are “multiple” (mol, 2002); any animal in question may be a generic source of valuable and transferrable data while also being many other things, including a favourite, named individual (sharp, 2019: 18, chapter 14). by exploring the multiplicity of laboratory animals, sharp is able to see and name the everyday moralities engendered in science, which she probes through three themes that structure the book: intimacy, sacrifice and animal exceptionalism. sharp delineates, what she refers to as, the sentimental structure of laboratories as an entanglement of notions regarding species proximity developed through evolutionary thinking (e.g., humans as most closely related primates) with personal histories (e.g., prior relationships with pets or working animals) that create particular forms of animal favouritism (sharp, 2019: 41). this animal favouritism is patterned without being deterministic, shaping the kinds of interspecies intimacies created (or not) in the doing of science. one person’s favourite species to work with is, for another person, the species that they absolutely will not work with. dogs are iconic in this sense, as pets that, as a result, some people enjoying working with while others categorically will not; rodents are, in turn, often viewed as an entry point to animal experimentation, one that many novices plan to ‘move on’ or ‘move up’ from. and it is within this sentimental structure that sharp explores the common practice of using television not only as a research tool but also to give primates some ‘downtime’ and ‘enrich’ their laboratory life. being ‘close’ to humans, sentimental structure here becomes entangled with the human hierarchies of lab labour – where caring for monkeys and caring for animal technicians (as another and as self) becomes blurred in a manner that creates yet another kind of interspecies intimacy. through anthropological attention to the details of language use, sharp highlights how the simultaneous pervasiveness and muteness around animal death – the fact that ‘killing’ is so rarely spoken of in favour of euphemisms that range from euthanising to ‘sac-ing’ - denotes the “inherent contradiction” (sharp, 2019: 108) of experimental life science research. sacrifice is the major trope used by both scientists and social scientists to articulate the meaning of this inherent contradiction, and sharp here extends this analysis in order to ask when and how ‘sacrifice’ is used within experimental science and the kinds of work it does. by opening ‘sacrifice’ up in this way to critical consideration, sharp is able to show that the inherent contradiction of experimental science, one that is also embodied by berger’s farmer, is disproportionately shoulder by the animal technician, who represent the invisible labour of experimental science. killing well -that is killing animals without them experiencing pain or stress -is a key tool for doing ‘humane’ experimental research and remaining ‘human’ in this context. with ‘exceptionalism,’ sharp turns the theme of human exceptionalism that is central to animal experimentation on its head, looking instead at when and how a generic laboratory animal becomes an exceptional individual and the practices that result. these practices include ‘rescuing’ a laboratory animal from death, through rehoming and adoption for instance but also reuse. but these practices also include memorializing the life and death of particular laboratory animals as individuals or laboratory animals as a general class. while the memorialized animal can and does stand as a trophy, demonstrating human skill and thus reproducing ideas of human dominance, the memorialized animal is often also, or can instead be a totem. this book will be of clear substantive interest to social science and humanities scholars of experimental science and laboratory animals, while also being of general interest to anthropologists as well as medical sociologists of emotions, invisible work as well as death and dying. but this book will also be of great interest to a more general readership, including animal rights activists and the full range of professionals involved in working with laboratory animal (e.g., animal technicians, veterinarians and scientists). animal rights activists may, for example, be interested in seeing how their ideologies of care overlap with those of animal technicians (sharp, 2019: 160) – raising the potential for new kinds of practices. those working with laboratory animals would find interest in the clear set of recommendations for practice that sharp makes in the conclusion, which clearly build upon her years of empirical research. for example, there is currently a move to create ‘cultures of care’ in experimental science, at least within the uk, which includes caring for both animals and people; sharp’s recommendations provide further evidence and support for this type of organizational reform. bibliography mol a (2002) the body multiple: ontology in medical practice. durham and london: duke university. sharp la (2019) animal ethos: the morality of human-animal encounters in experimental lab science. berkeley, ca: university of california press. carrie friese is associate professor of sociology at the london school of economics and political science. her research is in science, technology and medicine studies, with a focus on human and nonhuman animal reproduction. she has explored ageing and human reproduction, cloning and endangered animal reproduction and is currently conducting a situational analysis of laboratory animals in the united kingdom using mixed methods. © 2021 carrie friese microsoft word miller-publish.doc 1 a tale of two ek’balams: opportunities and challenges of communitybased tourism development among the yucatán maya review by jason edward miller taylor, sarah r. 2018. on being maya and getting by: heritage politics and community development in yucatán. boulder: university press of colorado. keywords: maya; community-based tourism; tourism; development, mexico most of the residents who live in the rural village of ek’balam (next to the ek’balam archaeological site and the local community-based tourism (cbt) project in the yucantán region of mexico) are maya. but what makes someone maya and how do you market that maya-ness to others? these questions underpin sarah r. taylor’s 2018 ethnography on being maya and getting by: heritage politics and community development in yucatán. based on eight years of longitudinal participant observation and ethnographic fieldwork among local residents, taylor explores how political, historical, and economic processes have created and continue to impact maya tourism in this region in mexico. taylor argues that previous models of understanding maya identity or peasant populations more broadly (such as folk-urban continuum or notions of the maya as a homogenous community) are too limited because they look only at certain factors. instead, taylor advocates for an approach that “contributes to our understanding of how a group of people negotiates and maneuvers through a web of social programs, tourists, volunteers, and external expectations to live their daily lives” (18). taylor employs a model she calls “ecosystem of authenticity” (21) to understand how various actors, pieces of policy, economics, and natural systems intersect in the village and contribute to identity. this model begins with understanding the legacy of the ejidal system (a communally based land tenure system in mexico dating to the 1920s) and culminates with understanding global political economy as it relates to tourism. taylor describes a diverse community in terms of both people and perspectives that are: “actively involved in daily negotiations with tourists, volunteers, state and federal funders, and each other. it is through these negotiations and their perceptive, intentional maneuvering that residents are able “to be maya and get by” (25). the book is organized into seven numbered chapters plus two unnumbered chapters. the unnumbered introduction introduces the reader to the archaeological site of ek’balam as well as the modern town of the same name. each of the subsequent numbered chapters incorporate an ethnographic vignette featuring members of the ethno-fictional ay mena family who are 2 participants in the ek’balam cbt project. members of the ay mena family are a composite of various local residents encountered by taylor during fieldwork. the first chapter introduces the reader to the various members of this family as well as lays out the approach the book will take and summarizes the organization of the rest of the book. the second chapter is largely concerned with methods and includes sections noting the kin relationships of local community members as well as maps of local communities. chapters three, four, and five contain a significant amount of contextualizing literature concerning tourism, development, and indigeneity; the policy history of mexico’s land tenure system; and community and tourism development, respectively. taylor weaves a review of the literature in with ethnographic examples from her own work in ek’balam in each of these chapters. chapter six finds taylor describing substantive ethnographic examples of the creation of maya-ness via the analysis of several rituals and the tension that exists between local residents and other state actors who have a stake in the region’s “development.” chapter seven returns to a nuanced discussion of the role of kin groups as a lens to explore “making it” or the success of the cbt project. the text ends with a short unnumbered conclusion chapter with the author’s final thoughts and opportunities for future research. taylor writes in the style of a more traditional ethnography with reflexive elements. the prose is clear, accessible, and easy to understand (if not a bit repetitive in places). the text would find itself at home in an undergraduate classroom or by a casual reader interested in the topic as well as those who have more experience with the subject matter. in chapter two, taylor discusses her use of classic anthropological methods, such as kinship charts and map making, as part of her participant observation as well as a humorous discussion of taylor’s arrival into the community and early rapport building with residents. these sections of the text provide both practical and engaging links to larger discussions of methods and kinship in an introductory course. the ethnographic vignettes of the ay mena family are engaging—especially as the book goes on and the children grow into adults. vignettes featuring the family’s matriarch, doña gomercinda (or doña goma for short) are also particularly engaging. readers will likely enjoy how she prepares for and then “performs” her maya-ness for tourists from the local hotel eden in her home’s kitchen using a traditional stone metate to grind corn into masa flour which is brought out and used only when tourists are around. chapter six’s discussion of the cha’a chaak ceremony was arguably the richest ethnographic example in the text. this rain-calling ceremony was traditionally held annually but has only been held sporadically more recently. on request of development funders, the ceremony was performed again, albeit mostly for the tourists, volunteers, development agents, and government officials while actual maya women worked in the kitchen. while ek’balam residents feel the ceremony went very well, others feel it “wasn’t maya enough.” here, taylor’s ethnographic analysis shines as she uses the notion of tourist’s gaze (a variant of foucault’s medical gaze) to understand how maya and others viewed the ceremony differently. these ethnographic sections also provide something of a missed opportunity. readers may find themselves wanting more—more of the vignettes and more deep analysis of them. early in the text, taylor passingly mentions using thick description (13, 20). however, most of the vignettes are too short and pass much too quickly to qualify as thick. while taylor’s rhetorical focus is clearly on the fictional composite ay mena family, we do not hear at all from the tourists or volunteers themselves, other residents who belong to one of the other five lineages in the community rendering her conclusions somewhat one-sided. taylor makes reference to this fact 3 in chapter two where she utilizes transect walks as a way of learning more about other points of view in the community (36-38). however, after a relatively brief discussion this is not mentioned again. taylor also does not include any of the transect walk maps which is frustrating given the book includes so many maps (which often lack detail and are hard to interpret) and that the approach sounds so interesting! the largest critique of the text is that it lacks focus. readers may be left wondering what exactly this book is about. local economics? maya identity and indigeneity? community-based tourism? taylor attempts to weave many threads together here in a short amount of time-only 132 pages including many charts, maps, and graphs. this is not much space for an ethnography, especially one with so much to say. disappointingly, relatively scant attention is given to the community-based tourism project even though it is continually mentioned throughout the text and is in the book’s title. likewise, while there are recurring mentions of resident’s fretting over out-migration to larger cities, this feels very underdeveloped and a missed opportunity. conversely, much space is given to the history of mexico’s ejidal system. while this historical context is useful and necessary, it takes up too much space arguably better spent on deeper ethnographic accounts and analysis. on being maya and getting by is sure to be a useful text in introductory anthropology classrooms while also appealing to general audiences looking to learn more about the maya world. taylor’s “ecosystem of authenticity” provides a compelling analytical lens through which to more closely examine community-based tourism and community development work in the context of indigenous authenticity. these conversations are critical for not just the maya, but for us all as we consider notions of identity, economics, and getting by today. jason edward miller, ph.d., mph is an assistant professor of anthropology at washburn university in topeka, kansas. his research and teaching focus on immigration, health, and media. © 2020 jason edward miller microsoft word kraemer review.doc 1 the political life of images strassler, karen. 2020. demanding images: democracy, mediation, and the image-event in indonesia. durham, nc: duke university press. keywords: images; indonesia; public politics; democracy; image politics; authenticity. karen strassler’s book demanding images: democracy, mediation, and the image-event in indonesia engages with the role played by images in the political public sphere and the dynamics unfolding around these in contemporary indonesia. its focus lies on the first decade and a half of the 21st century, a period in which images, and specifically photographic pictures, have come to be seen as vehicles for attaining the democratic ideals of accountability, transparency and popular political participation in the country (p. 12, 243). yet, as strassler notes, it is precisely because of this status that images have also become the primary means through which major political struggles of the time were fought (p. 12). in these struggles, the malleability of images and their proneness to being altered turned out to be a crucial characteristic, as they provided a stage both for contesting the truth value of certain pictures and for producing new truths with doctored images figuring as evidence (p. 223, 231). core to the book’s argument is the notion of the image-event, which denotes the political processes that unfold when images become central to the public discussions in which they intervene (p. 9-10). as such, strassler argues that “conceptualizing all images as unfolding events enables us to see them as contingent and politically consequential processes in their own right” (p. 13-14). here, images happen, again and again, rather than move as things built to completion before released to the public (p. 243). this draws attention away from the particular image itself and onto the processes in which images impact public politics, processes in which these images themselves are made and remade (p. 17-18). the book moves through a series of image-events, providing the empirical ground on which strassler’s theory is built and offering rich insight into the nature of politics and the public sphere in reformasi indonesia. chapter one revolves around montaged rupiah bills displaying the face of the former dictator that circulated in the early post-suharto period. as instruments of commentary critiquing the prevalence of corruption under the old regime, they reflected the newly won freedoms that made the spread of such images possible. chapters two and four engage with events unfolding from the emergence of different images of sex and sexual violence. while the former discusses debates about the truth-value of photographic images in the context of rape, the latter traces the development of a controversy surrounding artworks labeled pornographic by conservative hardliners. meanwhile, chapter three centers on the particular figure of the expert, equipped to judge the authenticity of photographic material in 2 the context of public debates. this figure aligns its own mode of presenting their claim to expertise in public with a generally prevalent trust in technological forms of distinguishing truth from forgery. chapter five turns to more recent battles over forms of street art and public signs that intervene in political debates and the resulting backlash against these public expressions of political opinions. finally, the conclusion discusses the first presidential campaign of indonesia’s reformist candidate joko widodo, and the uses of and debates surrounding images and videos of rallies made on smartphones by his mostly young supporters. in recentering the debate about the politics of images, authenticity and fakeness around the playing out of processes through which these are contested, strassler’s book offers a valuable approach for exploring contemporary image politics. as politicized images proliferate through increasingly diverse modes of circulation while their production and manipulation is accessible to a wider public, it is precisely this attention to the events, which make and are made possible by images, that can help us grasp the dynamics of this novel political landscape. here, the book’s final discussion, revolving around the presidential election campaign of 2014, is particularly instructive. the role of social media, of images and their manipulation in the context of election campaigns has been a major point of contention in many countries over the past years and the concluding chapter will thus be of particular interest for many readers. yet, the book’s real strength is that strassler’s careful discussion of diverse instances of image-events offers a much more thorough treatment of these dynamics than any ever-so-detailed analysis of a singular event could have provided. at the same time, demanding images presents a careful ethnography of the political public sphere in reformasi indonesia. like any ethnography, it is situated within a particular place and, perhaps more importantly for the book’s structure and theme, a particular time. these temporal limits, however, are well chosen, spanning the entire period from the tumultuous beginnings of indonesian democratization in the last years of the 20th century to the election campaign of popular reformist candidate joko widodo, itself a break of sorts with the political landscape of the preceding decade and a half. the book, then, offers a vivid ethnography of the political culture in the streets, the newspaper articles, television shows, and online forums of contemporary indonesia, weaving together the voices of an astonishing set of characters. street artists, activists and students appear alongside self-proclaimed experts in photographic analysis, religious hardliners, and politicians of all shades, reflecting the diverse voices of the contemporary political public sphere in the country. finally, the book itself forms an experiment in writing ethnography, at least to some extent. as it focuses on the role of images in political debates, pictures themselves are central to the book. they are well integrated into the text, being neither overbearing nor hidden away in appendices. the decision to stick with black-and-white reproductions when it comes to the pictures chosen for the main text avoids distracting ruptures between the numerous images and the printed text among which they appear. luckily, the reader can get a sense of the colorful reality of the images discussed as the main text is preceded by a well-assorted, color-printed photo essay that assembles a selection of the images that appear in the book (p. xv-xxxi). 3 demanding images, then, caters to readers with interests as colorful and diverse as the images it discusses. whether one is interested in contemporary indonesian politics, in understanding the role of images in public spheres more generally, or in the production and life of images themselves, this book will certainly be a valuable read. jonathan kraemer is currently phd student in the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. he is interested in the intersection of contemporary labor migration and environmental change in rural indonesia. he holds a master’s degree from heidelberg university and a bachelor’s degree from the university of toronto. © 2022 jonathan kraemer microsoft word eppich final.docx 1 focused archaeology on an inconstant subject thomas g. garrison and stephen houston, editors, 2018, an inconstant landscape, the maya kingdom of el zotz, guatemala, lewisville: university press of colorado, 470 pp., isbn 978-1646420773. keywords: classic maya, archaeology, el zotz, maya kingship, epigraphy this is an excellent book. it is a highly focused book, the text concerned solely with the pre-columbian archaeology of guatemala’s buenavista valley. this geological consists of a broad, low valley in the northern portion of that country, running east-west and connecting the big lakes of the interior to the western-flowing drainage of the río san pedro martir. this valley holds the remains of a half-dozen ancient communities centered on the classic-era ruin of el zotz. in antiquity, the maya referred to this ruin as pa’ka’n, “split sky.” in stephen houston’s own translation of the emblem glyph, el zotz was “a fortress in heaven.” the landscape around this heavenly fortress experienced some 28 centuries of cultural development, a sequence that saw the rise and fall of the preclassic and classic maya civilizations, as well as the subsequent postclassic. the book even documents the tragic looting episodes of the 20th century that visited such destruction on the valley. as such, an inconstant landscape stands as an impressive contribution to our understanding of the ancient maya and is a superlative example of how to plan, execute, and publish regional archaeology in the 21st century. 2 it is not a perfect book, but it accomplishes everything that it intends to. the text aims to present the results of the dirt archaeology carried out by the proyecto arqueológico el zotz from 2006 to 2012, although the volume does contain information from ongoing investigations. in the preface, the editors write that “this volume reports primarily on data” (xx). that is precisely what the book does for the next thirteen chapters. it is organized into two parts, cultural history and epigraphy in the first half, technical analysis and material culture in the second. these chapters range from the preclassic settlements to the construction and occupation of the different components of el zotz itself, as well as the postclassic usage of the ruins. following chapters focus on different aspects of the valley’s material culture, ceramics, lithics, the environment, figurines, architecture, and osteology. over the centuries, the maya of the buenavista valley settled, modified, built, farmed, and abandoned different parts of the valley at different times, sometimes choosing the floor, other times the slopes. it really was an inconstant landscape, settlement, usage, and occupation shifting through the ages. the only significant issue with the book lies in this single-minded focus on the archaeology of el zotz and its environs. this is not a text that explores large issues in maya scholarship, either historical, regional, or theoretical. in its pages, an inconstant landscape discusses classic rulers but not the nature of rulership. it documents the changes in settlement over time but does not make any great effort to explain those changes or compare them to other parts of the maya world. it includes information on the material culture of the valley but does not go into significant detail about those artistic traditions or the means by which such material culture was produced, distributed, consumed, or deposited. there is very little comparison to other sites or how the data can speak to the whole of maya civilization. the contributions in the book describe, but rarely explain. for instance, el zotz is referred to as a city, but there is no attempt to explain its urban character. this is almost certainly an editorial decision, the decision to keep the focus on archaeological data itself, however, the text would have greatly benefited from a broader perspective, even in the context of a comprehensive conclusion. there are smaller, minor criticisms of the text, but these hardly matter. both the black-andwhite photographs and high-resolution topographic maps tend to be quite muddy and washed out in the final publication. for academic presses, line illustrations are greatly preferred for this very reason. the entire ceramic chapter lacks a single depiction of a whole vessel. the scholarship 3 itself, while not sloppy by any measure, is less than meticulous in places. there are far too many citations for personal communications, even when that exact information has previously published. in some places, important information is presented and not cited at all. what, exactly, are “el perú-waka’-style bowls”? sometimes it seems as if the authors use the terms “el zotz” and “buenavista valley” interchangeably and it is left to the reader to puzzle out which is which. but, again, such criticisms hardly matter when compared to the excellent work done in the buenavista valley. the book is a major contribution to our understanding of the maya world and the native american past. the archaeology presented in its pages provides an unadulterated perspective on a maya kingdom over the longue durée of its existence. the skill and patience required to provide this perspective are impressive. whether the book discusses the preclassic archaeology of james doyle and rony piedrasanta or the osteological research of andrew scherer, or the soil chemistry and landscape modification documented by timothy beach and his colleagues, the text is authoritative, it is professional, it is high quality. it is an excellent book and is a required text for anyone interested in ancient maya civilization. for example, there are two outstanding chapters that will be described here, although this is not to diminish the other contributions. the first is chapter 4, by nicholas carter and his colleagues, where they rebuild the dynastic sequence of el zotz using only looted vessels, architectural drawings, tiny fragments of epigraphy, and the meticulous archaeology of the el zotz project. the result is an imperfect portrait, to be sure, but it is complete enough to show how the el zotz dynasts met the political challenges of their day, coping with an ascendant tikal in one generation and a bellicose calakmul in the next. the second is zachary hruby’s chapter 9, focusing on the lithic technologies of the valley. he shows how the traditions of chert and obsidian meet the needs of the people who made them and used them. hruby documents how different actors modified stone tools at different times and the type of artifact needed in the palace was quite different from those used in farming households. he also notes how supply was a major problem and the valley’s geology forced the local maya to import much of their stone, and restrictions on this importation changed their lithic traditions. it is an impressive chapter on the subject. the whole book is impressive. it does exactly what it means to do, describing and documenting the archaeological investigation of a key portion of the ancient maya world. whatever its trivial flaws, it will occupy a permanent place among the books of any serious 4 mayanist scholar. indeed, an inconstant landscape itself makes a wonderful companion to the previous text on the site, temple of the night sun, a gorgeous book on the intact royal tomb from el zotz and its associated architecture. each book complements the other and, on the shelf, they look very good leaning on each other, both intellectually and literally. references houston, stephen d., et al. 2015. temple of the night sun: a royal tomb at el diablo, guatemala. precolumbia mesoweb press. keith eppich has been a professional archaeologist for twenty-five years, and has worked across the continental united states as well as in the republic of guatemala. he has worked at the site of el perú-waka’ since 2003, focusing on the classic traditions there. he has published numerous reports, articles, and chapters on the subject, including co-editing the volume breath and smoke, tobacco among the maya. he teaches in texas. © 2021 keith eppich why we should care about the radical origins of anthropology review by luke glowacki charles king. 2019. gods of the upper air: how a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century. doubleday. at a time when our nation is confronting some of the most significant social challenges of the century, is there any room for a new biographic carousel revolving around franz boas and his cadre of students and colleagues? surprisingly, the answer is a resounding yes. king’s book achieves a rare feat, employing history to grapple with today’s social ills and showing its readers where we might go if only we are armed with the boldness of these anthropological ‘renegades’ in confronting racism, sexism, ethnocentrism and bigotry in all its forms. much of king’s work surveys familiar history and a cast of well-known anthropological players including boas, mead, fortune, sapir, and benedict. he also includes others less recognized for their anthropological work: zora neale hurston (arguably more famous than the others but far better known as a novelist than as a pioneering anthropologist), ella cara deloria, and even robert seido hashima who so crucially informed benedict’s work on japanese culture. but rather than a linear narrative tracing intellectual descent from boas as so many biographies do, gods of the upper air features sparkling prose and vivid personalities often speaking in their own words to illustrate how the relationships between these characters reacting against the social context fed into the most radical revolution in recent western thinking: race is not real. gender roles are socially constructed. no society or group of people is better or worse than another. it was a reckoning with the nature of reality as foundational as the ideas coming out of the vienna circle but one with much more lasting social import the relationships between these founders of cultural anthropology gave rise to a set ideas that refuted the prevailing orthodoxy, which king shows was a bedrock of american thought at the time and would later find close parallels in nazi ideology and japanese imperialism. the core ideas they were responding to were increasingly racist and xenophobic beliefs that reified a hierarchy of supposed biologically real categories that were working their way into public policy, informing geographic restrictions on immigration, the promotion of eugenics, and the expansion of jim crow laws. the effects of these bigoted beliefs gained devastating international traction: king notes that hitler was influenced by madison grant’s pseudo-scientific theories of race that boas spent decades attempting to demolish. it’s here where the story really picks up, with king throwing us smack dab into the streets of new york a century ago to watch boas himself conducting careful studies among the peoples of new york so that data, not ill-informed belief, could refute madison grant and the racist ideas of the day. those data, the collection of which were ironically commissioned by the us government even as it was increasingly becoming an intolerant white supremacy, showed that there are no meaningful differences between groups of persons based on ancestral heritage and that the variation within a population is greater than the variation between populations. it was the first scientific demolition of the concept of race. these are now standard anthropological fare, but at the time, king shows that they were radical ideas: instead of using what seemed to be obvious differences to justify an existing hierarchy (or, as king would put it, using theory to find observations that support it), boas and his circle made the radical observation that the best way to understand the world was to carefully look at it. once they did, what seemed to be real differences and a natural order turned out to be superficial differences and a reflection of our own cultural myopia. better to (as king would put it) let the careful accumulation of information about the world, shape how we think about the world. and for today, that’s a lesson we would still do well to bear in mind. a wealth of data from across the social sciences and humanities show that group differences are more the result of historical contingencies than anything else. this finding was a triumph for scientific and humanistic thinking. with a century of internalization, these ideas now seem obvious, but at the time, their success was by no means assured. king also challenges some of the orthodoxy today that many students of contemporary anthropology (including the author of this review) may have adopted. for instance, he tackles the belief that anthropology in the first half of the 20th century was entirely outward looking by reminding us of the many formative works of the era, including margaret mead’s 1942 analysis of american society and boas’ exhortation to study all societies, including our own. and he shows that just as cultures are not static, the beliefs of these pioneers were not either. they evolved over the course of a lifetime, in including from a view of cultures stuck in time and vanishing to one in which they change and transform. king aptly shows how some of these changes were driven by members of the ‘renegade’ circle, especially zora neale hurston, who did perhaps more than any of the others to turn the anthropological lens inward and show that cultures today are just as worth study as cultures of the past. where king’s otherwise illuminating work falls short is around the periphery of this radical scholarship. if boas, benedict and the others really believed in challenging prevailing beliefs about race and social ranking, then why were they relatively silent about jim crow but not about the ranking or treatment of european groups? how would they later confront critics of their approach, including those who say they perpetuated the very stereotypes they sought to demolish? but in fairness, king’s book is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of the foundations of cultural anthropology but rather to show how the synergy resulting from the collision of these unique personalities changed the way we think about the world. whatever their foibles as humans, boas and his circle were reacting against a system that sought to entrench race as biologically real and a foundation for social policy. as such, despite their emphasis on cultures as static, their lack of realization that many of these cultures were not dying but transforming, and their failure to recognize that the peoples whose culture they were studying cared about the dissemination of their cultural practices, it is clear that we still owe a great debt to these revolutionaries for challenging a system that sought to build social policy on a false belief of races as real and ranked, pathologize non-victorian heteronormative gender roles, and viewed non-american and european cultures as decidedly less than equal. given the pervasive and damaging stereotypes about race and gender that continue today, one cannot help but feel gratitude for the deep theorizing and empirical work that has already been done to make it easier for us to confront these harmful and false narratives. the very fact that we as anthropologists take as a given that it’s our role to confront these legacies and search for commonalities is evidence of the success of anthropological legacy of boas, mead, benedict, hurston, and delora. we do so through the theoretical and empirical foundation that was laid a century ago, a perspective that showed the full and equal value of all human groups. our field might be unique for this orientation, but this development was by no means obvious. king’s book makes us realize that this leap, from the belief that cultures and peoples existed within a hierarchy to the realization that no culture or peoples are better or worse than another, was a leap that we may not have made without the happenstance of this bold mix of thinkers. anthropology’s primary aim—to understand human differences in order to reveal the commonality between all humans—is the best defense against stereotypes based on race, gender, class and national origin. at a moment when we are reckoning with anthropology’s roots and contributions to systemic social ills, king’s accomplishment reminds us that as a field, anthropology still has a central place in setting the record straight about the nature of social categories. luke glowacki department of anthropology pennsylvania state university © 2021 luke glowacki microsoft word del nido publish.doc 1 neoliberalism, its critics and the modes of a known genre reviewed by dr. juan m. del nido neoliberalism from below: popular pragmatics & baroque economies, by verónica gago, translated by liz mason-deese, durham, nc, duke university press, 2017. keywords: neoliberalism, argentina, buenos aires, political theory, neoextractivism neoliberalism may have lost legitimacy as a state-directed political project, verónica gago tells us in neoliberalism from below, but its protean elements infect the logics of social relations even amongst those who are understood to suffer from it the most. the book focuses on a subset of the latter, the micro-merchants, producers and immigrants of buenos aires’ la salada, one of the world’s largest markets of counterfeit merchandise, as well as the workshops/sweatshops where they eat, sleep, produce and reproduce garments and social relations, and the shantytowns where they live. gago’s argument is that the calculative, instrumental reasoning at the heart of the neoliberal self and project suffuses a strategic conatus, in the spinozan sense of a restless, organic perseverance in being. conatus overflows the “cold calculations” of neoliberal reasoning, gago continues, resulting in a “vitalist pragmatic”: these immigrants’ affective, multimodal, embodied orientation to the economies they inhabit, irreducible to dichotomies of public/private, modernity/tradition, individual/society and others that the argentine state and its neoliberal modernity try to cram them into. the first two chapters introduce la salada, its people and economies, and gago’s highly intricate theoretical reservoir: a spinoza-deleuze-post-colonial tradition combined with feminist critical theory and political economy. the aptly named “baroque economies” emerging at this very busy intersection through the immigrants’ communitarian capital: embedded in networks entwining kinship, production and political representation, these immigrants take advantage of, and are taken advantage of, because of the “commons” formed 2 in the obligations and reciprocity that mobilize them and other resources across the lower third of south america. the third and fourth chapters study how communitarian capital is put to work and how buenos aires judges, governmental authorities, ngos, police forces and middle class cultural representations frame these immigrants and their relations as abusive, exploitative, “traditional,” underdeveloped or subject to moral codes beyond economics (and crucially, beyond argentine labor laws). the fifth and sixth chapters explore these immigrants’ capacity to constitute themselves as a collective actor beyond the neoliberal understanding of associative life, freedom and individuality, as well as their use of space in the city and their relations with the rest of buenos aires in infrastructural, economic and political terms. this edition is a translation of gago’s la razón neoliberal, published in spanish for an argentinian audience in 2014, which was quickly taken up by latin american academics, among whom the author is a very well-known and highly respected intellectual spearheading the battles of feminism, decoloniality and other social movements that are waging now. beyond the biographical anecdote, this matters because this linguistic transposition into english has not been met with an equivalent contextual, and especially epistemological, counterpart. the author’s references to peronism, argentina’s most powerful political myth (27, 52) and crucial to understanding certain possibilities of popular politics quite relevant to the argument (230), are lost to a reader unfamiliar with the argentine context. as a more epistemological example, the “national and popular will” (28, see also 63) seems at face value a neutral reference to the nation and the people, yet its original version, nacional y popular, was fundamentally attached to the kirchner administrations in argentina (20032015), and to a very specific discourse on argentine politics; lost in translation, the unaware reader cannot even reflect on the possibility of problematizing it, even if to agree with it. similarly, whereas the author’s use of “neoliberal” and “liberal” as wholly interchangeable (4, 161, 220-222, 233…) is a common (and pejorative) rhetorical strategy amongst argentine intellectual and social militancy, their unedited rendition in english is conversationally confusing at best (in certain contexts cultural liberalism and economic neoliberalism are antagonists) and passes for theoretical imprecision at worst. the book’s position in the by now modular genre of militant anthropology against neoliberalism further compounds the potential for imprecision beyond matters of epistemological translation. gago theorizes neoliberalism only through foucault’s work on it 3 (154-160), a recurrent touchstone among social scientists outside of economics. declaring it “impossible to define (…) in an homogenous way” (160), she distils neoliberalism as “the cold and restricted idea of liberal (sic) calculation” (10) and proceeds to add something defined as irreducible to such calculation: conatus, communitarian vitality, vitalist pragmatic, vitalism, resistance and so forth. this is a common strategy in the genre: compensate for an allegedly undersocialized individual with a cultural, affective or contextual socialization (callon 1998). yet, outside extreme neoliberal orthodoxy, more interesting on account on being extreme and orthodox than on account of being neoliberal, the only ones understanding (and producing) the canonical neoclassical homo oeconomicus in as narrow, unidimensional and restrictive a sense are neoliberalism’s contemporary critics. neoliberally-trained economists would theoretically and instinctively find spinoza’s conatus quite at home in their canonically-defined self, striving to preserve their being. readers more conversant or more interested in the logics and rhetoric of neoliberalism and neoclassical economics than in the epistemological horizon of activist anthropology might find this line of argumentation exhausted, contrived and possibly superseded by fertile, recent critiques in sociology, philosophy, history and political sciences targeting neoliberalism’s propensity to trivial tautology, perennial presentism, confusion of the natural and the social, etc., (whyte 2019, peck 2013, mirowski 2019). gago’s discussion of the micro-financialization and debt circuits that enable neo-extractivism to discipline and exploit precarious lives and relations even outside the market is particularly interesting (24-44). however, the progression of the analysis hinges on a deployment of usually sister categories at uneven scales and a carefully curated differential moral endowment of the new gap between them. the author harnesses the epic, trans-historical (and ultimately, moral) universality of “labor” in the marxist sense to flesh out the abuses and silences of neoliberal production (88-89), yet the same sewing in the same room is then framed as part and parcel of an indigenous pragmatic vitalism that the author repeatedly asks us not to moralize (15, 18, 19, 54) or see as exploitation. similarly, the author deploys the notion of “baroque economies” as fluid, immanent, non-hierarchical, bricoleur-like relational logics of production (69), opposed to the cold, ruthless and exploitative hierarchies of neoliberalism. yet the notion of the baroque in the very sources she references (70) is inherently and explicitly hierarchical, as is in the deleuzian watermark across the book, where the baroque is made of the lowly and the grand, the authority and the subaltern, and so 4 on. these are twinned, co-constitutive and never complete, but they define the baroque precisely by the hierarchy that separates them. in spite of the brilliant instances of direct ethnographic analysis, like the study of competing problematizations of immigrants (126-140), this is an eminently theoretical book in the philosophical-argumentative sense of the term (and indeed included in the press’ “social and political theory” collection). it would yield the most among advanced graduate students, readers already interested in the theoretical intersections described above or those seeking to problematize neoliberalism through its most popular critiques. references callon, michel. 1998. “introduction: the embeddedness of economic markets in economics”, in the laws of the markets, edited by michel callon. 1-57. oxford: basil blackwell. mirowski, philip. 2019. “how having reasons became making a decision: the cold war rise of decision theory and the invention of rational choice”. in the decisionist imagination: sovereignty, social science and democracy in the 20th century, edited by daniel bessner and nicolas guilhot, 135-173. london: berghahn books. peck, jamie. 2010. constructions of neoliberal reason. oxford: oxford university press. whyte, jessica. 2019. the morals of the market: human rights and the rise of neoliberalism. london: verso. juan m. del nido is a postdoctoral esrc fellow at the department of social anthropology at the university of manchester, uk. his research focuses on political and economic reasoning; the logics, rhetoric and affect of neoclassical economics, consumption, markets and popular sovereignty; and new technologies. he will begin a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship at the max planck cambridge centre for ethics, economy and social change in october 2020. © 2020 juan m. del nido microsoft word taylor publish.doc living with uncertainty: the potency of ‘maybe’ on the mekong reviewer: erin b. taylor, western sydney university johnson, andrew alan. 2020. mekong dreaming: life and death along a changing river. duke university press. isbn: 978-1-4780-1082-1 keywords: mekong, thailand, environment, economy, uncertainty mekong dreaming is an ethnography of a town on the mekong river that has undergone rapid change in the last two decades, not only in the town itself but also in national and transnational circuits. the book is clearly written, presenting a compelling narrative of daily life and also delving into complex topics without drowning in academic jargon. as such it is accessible for both students and experts. at first glance mekong dreaming appears to focus on an environmental/economic issue—the damming of the mekong and its effects on ecology and livelihood—but i would not consider this to be a book about ‘the environment.’ instead it takes quite a classic ethnographic approach of covering several interrelated aspects of life in the town and beyond. the river is the major protagonist in the book, and acts as a stage for the dramas and presences of its human, nonhuman, and inhuman inhabitants. the pseudonymous town of ban beuk is located in northeastern thailand, where the mekong divides thailand from laos. fishing is a major and long-standing industry in this town—or, at least, it was until the jinghong dam was constructed upstream in china. since then, the river has changed; it is no longer in sync with natural environmental cycles, and is thus out of sync with the ritual cycle as well. fishing has become a risky and unpredictably craft with dwindling returns, echoing the risk involved in other productive practices, such as migration to work in bangkok or overseas. the book explores how residents cope with this uncertainty. since the river no longer conforms to nature, most of the signs and symbols fishermen usually read have disappeared. if the river floods when not a drop of rain has fallen, how can its changes be predicted? if fish have changed their behaviour or disappeared, how are fisherman meant to know where to fish, what techniques to use, and so on? if the local spirits are not providing coherent answers, where does one get good information? in short, what happens when the symbolic life of a productive community is disrupted? mekong dreaming opens with the author recounting a conversation with a local fisherman, lert, who says that in 2006 the river began to act ‘against nature’ when it flooded and tore through his house without a drop of rain having fallen. he dreamt that he saw the dam and it had a crack and one day would spill open and everyone in the town will die. johnson stresses that lert’s dream was simply generated by anxiety, but that lert claims to have seen the real state of the dam. indeed, johnson also had a dream about an island on the river. when he asked a local woman what it meant, she responded that the island king was talking to him, but sometimes it was difficult to understand what he meant. “or maybe it was the tree [that sent dreams]” (p.3), she added. johnson uses these vignettes to set up the theme of uncertainty and the quest to find information from different sources. in particular, he uses it to make his claim that the dam itself is more than material: “it is a shadow that provokes lert and others to think about the nature of their relationships with other sources of potency—human, animal, ecological, and supernatural—and it signals that these relationships are in flux” (p.2). yet this world, and the information revealed by these different protagonists, is only ever revealed partially to any particular person. these moments of catastrophic change amount to the “fluttering of an opaque curtain: just as old situated knowledge fails, new knowledge can suddenly work” (p14). the author then explores these ideas through five chapters. chapter one, naga and garuda, examines ban beuk as a border town, especially its marginality and relation to bangkok as the 'center.' chapter two, river beings, provides an account of the dam's construction and its absent power. chapter three, dwelling under distant suns, focuses on how migrants to bangkok and several sites overseas tap into new, distant sources of potential and their promises to bring it back to ban beuk. yet distance transforms migrants into strangers, ties weaken, and the promised prosperity is also rendered uncertain. the purpose of this chapter is not to deepen our understanding of migration as a topic; rather, like chapters two and three it places ban beuk in a transnational context. chapter four, the river grew tired of us, looks at how other-than-humans, such as gods, spirits, water serpents and ghosts, respond to the river's changes and 'migrate' in their own ways. it includes a particularly memorable vignette in which townspeople try to convene with a spirit to stop the construction of a new dam, but the spirit proves as ineffectual against bureaucracy as the people themselves. chapter five, human and inhuman worlds, concludes the book by returning to the theme of potential and the ontological shifts involved with living with things that are “fundamentally unknowable” (p.163). the power of johnson’s approach is that rather than simply casting uncertainty as a negative, he explores the ways in which uncertainty—the power of “maybe”—can act as a potency rather than simply something to be worked around. such potency is a property of humans but also inhuman and nonhuman things, including materials, humans, spirits of the water, divine beings, animals (especially fish), the river itself. johnson explores the “fantastic and messianic qualities of such beings” (p.7), both near and distant. he argues that “it is via engagement with the potential in distant beings and objects that the possibility for radical change—in the self, in the world— emerges” (p7). johnson does not attempt to set a political agenda: at no point does he state what such “radical change” should evolve or how power should be (re)distributed. he describes several contentious political issues and also the politics of infrastructure development (dams, roads, etc.) without appearing to pass judgement or set an agenda for the residents of bam beuk. given that his topic is uncertainty, and indeed the unknowable, this is entirely appropriate. as johnson states of his interlocutors, “one must live with the unknowable, harness it, and learn how to dwell with it even as it in turn slips from our grasp” (pp.168-169). this could just as readily apply to us readers. mekong dreaming leaves us with as many questions as answers, so we too must come to terms with the fact that johnson has provided us with a fragment of information and that he, like the spirits he described, may also lack answers. maybe. erin b. taylor has a phd in anthropology from the university of sydney and specializes in investigating financial behaviour and technology use. she has been designing and carrying out research since 2003 in diverse contexts including australia, portugal, the netherlands, haiti and the dominican republic. she is a co-author of the report female finance: digital, mobile, networked (with dr. anette broløs, 2020, ewpn/keen innovation), the consumer finance research methods toolkit (with gawain lynch, 2020, imtfi) and dozens of other publications. erin is also coorganizer of the research section of the european women in payments network. © 2020 erin b. tylor microsoft word final_time and temp.doc 1 an anthropology of temporality: in search of lost time, or why time should never get lost. review of ethnographies of youth and temporality: time objectified (global south). eds. by dalsgaard, a., frederiksen, m.d., højlund, s., meinert, l. temple university press. 2014. 206 pages. this collection of ethnographic essays outlines the anthropological possibilities of engaging time as an object of study. in proposing a reconsideration of time beyond a commonly assumed abstract linear progression, the contributors to this volume explore the intricacies arising from different social, malleable, and experiential considerations of temporality. youth in particular, as a transitionary period from childhood to adulthood, distils a spectrum of experiences of time, which the ethnographers are describing and documenting around the world. “ethnographies of youth and temporality: time objectified” sets out to map the ways time is reflectively and emotionally experienced through the perspective of youth, and in doing so, offers both an array of diverse ethnographic situations with a synthetic overview of their confluences. in introducing their collection of essays, two of the editors, martin frederiksen and anne dalsgard, explain the necessity of this volume: anthropological theorizing has until recently neglected the systematic and cross-culturally comparative analysis of time. their approach to an anthropological objectification of time is multi-faceted, and includes an examination of how time and temporality frames social life, how actors reflect on discordant temporalities, and the different ways they cope with their (dis)ability to act on time – indeed, indeterminacy and uncertainty are core themes that permeate the ethnographic vignettes. ‘boredom, waiting, inactivity, subjunctivity and inertia’ they argue, are central to an anthropological consideration of 2 time, since during these moments the regularity of time flows is fragmented (p.4). the authors wonder then, what are the experiences of a ‘temporal impasse’, and what are the strategies youth employ to cope with these? they suggest that these temporal phases, previously thought as empty, are perhaps hosting a potpourri of phenomenological experiences that anthropology should be engaging with. boredom and routine are therefore considered as sites of ‘meaning and agency’, as opportunities of imagination and, in certain cases, overwhelming existential struggle. they invite us to enrich the anthropological toolbox to engage with times of inactivity and passivity, and no less with ‘the easiness and casualness’ of the everyday. the subsequent chapters delve into ethnographic examples to elaborate field-based apprehensions of an anthropological theorizing of time. from comparatively looking at these chapters, the editors have synthetically identified three core themes of the volume. firstly, ‘the time of times’ referring to conceptions and qualities of time shaped by the ideological, religious or other principles nested in specific historical contexts. ‘being outside of time’ captures the situations where individual or particular group experiences of time are in discordance with societal time or the temporalities of dominant ideologies. finally, ‘time work as relational’ assembles the instances where individuals are actively creating temporalities and managing time through social and intersubjective negotiations. the ethnographic contributions provide a rich cross-cultural framework within which time/temporality is implicitly or explicitly engaged with, thought, and performed by actors. jennifer johnson-hanks comparatively looks at experiences of persistent temporariness among educated young women in yaoundé, cameroon and san francisco, us. she describes the normalization of waiting in a state of suspended action, of an elongated interstitial pause, and asks how people make meaning during major life-course transitions such as finishing school or changing jobs (chapter 1). stephen jensen addresses broken time, through the filipino concept of buryong, which can be translated as boredom, or form of insanity, or even as waiting for nothing. his work with young men at bagong silang is geared towards understanding how young people cope with this, and he suggests that notions of brotherhood and employment become active modes of coping with buryong (chapter 2). the question of ‘dead time’ interests stine kroijer when she deals with qualities of time among young left-radical activists in copenhagen, denmark. through the experiences of a 24-year-old young activist, kroijer 3 unravels how within a cultural environment that looks at young people as politically immature, dead time does not simply refer to an empty immediate presentism but is inherently linked to bleak perspectives of radical change in the future, a contemporary type of political pessimism (chapter 3). martin demant frederiksen describes states of boredom and depression in batumi, georgia, as these are experienced by under/unemployed youth who struggle with having nothing to do. in a city with large reconstruction projects of revitalization as a major tourism center, frederiksen chronicles the heterochronic atmosphere settling between multiple and contradicting temporalities (chapter 4). anne line dalsgard’s ethnographic contribution to the volume picks up in the similar topic of contemporary experiences of empty time, but through insecurity linked to a perceived or real lack of opportunities. in her fieldwork at the outskirts of a recife neighborhood in brazil she focuses on the willful projections of three young brazilians, who try to conceive a future and distance themselves from an immediate current situation and a social environment that devours hopes and dreams (chapter 5). karen valentin considers how interrelated temporalities can facilitate or constrain geographic mobility and shift our ideas of futurity and what is possible/impossible. her fieldwork addresses temporality among nepalese students who migrate to denmark and explores how education becomes one more way of thinking about time as a linear-forward aspect of modernization (chapter 6). razvan nicolescu’s account of boredom among romanian teenagers, invites us to rethink the connotations and understanding of boredom. he describes how teenagers actively transform temporalities of boredom into intersubjective spaces using communication media, and how boredom is experienced in relation to the potentiality of excitement offered by their environment (chapter 7). at last but not least, lotte meinert and nana schneidermann explore naming practices among young male artists in northern uganda as temporal and relational work. self-naming among young artists is described as an active work on the future as it calls different potentialities into being, and the ethnographers detail the ways time work is involved in the process of creation of young musician’s names (chapter 8). the afterword by michael flaherty concludes the edited volume by proposing an analytical fiction within which this anthropological theorizing of time can be considered. flaherty considers time and temporal experience in the dialectical relationship of structure and agency. he argues time is a structural notion since it is everywhere, and it is a social institution. but it is also a concept of agency since the temporal experience within socio-historical contexts is constantly modified and negotiated, an enterprise he qualifies 4 as ‘time work,’ or ‘temporal agency.’ he suggests that these two facets of time theorizing are not contradicting but instead are two faces of the same coin, if considered as forms of social interaction. moving along he further develops this idea in considering enduring patterns of interaction within structure, and self-selected forms of interaction within agency. among the many qualities of this volume, i will underline two that i consider to be relevant in any work attempting to anthropologize time, or simply, in any anthropological work. firstly, the authors manage to provide both a synthetic theorizing on time, and a rich empirical evidence through concrete ethnographic accounts. as such they succeed in conveying how time and temporality are variable but always present. the experience, perception, organization and negotiation of time is immanently embedded within particular socio-cultural contexts, which leaves a creative space in all types of anthropological work to engage with time as an everpresent entity, much like language. so, whether we’re focusing on immigration, or work, or education, or infrastructure, or health etc., time, its social organization and individual permutations are always present, and the authors invite us to acknowledge this constant regardless our thematic or area specializations. secondly, in focusing on time as a mode of being and as an experiential technique of the self, the authors point out to a relative blind spot in contemporary anthropology. anthropologists often consider and describe what people do, how they act and react. but what space does that leave in anthropological workings for considering inactivity, passivity, waiting, boredom, emptiness that so frequently but silently inhabit our lives? focusing on these processual moments, instead of reducing them into empty spaces separating us from the preconfigured telos of our anthropological research, is not only critical for contemporary anthropology, but could possible add more nuances to the palette of our anthropological spectrum. in that sense, this collected volume on the object of time in anthropology, while providing multiple accounts situating the experiences of temporality among youth, inevitably also invites us to consider temporality beyond youth. in such an endeavor this volume of collected essays can certainly be pivotal, with concise and clear ideas on time objectification in anthropological theory and practice, in other words, an invaluable reference for anthropologists interested in, of course time and youth, but also researchers within psychological anthropology, the anthropology of ethics and morality, or any ethnographic endeavor. 5 christos panagiotopoulos is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at cornell university (us) and an invited french government scholar at ehess/cnrs (france). he works at the intersections of psychological anthropology, the anthropology of ethics and morality, and the anthropology of religion, with a particular focus on psychotherapy, mental health and care regimes. for his doctoral thesis he studies conflicting models of care within the juvenile rehabilitation system in france. © christos panagiotopoulos 2019 1 disasters, tugg'd with fortune review by brendan tuttle kings of disaster: dualism, centralism and the scapegoat king in southern sudan by simon simonse michigan state university press, 2018 kings of disaster: dualism, centralism and the scapegoat king in southern sudan (michigan state & fountain) is a remarkable ethnography of people whose sense of commonality is produced by their common opposition to their kings. the book brings together an impressive body of archival sources and excellent ethnographic research but has remained underappreciated outside a small circle of specialists. partly this was a matter of timing. simonse carried out his first research trip in 1981, while he was teaching at juba university. during the next five years, juba came under siege, becoming a key government-controlled outpost circled by rebel-held territory. extended work outside the town became more and more difficult. by the time the book was published in 1992, sudan had been at war for nearly a decade and the book’s subject matter seemed part of the discipline’s history. political anthropology was giving way to the anthropology of the state and interest shifted from ‘traditional registers’ of power to the bio-politics of bodies and populations and discourses of science and health (hansen & stepputat, 2016, pp. 299-300). simonse’s ‘ethnological field’ (p. 52) is a stretch of southernmost south sudan that runs from the bank of the nile at juba to the dongotona mountains on the kidepo river, a distance of one-hundred and fifty miles, broken here and there by abrupt mountains. residents of the nile’s east bank (bari, latuho, lokoya, lulubo, pari, and others) share modes of subsistence and social organization, age-class systems with monyomiji (‘owners’ or ‘fathers of the village’) who manage village affairs, and rainmakers. the rains in this part of south sudan are unpredictable, but generally begin to fall in late march or early april, though there may be occasional showers in january and february. may is usually 2 wet. in june there is often a break of two of three weeks when the rains do not fall. after this dry interval, the rains usually continue until september or october, with a few days of heavy rain in november or december. rainmakers’ standing varied from place to place; most shared the title of ‘king’ with a handful of others responsible for protecting against a host of disasters (epidemics and epizootics, infertility, caterpillars and pests, and so forth); some were powerful rulers with kingdoms comprising more than a dozen large villages, others’ power only extended to a few settlements. occupying the edge of social order, kings played an important role in settling disputes between factions within kingdoms and brokering relations across their boundaries on land and in the sky. all tended to be held responsible when the rains did not fall when they were expected: ‘every rainy season was of a test of their royal legitimacy,’ simonse writes, ‘not only of their effectiveness as rainmakers but also of their capacity to maintain internal peace and keep [rivals] at bay’ (p. 37). simonse describes the drama that unfolds during times of drought and other disasters, and how people led by the monyomiji try to identify the cause of the king’s anger (a cross word or disrespect toward the rainmaker, the theft of a rainmaker’s goat, or quarrelling or deeper divisions) to find a remedy. tribute would be collected and any sacrifices that had been put off are made. if drought continued, suspense builds. a rainmaker may accuse people of neglecting their responsibilities. people accuse the rainmaker of withholding rain out of simple meanness or indifference to their predicament. as more and more people turn against the rainmaker, the king will try to stall by making speeches or demanding more and more complicated sacrifices or blaming a rival. usually, the rain comes. if not, the dangers are considerable—simonse reviews two dozen cases of regicide between 1840 and 1986 (pp. 383-387)—and the rainmaker must flee or face an angry community that is united in purpose. this drama is the subject of the book. kings of disaster is divided into four parts. in part i, the introduction and the first two chapters are concerned with defining a set of categories for analytic use. simonse begins by laying out rené girard’s idea that because we model our desires on the desires of others, conflict is inevitable; we all end up wanting the same thing. what prevents this rivalry and quarrelling and jealousy from leading to a war of everyone against everyone, girard says, is our tendency to single out a victim and blame this state of affairs on some hapless scapegoat. this provides an object we can share. the death (or expulsion) of the victim provides relief from quarrelling, and with the restoration of a kind of harmony, a strange thing happens. sacrificial victims come to embody the relief from disagreement felt by those 3 who acted together. in death, the victim is transformed into a kind of divinity. simonse’s theoretical approach is drawn partly from girard’s ‘scapegoat mechanism’ and partly from evans-pritchard’s discussion of balanced or ‘complementary segmentary opposition’ in the nuer, where he describes how lineages come into being through their opposition to other lineages (evanspritchard, 1940, p.143). on the east bank of the nile, in the course of their encounters during times of disaster, the king and people face off in what simonse calls ‘the enemy scenario’ (in order to draw attention to its stereotypic and theatrical qualities), which plays out in smaller ways across sections, villages, and age-sets. the potential for violence, or the ‘suspense of war,’ he says, has the effect of dividing people neatly in two as they define groups by defining themselves against each other. there were normally social divisions among lineages and villages, young people and their seniors. during times when disaster touched everyone, though, all bets were off, meaning everyone against the king. what, simonse asks, would an approach to kingship look like if it were to take these principles of opposition as its starting point? it would look very different from the method introduced in african political systems (fortes & evans-pritchard, 1950). as a clan or section is united politically against all other sections, simonse argues, people are constituted as ‘a people’ by their unity against the king. ‘[c]entralism is only a transformation of dualism with a different cast: one of the social segments is replaced with the king’ (p. 454). rather than having to distinguish between societies with no centralized political authority and states with kings or paramount chiefs, then, we can see these as conversions of the same ‘mechanism by which social consensus is achieved’ (p. 207). once simonse lays this out, it must be said, everything else begins to fall in place. the result, sometimes disorienting to read, opens up a whole series of new perspectives on south sudanese history: about the nature of sovereignty (graeber, 2011), processes of state formation and continuities of brokerage (leonardi, 2013), competing images of administrative rule (cormack, 2016), and the intellectual productivity of engagement with states (kindersley, 2016). chapters 4-6 provide an historical ethnography of the processes that led, ultimately, to the incorporation of this region into sudan. ‘far from being a collection of neatly arranged, different ethnic communities each with its own language, culture and migration history,’ simonse says (p. 67), ‘the east bank of the nile proves an area where processes of cultural assimilation between various groups of peoples have gone on for a considerable period of time.’ the region was never an isolated place; and 4 the arrival, in 1841, of the first ottoman expedition marked the start of just one period of exchange and circulation among many. when ferdinand werne visited gondokoro in 1841 he met king logunu (or, lakono, a bilinyam rain master) who was wearing a complicated feather hat, blue beads from ethiopia, copper bracelets, and a blue cotton shirt made of india cloth. he explained to werne how people exchanged the iron that they produced there for copper, beads, cloth, and salt that had travelled along trade routes linking gondokoro to sennar and more distant places, by way of the baro-sobat valley and ethiopian highlands and fazogli. simonse’s broad, comparative approach, (no doubt encouraged by difficult research conditions), and emphasis on the manner in which differences are produced through interconnections, provides an important corrective to an earlier tradition that portrays the region as isolated and composed of sharply defined ethnic groups whose relations were sporadic and violent. the arguments of kings of disaster are developed through analyses of events in the history of the nile’s east bank. part ii is composed of two chapters and sketches out the dualistic structure of territorial and age-set institutions. part iii compares the dualistic structure of the relationship between king and people and the dualism of opposed groups, focusing on the antagonism of the king toward the people. the next part (iv) takes the other side and examines popular antagonism toward the king. the book’s historical chapters echo hocart’s idea that structure is less a collection of binary oppositions than a kind of scenario that shapes the ways in which unpredictable events unfold over time. it is not hard to understand, for instance, why rainmakers caught in an endless game of brinkmanship with their own subjects might try to raise armies or look for allies against their people among the well-armed ivory and slave traders who began to arrive in the 1850s. the book’s final ethnographic chapter is a fascinating and detailed discussion of cosmologies of violence and peacemaking. for all the book’s emphasis on the antagonism among age-sets and settlements and the king and people, simonse’s real interest lies in the construction of unity. this is the theme that knits the book together. he describes how ordinary routines of mock hostility continually represent the value of peacemaking by evoking its opposite and the difficulty and importance of achieving it. a reader opening a book called kings of disaster: dualism, centralism and the scapegoat king might expect exotic priests and mistletoe and sacred groves. this is not simonse’s aim. rather, he says, he aims to examine the role played by the rainmaker ‘while doing justice both to the king’s earthiness and 5 his divinity’ (p. 99). by keeping both the sacred and the political in analytical view, he presents mature, self-conscious actors and challenges the separation that traditionally characterized the anthropology of religion and the anthropology of the state. ‘what the nilotic subject expects from his king, is, in fact, very similar to what modern citizens expect from their welfare states,’ he says: ‘protection from violence in a wide sense – enemies, a wide range of factors influencing the security of livelihood, epidemics and diseases’ (simonse, 2005, p. 72). the obvious question remains: why would rainmakers encourage rumors of their involvement in drought? at the very least, perhaps, cultivating a reputation for being able to rain down a plague of insects or cause everyone’s crops to wither offers protection against being insulted or having one’s goats stolen. but the attraction of kingship is also something very familiar: about being the kind of person that others listen to and—having access to powers that others do not—place in a central role in times of crisis. kings of disaster is an excellent example of the lieden tradition of anthropology in south sudan and provides a welcome historical examination of how regional processes have shaped the course of larger events. readers may be uncomfortable with simonse’s use of girard’s to structure his account. (i admit i’m not entirely sure what to make of girard myself.) but it allows him to organize a fascinating, complicated story and to raise important questions; and the device does not diminish the originality of simonse’s insight, nor take away from what is a really excellent book. works cited: 1 evans-pritchard, edward evan (1940) the nuer: a description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a nilotic people. oxford: clarendon press. fortes, meyer & evans-pritchard, edward evan, eds. (1950) african political systems. london: oxford university press. cormack, zoe (2016) borders are galaxies: interpreting contestations over local administrative boundaries in south sudan. graeber, david (2011) the divine kingship of the shilluk: on violence, utopia, and the human condition, or, elements for an archaeology of sovereignty. hau: journal of ethnographic theory, 1 (1): 1–62. hansen, thomas blom & finn stepputat (2006) sovereignty revisited. annual review of anthropology, 35:295-315. 1 page numbers refer to kings of disaster, 2018, fountain, uganda. 6 kindersley, nicola (2016) the fifth column? an intellectual history of southern sudanese communities in khartoum, 1969-2005 (phd dissertation, durham university). leonardi, cherry (2013) dealing with government in south sudan: histories of chiefship, community & state. boydell & brewer. simonse, simone (2005) tragedy, ritual and power in nilotic regicide: the regicidal dramas of the eastern nilotes of sudan in contemporary perspective. in: the character of kinghip, declan quigley, ed., pp. 67–100. oxford: berg. © 2018 brendan tuttle microsoft word gaini publish.doc the adventurous fieldworker and first-rate theoretical thinker review by prof. dr. firouz gaini it happens among people – resonances and extensions of the work of fredrik barth, 2020, edited by keping wu and robert p. weller. new york & oxford: berghahn books keywords: barth, boundaries, fieldwork, nomad, humanistic tradition this collection, counting just above two hundred pages authored by eleven contributors from norway, sweden, china, and the united states in twelve independent chapters (including the introduction and afterword), presents a mosaic of fredrik barth’s (1928-2016) original anthropological work as seen through the eyes of a diverse team of fieldworkers and anthropological peers influenced and inspired by different components of the norwegian master’s oeuvre. the editors emphasize in the very first paragraphs of the introduction chapter that the publication’s aim is not to “simply celebrate his legacy” (p. 1) or to serve as conventional scholarly biography (as in thomas hylland eriksen’s praised book from 2015), because they want to “pass on barth’s humanistic tradition of knowledge” (p. 1) in a reflective forward-looking conversation. the book’s subtitle, “resonances and extensions of the work,” tells readers that the intention is to illuminate the deep yet too often overlooked imprint of barth’s theoretical and methodological thoughts – much more than the lessons of “ethnic groups and boundaries” – on following generations of scholars from an wide range of research fields. this formulation is also a smart way of assembling chapters that have little in common apart from a smaller or larger debt to barth. some of the chapters – e.g. the chapters by barfield, haaland, and robbins – present ethnographic studies (as cases, you could say) with very strong “resonance” to barth’s famous monographs based on his extensive fieldwork among the basseri of southern iran (persia), the fur of western sudan, and the min in highland new guinea. in this part of the volume, the legacy of barth, through his sophisticated models and rich empirical findings, is comprehensive. the new studies discussed in these chapters are from the same – or adjacent – regions as barth had put on the anthropological map of the world. lindholm’s chapter (no. 7) on two types of authority in swat, pakistan, also resonates with and reinterprets barth’s groundbreaking study of the swat pathans. in some of the other chapters of the book – e.g. the chapters by weller, wu, and herzfeld – we move to “new territories” not – or to a much lesser extent (without the outcome of a classic monograph) – explored by barth himself. while the thorough discussion on and mapping of barth’s influence on contemporary chinese studies, especially concerning ethnographic research focusing on themes like ethnic identities and (fluid or plastic) boundaries, demonstrates the contextual expansion of barth’s methodological and analytic transactionalist models (chapters 3 and 4), i felt that a more critical reflection on barth’s theoretical models, for instance with reference to some of the critique of barth in recent studies, would have strengthened the introduction to the barthian ‘turn’ in chinese anthropology. one of the book’s qualities is its sober and mature approach to the work of barth. it avoids the pitfall of creating a myth and demigod out of the man who says that he always wants to hold on to “humility in relation to the understanding and insights of other people” (wikan, p. 39). wikan’s contribution to the book, titled “humility first,” is a beautiful piece dedicated to the man that she shared her life with through fortyfour years. her personal account, combined with barth’s “own words,” draws a captivating image of a man making “as little as he could of himself” (p. 21) and who “was playful with theory and liked to try out new perspectives to see where they might bring him” (p. 27). barth, says robbins, “realized the disciplinary ideal of being equally a first-rate, adventurous, and indefatigable fieldworker and a searching, first-rate theoretical thinker” (p. 168). barth was a nomad. his favourite fieldwork – among all his fieldworks in europe, asia and africa – was among the basseri nomads of southern persia. what made his work so distinctive, says barfield referring to the basseri-study, was not only his “profound understanding” of pastoralism, but also his “sympathy for the people” (p. 117). he always focussed on “real people doing real things” (weller and wu, p. 2) as part of his methodological framework grounded in a humanistic tradition of knowledge, which also motivated him to become a very active public intellectual. “it happens among people” represents an interesting collection of chapters aiming to unpack and reexamine barth in order to grasp his impact on present-day and future research in anthropology. in the conclusion of haaland’s chapter “the language of trust and betrayal,” as an example, we are informed that barth, in haaland’s point of view, “wanted to develop an ‘analytic theory’ of conceptual tools that might stimulate well-corroborated leaps from fragments of observations to statements that revealed something about the complexity of the human condition wherever we encountered it” (p. 136). barth is, says tan, “a more complex and dialectical thinker than many claim. he continually oscillates between interpretation and explanation, between the universally human and the locally particular, which can only be grasped through deep observation and participation” (p. 205). these explanations, together with discussions from all other chapters, portray the image of a legacy that is much more important than what many young scholars might think today. as hannerz says in the afterword: barth’s work “is now seen to foreshadow later developments in varied ways: postmodernism, the ‘ontological turn,’ the importance of trust, infrastructural studies, and others” (p. 209). while barth might not be the “star author” in fashion in academia today, invisible in many of the scholarly discourses, he is without any doubt a member of the small group of anthropologists who will be a source of inspiration for generations to come. i enjoy reading this book, which has a title indicating that it is taking barth seriously – not as a master of abstract thinking up in the ivory tower, but as the anthropologist who always want to learn more about “real people” with “real lives.” the norwegian anthropologist, who was “at home in norway and in the world” (p. 217), continued to question, the book’s editors emphasize, “throughout his life” (p. 14). i highly recommend this book, especially for readers interested in the future of anthropology and barth’s place in it. clearly, barth keeps fuelling new thoughts and perspectives in the global anthropological community. dr. firouz gaini is a professor of anthropology at the university of the faroe islands. gaini has done research on young people, identity, place and gender. young people’s migration plans and attachment to place (local identities) is one of the main topics of his ongoing research projects. gaini is also one of the editors of a book on islands and gender to be published by routledge in 2020. © 2020 dr. firouz gaini mind the gap review by brendan tuttle susanna m. hoffman and roberto e. barrios, 2020, disaster upon disaster: exploring the gap between knowledge, policy & practice, new york: berghahn books, 343 pp., isbn 9781789203455 keywords: disaster, catastrophe, humanitarian, local participation “disaster upon disaster,” a collection of essays edited by susanna hoffman and roberto barrios, examines disjunctures and gaps between anthropological knowledge and the policies and practices of states and ngos that address risk, hazards, and disasters. this volume is the latest of a series of excellent collaborative projects—the angry earth (oliver-smith and hoffman, 1999), catastrophe and culture (hoffman and oliver-smith, 2002), contextualizing disaster (button and schuller, 2016)—that have demonstrated what anthropology can offer to the study of disaster. the overriding theme of this literature is that traditional distinctions between “natural” and anthropogenic catastrophes are profoundly deceptive: even those events whose origins are most remote from human activity (volcanic eruptions, tsunamis) have deep social histories. hazards affect communities through specific pathways of risk and vulnerability. these pathways may be broadly shaped by such general factors as latitude, elevation, and coastal proximity, but any particular disastrous outcome owes more to the unique social histories of places than to the passages worn by nature’s laws. since william torry’s 1979 review of “anthropological studies in hazardous environment,” which urged applied research “to narrow information gaps,” anthropologists have produced a large body of work showing how “social preconditions”—the intersections of class, gender, race, land-use and settlement patterns, and other factors—distribute risk unevenly. yet little seems to get through to “doers on the ground,” 1 hoffman observes in the book’s introduction (p.3); responses led by governments, agencies, and ngos have often not only failed to produce desired outcomes, but have also amplified risk exposure, unraveled structures of mutual aid, sharpened divisions within communities, disrupted livelihoods, undermined principals of everyday solidarity and care, and otherwise left people more vulnerable than before. why has so little gotten through? “disaster upon disaster” provides an extended discussion of this question through studies of the triangular relations between three broad social fields: what anthropologists have learned about hazards and disasters; what experience gets into manuals, checklists, standard operating procedures, guides, minimum standards, and policy documents; and what is actually done by people who have been given the task of responding to disasters. after an introduction (by the editor, susanna hoffman) the volume is divided into three parts: five chapters about disaster risk reduction and management; five chapters on the social distribution of risk; and three big-picture chapters about the future of disaster studies. the first part consists of five essays about how the knowledge, policy, and practice of disaster risk management are connected and integrated, or not integrated, by human actors. in the first essay, roberto barrios describes how the ingrid-manuel disaster arrived by way of entanglements between local political culture and capitalist tourist development, which led officials to disregard risk maps and allow the construction of formal and informal settlements in flood-prone areas. efforts to fill gaps can create new ones. barrios describes how technicians attached to mexico’s national center for disaster prevention and researchers from the national autonomous university of mexico inadvertently created gendered gaps when they sought to address a gap in governance by creating alternative connections. “a good share of my ethnographic experience involved moments of gendered bonding among predominantly male scientists whose social bonds are key to effectively disseminating and circulating disaster risk knowledge” (p.31-2). two chapters (by terry jeggle and stephen bender, respectively) provide an overview of disaster risk management, global advocacy, efforts to institutionalize disaster risk management, and the lack of investment in risk reduction. “few disaster defined service organizations possess sufficient political authority to command a national commitment to invoke combined interministerial actions to address broader environmental, climate, or emergent risks,” 2 jeggle writes (p.61). the result is that disaster management tends to be organized around immediate relief, rather than long-term risk reduction. what disaster management services actually exist tend to be concentrated in population centers, leaving outlying areas poorly served. two chapters explore the practical challenges faced by humanitarian workers when they attempt to connect policy and implementation. adam koons describes dilemmas stemming from gaps between “local context” and the guidance provided by informal mandates, policy frameworks, minimum standards in humanitarian response, and so forth, which can never address every circumstance an aid worker encounters. some gaps, he notes, are produced by modifications made to standards to better fit them to local circumstances, available resources, and recipients’ own priorities and needs. the final chapter, by jane murphy thomas, an anthropologist specializing in community participation, provides a close-up view of brokering and how it can be derailed by power struggles large and small. a second set of essays focuses on vulnerability and the distribution of risk. two concern resettlement for risk reduction. shirley j. fiske and elizabeth marino provide a discussion about slow-onset sea level rise, which intensifies existing vulnerabilities and compounds the problem of disaster relief-oriented organizations by arriving with a slow crescendo of erosion and rising tides, rather than a crash. despite the evident need to respond to the flood-vulnerabilities of lowlying coastal communities, actual state support for relocation or mitigation for whole communities (rather than individual property owners) is largely non-existent. anthony oliver smith discusses the use of resettlement for disaster risk reduction and how top-down initiatives, (and the notion that “resettlement is … just picking up communities and setting them down somewhere else”), have led planners to “perceive the culture of uprooted people as an obstacle to success, rather than as a resource” (p.212). brenda d. phillips writes about how differential outcomes reveal gendered vulnerabilities, as well as some of the strategies that have been used to “disrupt” these outcomes. ryo morimoto discusses the surprising ways that decontamination work in the vicinity of fukushima has “made the fact of the nuclear disaster more sensible than ever before” by making the disaster visible and containable, in black radioisotope waste bags. mark schuller contributes “haitians need to be patient,” the final chapter in this section, which describes advocacy efforts in washington dc and how difficulties related to language, obtaining 3 visas, accessing ngo funds for travel, and getting the attention of policy-makers sharply limits who ends up representing knowledge about haiti. the final set of three essays center on insights that anthropology can contribute to the study of disasters (hoffman), professional divisions between academics and practitioners (katherine brown, elizabeth marino, heather lazrus, & keely maxwell), and the kinds of futures that disaster management practices are creating versus those that we might wish to create instead (ann bergman). “local participation”—or, really, the very problematic nature of this concept in contexts of disaster response—is a common theme that runs through the entire collection. anthropologists might seem well positioned to provide an intellectual forum for thinking through some of these issues, but many are understandably reluctant to engage. our discipline was made possible by brutal schemes of conquest, which were often justified as humanitarian undertakings. and it is not hard to see why contemporary aid often vividly recalls earlier occupations. mark duffield (2010) has written about the rise of “fortified aid compounds,” whose well-paid residents rarely venture out, living like passengers on a ship with all their provisions carried from outside. with concertina wire, high cement walls, and sand-bagged bunkers, these structures embody an antidemocratic political structure that privileges the safety of foreign aid workers over those who reside outside the compound walls, discouraging “local participation” in decision-making, and highlighting the discrepancy between what humanitarian agencies spend on the care and protection of their foreign staff and what they spent to protect a country’s other residents. there is considerable work to be done and learned here. one hopes that this volume will inspire more scholarly engagement. “disaster upon disaster” is written in an accessible language and admirably avoids most of the features of academic discourse (reading different points of view in the least charitable ways possible) and humanitarian discourse (acronyms, impenetrable jargon) that produce and maintain gaps between academic anthropologists and their applied colleagues. readers are presented with a fairly wide range of theoretical approaches, and the authors make a number of concrete suggestions for improvements. 4 references gregory v. button and mark schuller, eds., contextualizing disaster (berghahn, 2016) mark duffield, “risk-management and the fortified aid compound: everyday life in postinterventionary society,” journal of intervention and statebuilding 4, no. 4 (2010), 453-474 susanna hoffman and anthony oliver-smith, catastrophe and culture (school of american research press, 2002) anthony oliver-smith and susanna hoffman, eds., the angry earth (routledge, 1999) william torry, “anthropological studies in hazardous environments: past trends and new horizons,” current anthropology 20, no. 3 (1979), 517-540 brendan tuttle holds a phd in anthropology and has worked in various roles in humanitarian relief in south sudan. he is also a research associate with the children’s environments research group (cerg) at the graduate center, city university of new york (cuny). his present position requires “a specific statement to the effect that the opinions and views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of usaid." © 2021 brendan tuttle 5 microsoft word publish-kristina helgesson kjellin.doc surprising possibilities in the study of religion and materiality review by kristina helgesson kjellin religion. material dynamics. by david chidester. 2018. university of california press. in my reading of religion. material dynamics, one sentence in particular strikes me: “[t]he academic study of religion is a joke” (71). chidester does not write that in order to denounce all academic research pertaining to religion. rather, with these words he wants to point to the alternatives and possibilities that joking and laughing enable: “often, the joke confronts us with an incongruous juxtaposition between a normative and an alternative pattern of conduct.” seeing the academic study of religion as a joke opens for “exploring alternative possibilities for being human in the world. instead of imposing a necessary form, the study of religion produces an exhilarating sense of freedom in the play of possibilities” (71). i understand chidester’s message in this book to be exactly that: the term “religion” is so varied and multi-faceted than what the dominating western understandings over the years have claimed. moreover, many of the dominating understandings of “religion” are artificial constructions, inventions. thus, one important aim of the book is to illuminate the connections between power and disciplinary knowledge and to do away with these false understandings that have become truths, and also to lay open the colonial and imperial conditions that have formed these understandings. chidester is not the first to do that, but he does so by emphasizing “religious materiality and the material study of religion” (xi) with political economy as the lens, thus stating that “religion” can never be understood outside of “the material dynamics of conditions and consequences” (210). that is also the overall argument of the book: the necessity of deconstructing, reconstructing, and contextualizing “religion” in order to make the term relevant at all. the book is structured into three sections: “categories,” “formations,” and “circulations.” in the first section, “categories,” chidester investigates the material dynamics of some of the basic categories in the study of religion and asks “[w]here do our categories come from? how do they work? what do they do? how can we rethink our basic modes of thinking?” (19). the categories he looks at are “animism,” “sacred,” “space,” “time,” and finally “incongruity,” when categorical distinctions are being challenged or maybe violated. by emphasizing the material dynamics of these various categories, chidester contextualizes how they came into being. animism, for instance, coined by the anthropologist e. b. tylor (1832-1917), was a theoretical construction that fitted well with the colonial and imperial project, where indigenous peoples, defined as “animists,” were placed on the lowest step in an imagined evolutionary ladder, while the europeans were placed at the top. the consequences were, as we know, devastating. although since long dismissed in the academic study of religion, the term continues to be used, for instance in a handbook for christian missionaries, as late as 2003 (gailyn van rheenen 2003). chidester continues this section by examining how “sacred,” “space,” and “time” are deeply intertangled with politics and economics. religious or sacred space deals with questions of ownership – who is included and who is excluded? who has access to a particular space? similarly, religious time is closely intertwined with the material dynamics of ritual, of the usage of clocks and calendars, and with such common activities as preparing, cooking, and eating food. the highlight of this section is the chapter on “incongruity,” where chidester shows how the intercultural encounters that emerged through the colonial project, resulted in situations where these categories were being challenged. by using examples from the south african context, chidester illuminates how the encounter resulted in humorous reflections on, and plays of, difference. however, the missionaries did not see the humorous side of things, so when local peoples laughed at the ideas and beliefs that the missionaries preached, laughter was interpreted as “’uncivilized’ embodied behavior, [that] signaled an absence of rationality” (68). the next section, “formations,” is divided into chapters with the following titles: “culture,” “economy”, “colonialism,” “imperialism,” and “apartheid.” chidester brings up formations as ”configurations of power in which religious symbols, discourses, practices, and institutions emerge” (75). these formations are forces that affect religion but not with a “simple relation of cause and effect, but in complex configurations of discourses and power relations” (77). chidester begins this section of the book by discussing the embodiment and material culture of religion, bringing up for instance the importance of objects, art, relics and icons, the senses, and communication media. however, it is the chapters on “colonialism,” “imperialism,” and “apartheid” that engage me the most, where the intertwinement of religion with politics, economics, and violence are outlined. chidester describes the various steps in the colonial encounter and how religion was used by the colonizers in order to manage and control local populations. in his discussion on south africa during apartheid, chidester refers to talal asad and his reasoning on how the marking and enforcement of boundaries by the hegemonic power is built on “differentiating and classifying practices” rather than on “dissolving differences into an overarching unity” (130). these are important questions, chidester argues, for future research: why the obsession of purity and of classifications, for instance of so called “world religions” and “indigenous religions”? he argues for a dynamic and situated understanding of all religions “as resources and strategies” in order to “counteract colonial, imperial, or apartheid formulations of these resources and strategies as ‘religious systems’ that can be contained or controlled” (131). the last section, ”circulations,” shows how mobility, change, and diffusion are crucial aspects to consider if we agree with the material dynamics of religion that chidester outlines. the chapters of this section deal with ”shamans,” ”mobility,” ”popular,” “touching,” and “oceans.” as the titles suggest, chidester brings forth the multitude of ways that religion moves, changes, and diffuses, for instance through the religious specialist of the shaman in colonial encounters, through present-day popular culture, through bodily senses, and across oceans. in the chapter on touching, where he discusses how religion moves through bodies, he touches (!) on the currently most urgent issue for the world: the sanctity of the body that can be invaded by intruders such as viruses. he asks: “how do people handle living in such a world – from the global economy to the physical body – that is driven by invisible tactile forces?” (190). for sure, this is something that humanity at the moment is trying its best to learn. i highly recommend religion. material dynamics to students, teachers, and researchers interested in religion. the book offers many interesting and important insights of how we creatively – and with a sense of humor can think of and understand religion in its diversity as intertwined with materiality. by combining case studies as varied as those mentioned above, the book casts light on sometimes surprising possibilities in the study of religion and materiality. most examples in the book refer to various forms of christianity, although examples of other religious traditions are brought up as well. my concern is that such allencompassing conditions as migration and climate change are not mentioned. globalization is described as ”fluidity, fluctuations, [and] circulations” […] ”without fixed borders” (176), and as we well know this is only part of the story. similarly, how can we understand the intertwinement of religion and materiality when the very existence of this materiality is being threatened by rising temperatures, melting ice bergs, and rampant wildfires? i hope david chidester will tackle these enormous challenges in his coming writing. kristina helgesson kjellin is associate professor in cultural anthropology at church of sweden research department and uppsala university. she has done research on south african pentecostalism, the consequences of mission work, and most recently on the role of churches in relation to issues of migration and integration in the swedish society. reference cited gailyn van rheenen 2003. communicating christ among folk religionists: kingdom ministry in satan’s nest, http://missiology.org/folkreligion/ © 2020 kristina helgesson kjellin consider the whale reviewed by edmund searles contesting leviathan: activists, hunters, and state power in the makah whaling conflict les beldo begins his ethnography by recounting a historic event that some recall with pride and joy and others with sadness and pain. on may 17, 1999, a dugout canoe full of men from the makah indian nation paddled vigorously in the shallow ocean waters off of cape alva in neah bay for hours, attempting to harpoon a gray whale in a fashion similar to their ancestors. long before this particular hunt began, the news of it had spread far and wide. the last makah whaling hunt took place more than seven decades ago, and the media, circling above in helicopters, were eager to capture this momentous occasion on film. circling around the canoe below were other boats loaded with onlookers, some hostile and others supportive. at least one of the boats belonged to the federal government, which authorized the hunt; observers on board were charged with ensuring that the hunt proceeded safely and legally. other boats belonged to antiwhaling activist groups determined to disrupt the hunt at any cost; their priority was to save the whales. after two days of paddling around without success, the whalers finally killed a young female gray whale and hauled her body to shore, bringing to a climax the event, which had been in the planning stages for years. the most important anthropological significance of this event, according to beldo, is not related to the “clash of cultures” – indigenous whalers and the federal government vs. animal rights activists. rather, it is related to whales; in particular, humanity’s inability to consider whales as individual autonomous agents with values and desires of their own: “as an ethnographic theory and method,” writes beldo “decentering the human is among the worthiest of anthropological aspirations. . . ” (7). in this context, decentering the human means exploring why that particular young female whale approached the hunters’ canoe when she did. beldo admits that this is very difficult to do, considering that the other participants in this story already speak for whales if they consider the whale’s perspective at all. the federal government falls into this latter category, as its agents regard the whale as a fish—a resource to be managed. the makah, by contrast, believe that the whale wanted to be killed, underscoring a spiritual connection uniting predator and prey. the anti-whaling activists, for their part, claimed that this whale was deceived; she approached the hunters thinking they would pet her as other whalewatching tourists do. to beldo, these one-sentence descriptions of the whale’s alleged motives are deceptively simple; they conceal a more complicated set of perspectives and opinions about animals, humanity, and the ways in which these two groups relate (and/or ideas about how they should relate) to each other. while renting a modest apartment on the makah reservation during his eight months of fieldwork, beldo visited with many local families, including those who supported the revival of makah whaling from the beginning and those who were more recent converts. he also conducted extensive interviews in the homes of anti-whaling activists living in neighboring towns, many of whom had supported the makah on other environmental issues. in addition to participantobservation and interviews, beldo’s research also involved sifting through a significant amount of archival material – the texts of federal laws, trial proceedings, court rulings, newspaper clippings, press releases, minutes of public meetings, environmental management plans, and the marketing materials of the makah cultural and research center. the book is organized into a series of eight skillfully-crafted chapters, four of which i consider in this review. chapter one traces the history of whaling as practiced by the makah nation, including its recent emergence as a political act of affirming indigenous sovereignty. beldo notes that whaling only gained broad support among tribal members after anti-whaling activists announced their intention to oppose it. chapter two examines whale meat as a source of unity within the makah nation and moral difference outside of it. although beldo explains that not all makah agree that whale meat is tasty, he writes: “the edibility of whales is one of the few points on which i am comfortable arguing that there is such a thing as a (mostly) unified and distinct makah point of view” (63). whereas individual makah regularly refer to whale meat as “yum!,” beldo argues that this yum response is less about taste as it is about the “moral difference between whalers and anti-whaling activists” (63). what is “yummy” to makah isn’t supposed to be a source of food at all according to the activists. in chapter three, beldo engages with makah spirituality, particularly as it “surrounds local conversations on makah whaling” (86). despite the fact that makah and other community members emphasize the spirituality of whaling, beldo is skeptical about the usefulness of this concept in understanding the relationship between makah and whales. “any discussion of the spiritual aspect of makah whaling must acknowledge,” beldo writes, “that some makah whalers engage in no spiritual practices at all” (92). beldo problematizes how spirituality is portrayed in the rhetoric of tribal council documents, as a system that connects the makah to each other, to animals, and to ancestors. through stories and quotes from his research participants, beldo demonstrates that spirituality is highly variable, personal, and idiosyncratic (88). chapter four traces the partnership forged between the makah and the federal government in laying the groundwork for the modern revitalization of gray whale hunting. after whales were removed from the endangered species list in 1994, the makah began to partner with the federal government to prepare for the first hunt. this alliance is deeply problematic, beldo argues, because it means the makah have to comply with the federal government’s definition of whales as “fish.” but beldo understands why the makah are willing to accept the arrangement. he writes: “despite some epistemological tensions and the fetters that federal co-management places on tribal sovereignty, the overlap between makah ethics of human-animal interaction and the federal fisheries management model has allowed the tribe to pursue, with federal legitimacy and protection, the revival of a practice that runs counter to the stated moral beliefs of an overwhelming majority of americans” (119). beldo is a bold polemicist and a gifted writer. he’s also a perceptive ethnographer; readers learn a great deal about makah whaling and its connection to other aspects of their lives. personally, i found it a very useful text for the classroom. i recently taught it in an advanced undergraduate seminar for anthropology majors, and it generated enthusiastic discussions on a range of topics. despite beldo’s commitment to give voice to all sides of this multifaceted debate, subtle cues throughout the book reveal that his sympathies lie with the anti-whaling activists: that it is unethical to kill a whale for any reason. this moral position will pose a challenge to some anthropologists, especially those who have witnessed the social and economic devastation that animal rights organizations have inflicted on indigenous communities. some readers might want to hear more, for example, about what beldo’s makah interlocutors think about the fact that animal rights organizations have raised thousands, even millions, of dollars from images of indigenous hunters killing seals, whales, and other animals. at this point, i return to one of beldo’s overarching theoretical goals for the book: to decenter humans from the anthropological project. this decentering rests on ascertaining the whale’s perspective. for beldo, this means separating the world of humans from the world of whales, and this is done by not treating whales as prey, fish, or any means to a human end (e.g. cultural, economic, social, spiritual). despite the ambitious project of decentering, however, the reader learns surprisingly little about whales. beldo confesses that he only spotted one whale during the time he lived on the reservation; the whale surfaced far off shore and then disappeared. in the end, it is beldo’s reluctance to consider whaling as a path toward understanding whales that prevents him from fully realizing his ethnographic project of decentering humans. indigenous hunters who carefully study the behavior of whales, track them for days on end, butcher them with precision and skill, and obtain health benefits by consuming them, season after season, year after year, know far more about the whale’s perspective than the anti-whaling activists who defend whales, the tourists who photograph them, and the anthropologists who write about them. ironically, dedicating more time to accessing the insights and experiences of veteran indigenous whale hunters might have brought beldo closer to shifting the anthropological gaze away from humans and onto other species. edmund (ned) searles is professor of anthropology and chair of the department of sociology and anthropology at bucknell university. he has conducted long-term ethnographic research in the canadian arctic. his research specializations include environmental anthropology, ethnicity and identity, and local responses to food insecurity in iqaluit, the capital of nunavut. he has published articles in anthropology and humanism, études/inuit/studies, food and foodways, and hunter gatherer research. at bucknell he teaches courses on the anthropology of native north america, human-environment relations, and the anthropology of place. he is currently writing a book on the sociocultural dimensions of place and identity among nunavut inuit. © 2020 edmund searles microsoft word cidrelius_final.docx 1 reconstruction of the anthropology of identity hylland eriksen, thomas and elisabeth schober (eds). 2016. identity destabilised. living in an overheated world. london: pluto press. isbn: 978 1 7868 0004 6 keywords: anthropological history of ideas, anthropology’s historical identity, anthropological knowledge production, reconciliation of social and natural science, building an anthropology of contemporary identity this volume consisting of fourteen chapters aims at updating and reconstructing the anthropology of identity. the introductory chapter by eriksen and schober addresses the need for re-establishing the identity concept in a world of accelerated change where forms of belonging to places, groups and societies are being challenged in new ways. for example, in the context of migration, urbanization, tourism and communication technologies (1). the natural scientific term ‘overheating’ represents a central metaphor for depicting the contemporary phase of globalization where places may have experienced accelerated change or stagnation with unforeseen consequences. this creates friction and tension between and within groups, affecting individuals’ self-understanding. theorizing the world as an overheated space of living, eriksen and schober contribute to developing a particular grammar to speak about intensified contact between contemporary identity formations in various places of the world. in the following chapters, this global grammar is put into practice. in contrast to the friction which may arise between different ‘we-hoods,’ macclancy, in the second chapter, presents three ethnographic examples from ireland and spain where transactions between separate identifications are characterized by inclusion (24), networking (26) and groups 2 learning to live together (28). instead of turning the exotic into the familiar, macclancy’s ethnographic findings does the opposite as well as questions a critical aspect of anthropological knowledge productions. essentially, that of the risk that differences are enhanced where few exist and the downplaying of equality because research projects focused on difference are rewarded with funding (32). drotbohm, in the third chapter, describes complex relations and friction from the view of cape verde migrants who intended to make their lives in a nation-state different from their country of origin but who were coercively removed by means of statecraft and have had to reintegrate involuntarily into their communities of origin (42). the chapter clearly shows how processes of identification and reidentification can be challenged in contexts of migration. the fourth chapter focuses on identify formations in the context of urbanization in majes, peru where everyone presents themselves as strangers. similar to earlier anthropological research findings, stensrud shows that identities cannot be taken for granted and are negotiated through practices and encounters with others. eriksen, shifting focus from south america to an urban space in australia, describes how continuity is perceived as an anomaly because of the constant change and how local identities ‘avoiding fixation and keeping their options open’ (86). the fifth chapter raises questions concerning the facility which the informants thought about resettlement, given that human identity is so often associated with place (96). unlike eriksen, thorleifsson, in the sixth chapter, studied lived experiences of statecrafted migration to israel. the chapter’s focus on lived experiences can, according to thorleifsson, offer a more nuanced understanding of identity dilemmas caused or heightened by accelerated change rather than a static group approach (102). it is thorleifsson’s interpretation that one of the informant’s nostalgia for the country of origin as well as belonging and inclusion outside of the nation contains a critique of state projects. kearney, in turn in the seventh chapter, studies the yanyuwa in australia who were exposed to genocide as a consequence of european colonialism. kearney represents the current condition as an overheated effect of cultural contact gone wrong (118), depicting the yanyuwa strategies to limit the cultural wounding and decelerating effect on yanyuwa identification. rather than opposing state programs, kearney produces knowledge for supporting state projects developed for saving and rescuing yanyuwa cultural practices. 3 in the eighth chapter schober discusses how the aeta population in subic bay, the philippines has been affected by external forces such as colonialism and globalization including how anthropologists have played a role in the formation of the aeta identity. schober problematizes the historical relation between the anthropologist and the local population as well as her own contemporary identification. the ninth chapter takes form in the context of the mining industry in marampa, sierra leone. pijpers describes how identity politics can become instrumental in struggles for personal benefits at the expense of others. this politics of localness can arise in situations that are marked by economic despair and the hope of a better future, resulting in practices of inclusion and exclusion. the chapter addresses the need for anthropologists to be aware of such situations. wimpelmann turns the tables in the tenth chapter by giving an account of conflicts between so called traditional elites and contemporary political leaders in afghanistan through an exploration of one extended family in afghanistan and the family member’s strategies and reflections over their diminished position as self-evident community leaders (171). the struggles for status in the afghan society are described in a context of change. moving on to the eleventh chapter, banovic brings the mustache to the fore as a symbol of overheating effects in montenegro’s first pride parade. previously associated with masculinity, the mustache is now used in struggles for sexual minority rights. banovic studies how certain groups of heterosexual males oppose this political use of the mustache and question the new identification with sexual minorities. in the twelfth chapter, martin discusses an identity and loyalty conflict among some english football supporters in the context of the football club’s entry into the global economy. the analysis emanates from a discussion on an internet forum during the first decade of the millennium where football fans express their views on true membership. martin shows how the contemporary economic transformation of football has paved the way for tensions which have become more visible today. rounding off, neumann reflects in the thirteenth chapter over historical monuments as an organization of thoughts and social relations. a few monuments by certain peoples are discussed as visual stories of self and ways of depicting the other, and neumann finds a change in contemporary western depictions of the other (238). hann closes the book in the fourteenth chapter with a reflection on european identities as well as his own identification from a nation-state model and argues that the uneven acceleration of globalization often leads to 4 an accentuation of national identity. ending the chapter on a more optimistic note hann provides an analysis of the eurovision song contest as a contemporary ritual of inclusion (248). summing up, identity destabilised: living in an overheated world sheds light on a reconciliation of the social and natural sciences. ‘identity’ and ‘living’ constitute classical social scientific concepts while ‘destabilized’ and ‘overheated’ taps into natural scientific terminology. the reconciliation is directed at updating and constructing an anthropology of contemporary identity. however, the outline of figures and tables (vii) as well as the index (252) of places, peoples, unfamiliar words and (un)recognized scientists pose as remains from positivistic studies where researchers sponsored by colonial powers intended to turn the exotic into the familiar to facilitate governance, for instance, by descriptions of fixed and stable identities at places represented as remote and timeless. each chapter in this volume invites the reader to reflect on parts of the anthropological knowledge production, i.e., the relation between the anthropologist and their informants, the validity of ethnographic material based on fieldwork carried out several years before publishing (which raises questions concerning the informants ways of life at present), the identification of anthropology with former colonial powers and sometimes with post-colonial powers, the application of classical colonial concepts, how anthropological text production may contribute to construction of identifications, and the role of truth in knowledge productions when practices of particular historical peoples are identified and reproduced. moreover, the volume raises the concerns as to who benefits from the knowledge, the risks of viewing the world as a laboratory from a natural scientific perspective and the effects of reconciling social and natural sciences. time will tell how this anthropology of contemporary identity may address these issues. daniel cidrelius holds a master’s degree in social anthropology from stockholm university. he has explored tourism’s role in the transnational adoptions of sri lankan children and marginalized voices in the adoption discourse. his research interests include sri lanka, transnational adoption practices and travel writing. currently he is studying representations of the adoptions from sri lanka to sweden in swedish newspapers 1970-2020. 5 © 2021 daniel cidrelius microsoft word westendorp publish.doc leisurely enjoying death review by mariske westendorp 2 leisure and death: an anthropological tour of risk, death, and dying edited by adam kaul and jonathan skinner louisville: university press of colorado, 2018 key words: (anthropology of) death, leisure, (dark) tourism, after-life, risk death has been a subject of study for anthropologists from the very start of the discipline. being both universal (we all die one day, and almost all of us are confronted with the death of loved ones during our lives) and particular (the meanings we ascribe to death are cultural and therefore different across the world), death is one of those subjects that lends itself well for cross-cultural comparison. the book ‘leisure and death: an anthropological tour of risk, death, and dying’ therefore stands in a long tradition of anthropological enquiry into the topic of death, dying and bereavement. at the same time, however, it takes a different approach than many of the ‘anthropology of death’ publications, as the book does not put death center stage, but takes death as a lens to delve into another topic, namely leisure. the chapters in the book are all ethnographically strong, and full of beautiful details and sometimes lively pictures. the editors have done well to create consistency amongst the chapters, and – aided by a prologue, introduction and epilogue – the book forms a coherent whole. the chapters are divided into four parts, enhancing the book’s structure and clarity. the first part concerns leisure and death on the move. chapters are about what happens when a tourist dies while on holidays in indonesia, pilgrims facing their own mortality en route to santiago de compostela, and looking death in the eye by free climbing or ‘tombstoning.’ in the second part, chapters on tourist encounters with the dead are gathered. authors describe tourists travelling to indonesia to make selfies with the (un)dead, to the cliffs of moher, known as suicide destination, and to the island of palau, where victims of world war ii are remembered. in the third section, on sensual and authentic experiences of death, chapters deal with narratives of authentic ways of dealing with the dead, heritage and violence. here, the concept of ‘leisure’ shows its full potential in contrast to merely being about tourism and travel. contributors focus on present-day european ossuraries (sites where skeletal remains are put to final rest), traditional irish music, and the enjoyments of eating endangered species. the final chapters are united in a section on the after-life and after-leisure, primarily dealing with social relations that extend beyond death. chapters are on memorial sites on facebook, gossiping about the dead in traditional greek settings, and hanging out amongst the dead in english woodland cemeteries. 3 as most of the chapters to the book attest, death and leisure at first seem contradictory, if not exclusive terms. leisure is often positively associated: it is a care-free activity, voluntary, often planned ahead, associated with fun, happiness, relaxation and recreation.i it holds in itself the promise of play and activity. death, on the other hand, is ‘serious business’ and characterized mostly with laying to rest. it is often negatively portrayed: it overcomes all of us, whether we want it or not, it often comes unexpected, and it is associated with sadness, grief, mourning and fear. the book therefore seems to bring together two concepts that are paradoxical to each other. however, as each chapter in the book shows, death and leisure are not as far apart as initially thought – especially not in the postmodern societies in which we live, characterized by a vast industry of death characterized by institutionalization and sanitation. both leisure and death are a ‘time-out’ from our everyday lives. they are both universal features of human living, and, as the authors argue “what we are certain of in this volume is that leisure and death are the times when self and sociality are remade, reproduced, remarked upon” (2018, 30). naturally, statements such as these stand or fall with the definition of ‘leisure’ being applied. the types of leisure described in the chapters roughly fall into two categories. first, there is leisure associated with remembrance or an active engagement with the dead, such as people travelling to european ossuaries or to sites where war victims are commemorated. second, there are leisure activities which remind us of the immanence of our own death and the value of embracing and celebrating life, as for example expressed by visitors to suicide cliffs in ireland. but, leisure is more than merely travel. death and its immanence are not only experienced in moments of ‘dark tourism,’ but also in other activities, for example involving food, sport, bird-watching, engaging in social media, and enjoying heritage sites. by discussing these different activities, the book tries to find an answer to the question of what we mean by ‘leisure’? by analysing death-related activities, the editors aim to rethink the concept. when is something ‘leisure,’ and when it is not? at the same time, reading through the book makes one wonder about the question and nature of death and dying. what exactly is ‘death’? is it different than ‘dying’? when is somebody dead? and how do we deal with and give meaning to death, both collectively and individually? throughout the chapters of the book, the entanglements between death and leisure become increasingly clear – or, rather, the concepts become more and more entangled, making it difficult to understand where one ends and the other begins. moreover, what binds the chapters together is the strong focus on embodiment and emplacement. leisure is seen as 4 an activity that always takes places somewhere and is done by somebody, even if it is in the digital realm, such as on facebook. as the editors seem to argue, central in leisurely encounters with death are the deeply embodied experiences of life and death. the validity of this emphasis on the embodiment and emplacement of death can perhaps be questioned, as it could very well ‘just’ be a result of the traditional anthropological focus on affect, lived experience, and meaning-making. whether other disciplines place similar emphasis on embodiment and emplacement might be an interesting query for future exploration. two other minor points of critique can be given. first, the book deals with a wide variety of topics, making it at times hard to understand the underlying argument or train of thoughts. as jane desmond remarks in the prologue to the book: “what this range of practices has in common is that somewhere in each experience is an encounter with the dead or with the notion of dying” (2018, x) – obviously a rather broad categorization. second, while the book attempts to give a universal or global overview, it mostly deals with deathrelated leisure activities in european contexts. of the twelve ethnographic chapters, at least seven are from european contexts. another three chapters deal with the pacific. the introductory chapter also primarily deals with the subject matter from a western perspective. narratives from contexts in which death is not seen as endpoint (such as chinese contexts) or in which the dead are very much celebrated as part of life (such as in the mexican día de los muertos) are left behind, but could offer an interesting additional perspective on the subject matter. attempting to understand the concept of leisure better by researching death is an interesting and very valuable approach. what we learn from the book is that ‘leisure’ is a fluid category. as it stands, the book primarily reads as an initial exploration in the crossing fields of death and leisure – and perhaps as invitation for other scholars to engage with the crossing of these topics. for example, researching, reading and writing about death are in these corona-times different than usual for death scholars like myself. reading ‘leisure and death’ in these weeks made me wonder about my own ‘leisure’ activities related to death. could catching up on the news every day and keeping track on the death-ratings, thereby being daily confronted with the immanence of death, be regarded a leisure activity, and if so, what does this tell us about the position of death in our societies which seems to be more ‘in our faces’ than it has been for a long time? could strolling around cemeteries (something that i normally do out of personal interest and as leisure activity) nowadays still be regarded as ‘leisure activity,’ especially when it is to witness the impact of covid-19 on the materiality and 5 emplacement of death? or does the increased immanence and visibility of death impact so much on these activities that they can no longer be considered ‘leisure’? thinking along these lines made me realize the potential of ‘leisure and death’ for more and more extensive discussions on the topics. mariske westendorp is an anthropologist and religious studies scholar. at present, she is a postdoc researcher in an international hera-funded project on cemeteries and crematoria as public spaces of belonging in northwest europe, researching the inclusion and exclusion of minorities at european cemeteries and crematoria gardens. i notice here the possible double word play of ‘recreation’. related to leisure, it means to perform an activity when one is not working. associated with death, it can also be read as ‘re-creation’: the re-creation of life after death, such as in religious ideas on reincarnation, or the re-creation (as in: re-scripting) of life after an encounter with death. © 2020 mariske westendorp microsoft word pan final.doc 1 chinese urbanites living the american dream on the outskirts of china's capital americaville, 2020 (film) directed by adam james smith co-produced with qi zhang, wang qihan, wei guang, song ke, and tang yi this captivating documentary is about the lived experiences of wealthy chinese urbanites trying to escape increasingly uninhabitable beijing due to air pollution and overcrowding. for those who are interested in china’s rapid urbanization, this documentary is an intriguing and intimate exploration of how this group of people pursue happiness while grappling with some dire consequences of china’s fervid urbanization. titled americaville (美国故乡 meiguo guxiang, which literally means american home or american homeland), this documentary zooms in on a gated community situated in the mountains north of beijing. embracing the theme of the american west, this community is modeled on the wyoming town of jackson hole in the united states, a place of rugged mountains and frontier culture. the real estate developer of this community constructs a romantic idea about the wild west and aims to deliver the american dream to its several thousand residents. replicas of famous american and european cities have started to emerge in china since the 2000s. they can be viewed as both a manifestation of the new power of choice and wealth that china is experiencing and an ongoing negotiation with its newfound place of wealth and influence in the world. the film focuses on a segment of the chinese population that is less scrutinized: the wealthy chinese who are searching for ways to realize their ideas of happiness as well as express their new prestige in society. in americaville, the rich find inspiration and comfort in jackson hole. the film follows the protagonist liu hua, who spends her working weekdays in her 2 apartment in beijing and weekends in her country house in jackson hole. liu hua wants to escape the city’s overcrowding and pollution problems and pursue her dreams of health, happiness, freedom, love and religious fulfillment. attracted by the frontier spirit of the american west, she believes that jackson hole is the place where she can fulfill her dreams. it is her ‘dream place’ as she says in english, standing in front of a road sign named ‘grand canyon’. the recreation of the american west is palpably seen in the real estate developer’s intentional design of, for example, setting up american bars and naming the streets and places after some well-known tourist attractions in jackson hole. while enjoying eating american food and watching cowboys dance, the residents also celebrate american holidays such as the independence day, halloween and christmas. and when necessary, artificial snow is provided to enhance the atmosphere in jackson hole. around these festive occasions, liu hua, dressed in a polo shirt with the american flag, assiduously learns to clean her house by reading american home organizing manuals and make american food by studying american cookbooks in hopes of becoming a better housewife. touting that jackson hole provides more than just an environment with nice houses, clean air and beautiful scenery, the developer also boasts about the cultural aspect of his product. he tells that jackson hole embodies such american values as freedom, the country lifestyle, equality, and fraternity adding that most importantly, it is ‘a place where your dreams can come true.’ while clearly evoking the american frontier spirit, it also speaks to the changes happening in chinese society in terms of people’s wealth, choices and mobility, which in turn can have an impact on marriage and family life as seen in the case of liu hua, who struggles to come to terms with some of the choices she made for her marriage. in the midst of this carefully created fantasy of the american west, the film director subtly captures the presence of the chinese socialism in these residents’ american dream. for example, the common practice of radio broadcasting in public places such as residential areas, villages and schools occurs in jackson hole too. reminiscent of radio propaganda, the broadcaster wishes all the residents a good day in the pursuit of happiness and welcomes new visitors to embark on the journey of the ‘magical american fantasy.’ in a similar fashion, the film director skillfully lays bare the deepening class divide in society by interweaving images of the surveillance cameras, security guards, and workers maintaining the public green spaces 3 in jackson hole. it comes into sharp focus when a few motorcyclists are stopped at the entrance to jackson hole and complain that the road used to be accessible by all. in juxtaposition with the story of liu hua, the audience also catches a glimpse of how the real estate agents try to move up the economic ladder by selling luxurious homes. in her pitch to sell a development project titled ‘beverly hills,’ an agent talks about beverly hills as a place of the wealthy in los angeles. she does not package and market happiness through embracing the american culture symbolized in food, holidays and the countryside. she is selling the notion that happiness can be purchased and measured by living in a replica of beverly hills in china, another expression of wealth and prestige. the film takes a sudden turn when the fantasy world of jackson hole is rattled by a new york times report about this chinese replica, which sets off a spate of criticism from the chinese public and media. the criticism is not so much targeted at the original article as the phenomenon of the chinese replica and its residents. nevertheless, unfazed by the domestic denunciation, the developer continues to expand his exploration of foreign cultures and experiences. in his new project, a swiss style town is to be built in a big valley. towards the end of the film, the audience is confronted with a tearful liu hua merely saying that she may seem to have a successful life to others without really completing the sentence. it indicates that underneath the wealthy and glamorous appearance of her life is a relentless struggle for a happy life. americaville has succeeded in diving beneath that surface and unveiling some of the personal struggles experienced by the well-to-do. as such, americaville contributes to a more nuanced understanding of urban china by tracing the urbanites’ movement to the countryside. it reverses the popular perspective on urban china where the viewpoint often pivots on the already disadvantageous and marginalized. nonetheless, this is not to say that social stratification worsened by economic inequality is passed over in americaville. on the contrary, it is laced into the main storyline in a skillful and subtle way that while it seems to be lurking in the background, it forms the ineluctable mirror image of the rich, and thus enhances our understanding of their distinct and yet interlinked life worlds. darcy pan is a researcher in the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. she has done field research with labor activists and ngos in south china. 4 © 2021 darcy pan microsoft word arosoaie final .doc 1 claiming indigeneity in precarious landscapes: race, economic globalization and climate change in rooibos land sarah ives steeped in heritage: the racial politics of south african rooibos tea, durham: duke university press, 2017. pp 272 isbn 978-0-8223-6986-8 keywords indigeneity, race, south africa, multispecies belonging, whiteness. steeped in heritage explores the fraught claims of indigeneity of white and colored farmers in the rooibos-region of cederberg in contemporary south africa. specifically, ives sets out to answer the following questions: “how do residents grapple with their ‘precarious identities,’ and how do they articulate their own concepts of what it means to be indigenous when their uncertain claims to belonging in place merge with the uncertainty of the rootedness of place itself?” (3). to this end, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork between 2009 and 2013, as well as archival and primary-source research through 2015, to highlight how people drew on their connection to rooibos and its ecological indigeneity to assert their natural belonging to a landscape and an ecosystem (4). ives locates quests for indigeneity in the rooibos-region in a context of political, racial, economic and ecological precarity, noting that rooibos narratives of belonging were meant to mitigate fears of a post-apartheid ‘blackcontrolled’ state (104), the heavy weight of poverty, unemployment and alienation (17), the threat of global market-based economy controlling the rooibos valuation systems and the uncertainty of the “rootedness of place itself” in light of climate change moving the rooibos ecosystem southward (175). the book is structured along five chapters. thematically, chapters one, two and five explicitly address the specificities of the plant-place-person configurations of belonging, while chapters three and four provide detailed accounts of the political, economic and racial contexts. chapter one explores how people’s subjectivities were linked to rooibos as the latter shifted between commodity, native plant, and moral subject. ives shows how ecologies of belonging for white and colored farmers attend to climatic, economic and political 2 vulnerabilities differently: whereas white landowners articulate rooibos as heritage based on a connection to traditional past, materially dispossessed colored farmers marked rooibos as heritage oriented towards the future, since farming the tea ‘more naturally’ made them more connected to the land (53). chapter two delves deeper into the “region’s fraught history of cultural indigeneity” (67), using the framework of symbiopolitics to note that both colored and white farmers linked their subjectivities, nature and religion “in ways that were not just metaphorical but also informed by a deification of nature and by a need for economic livelihoods” (94). despite the marked racialization of kinship relations with both the wild and cultivated indigenous plant, both white and colored farmers “saw themselves as simply harnessing, controlling, caring for, and living with that which was god’s gift to the region” (93). chapter three places layered and shifting notions of ‘foreignness’ at the core of the analysis, noting how markers of endemism was cast both onto the landscape and its residents in order to buffer the harmful effects of post-apartheid ‘alien invasions.’ the anxiety caused by black migrants and nonindigenous plant species feature “postapartheid negotiations and renegotiations of spatial rule, exclusion, and mobility” as uncontrollable; the narrative of postapartheid rainbow nation, which commodifies rooibos as a symbol of a unified nation, threatens colored and white farmers’ claims of indigeneity to the fynbos ecosystem (103). chapter four documents the interplays between rooibos’s commodity history with the “language of globalization, nostalgia, and class with highly emotive ideas of ecological belonging and changing but persistent structures of inequality” (137). taking oral histories and circulating gossip as “concrete, academic histories” (141), ives points out how both colored and white farmers struggle to make sense of the changing agrarian landscape, while being confused “about the role of the government, neoliberal economic policies, and postapartheid politics” (165). finally, chapter five highlights the structures of anxiety related to climate change which further complicate uncertainty of the postapartheid landscape (178). ives notices that, despite white farmers’ attempts to map their genealogy onto the rooibos landscape and turn invisible colored residents’ labor, climate change threatens the “rootedness of place itself,” as the entire fynbos ecosystem might move southward (175, 189). one of the key theoretical accomplishments of ives’s book is her successful destabilization of the study of indigeneity as anthropology’s savage lot. critically, her ethnographic accounts of the fraught, competing and interconnected claims of belonging to the rooibos-region of both white and colored farmers underpin a nuanced analysis of 3 indigeneity, wherein she rethinks the concept as a situated and contingent process of world making. rather than the “rooted, essentialized framings of indigeneity that had violently incarcerated ‘natives’ under apartheid,” ives notes how the different articulations of indigeneity based on the plant-place-person triad “allow for a different politics of indigeneity that was potentially more flexible, encompassing and emancipatory” (8). through her skillful interlayering of numerous vectors of analysis, such as settler colonial history, apartheid politics, post-apartheid reform, racial hierarchies, economic globalization and climate change, ives emphasizes that often opposing, though markedly interdependent, claims of belonging in a landscape of profound anxiety and uncertainty make indigeneity as an affectively, racially, politically, temporally and ecologically charged notion. reflecting on the possibilities of ties to land of post-columbian settler populations in the caribbean, edouard glissant (1977, 147) argues that, rather than territory and rooted absoluteness, land becomes rhizome land; the connection to the land emerges through the complicity of relation. steeped in heritage provides a fine analysis of the complicity of such relations, as ives teases out the complex affective, ecological, political and racial negotiations of belonging that (em-)place settler white and colored populations in the indigenous rooibos landscapes. throughout her ethnography, ives emphasizes power hierarchies and long-lasting economic inequalities between white and colored farmers, closely documenting what eve tuck and k. wayne yang (2012, 3) refer to as “settler moves to innocence”—i.e. the material and ideological practices that “problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity.” many afrikaners, ives notes, foster an ethnic notion of their culture through “ritual, festivals and origin myths” (56) to see themselves “as natives, not settlers” (57); they imagine their ancestors as “the first occupants of an empty land,” (57), while also erasing both the “contemporary existence of the khoisan” and negating “colored connection to land or rooibos” (60). importantly, ives’s analysis also captures attempts to rearticulate such privilege in the face of political, economic and geographical precarity. the book also benefits from ives’s adroit assessment of rooibos’s “dance of wild indigeneity and cultivation” (72), making it a compelling multispecies ethnography. just as anna tsing (2015, 4) tracks the matsutake mushroom’s ecology and commerce in order to emphasize “open-ended assemblages of entangled ways of life, with each further opening into a mosaic of temporal rhythms and spatial arcs,” ives notes how material, spiritual and affective relations of belonging and kinship between white and colored farmers and both wild and cultivated rooibos are necessarily multifaceted. she highlights that the presence of both wild and cultivated rooibos represents both a quality and a tension, engendering problematic 4 “conflations between race and botany” and marking incongruous liminal spaces (71). in this sense, while “rooibos’s wild/cultivated identity was celebrated,” “colored people’s white/nonwhite identity was pathologized as unnatural” (71). however, while belonging in the rooibos-region was unequivocally predicated upon the plant, contingent perception of endemism and foreignness in the rooibos landscape meant that “even rooibos, the very symbol of indigeneity, could move in and out of these moral certainties: rooibos is good because it is endemic; cultivated rooibos is bad because it leads to plowing in the fragile ecosystem. the cultivation of an indigenous plant for the marketplace could reconfigure it into a globalized commodity that commits violence against the landscape” (101). the book certainly delivers on its promises, offering an engaging analysis of multispecies becomings that enable indigeneity in a landscape of precarity. steeped in heritage makes an outstanding contribution to cultural anthropology. ives destabilizes the discipline’s stubbornness to engage with indigeneity as a sui generis category, instead emphasizing how notions of belonging are inherently contingent and constantly evolving. the ethnograpy is also contributing to the burgeoning literature on whiteness and settler colonialism, complementing the scholarship of janet mcintosh (2016) on white kenyans, of darryl leroux (2019) on french descendants in canada and the united states, and of t. j. tallie (2019) on europeans in colonial natal. finally, given the centrality of rooibos to ives’s analysis, her book is a valuable addition to multispecies ethnography. along with scholarship such as tsing (2015) and eben kirksey’s (2012), ives brilliantly teases out how relationships between humans and plants are not unilateral, but rather deep entanglements that profoundly affect each other. references edouard glissant. 1977. poetics of relation. ann arbor: the university of michigan press, [translated by betsy wing]. eben kirksey, 2012, freedom in entangled worlds: west papua and the architecture of global power, durham: duke university press. darryl leroux. 2019. distorted descent: white claims to indigenous identity. winnipeg: university of manitoba press. janet mcintosh. 2016. unsettled: denial and belonging among white kenyans. berkeley: university of california press. t. j. tallie. 2019. queering colonial natal: indigeneity and the violence of belonging in 5 southern africa. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. anna tsing. 2015. the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton: princeton university press. eve tuck and k. wayne yang. 2012. “decolonization is not a metaphor,” decolonization: indigeneity. education & society. 1(1): 1-40. aida arosoaie is a phd student in cultural anthropology at the university of wisconsinmadison. her research sits at the intersection of anthropology of religion, environmental humanities and black feminist geography. © 2020 aida arosoaie decolonizing the politics of resistance in oaxaca, and elsewhere review by myriam lamrani maurice rafael magaña, 2020, cartographies of youth resistance. hiphop, punk, and urban autonomy in mexico. oakland, california: university of california press, 206 pp., ibsn 978-0-52034-462-4 cartographies of youth resistance is a rare book, one that takes the reader immediately into the thick of the ethnographic action, in oaxaca de juárez, mexico. we discover generation 2006 during its political awakening as the youth participates in what some have called the “first insurrection of the twenty-first century” (osorno 2007)—a violent confrontation between the people and the authorities in oaxaca, which lasted more than seven months. it is an understatement to say that 2006 was a formative period for the youth that took the streets. it did not only change this generation, but it also transformed the social fabric of oaxaca forever. a case in point, the present book takes us on an exploration of the dense and rhizomatic networks that developed as people took the streets. from representatives of indigenous communities and migrants to the youth involved in the punk and hip-hop scenes and street art/graffiti movements, we discover an earnest portrayal of indigenous identity, with its complex connections to rural communities, migration to the us, and the mexican nation. the book itself is a network of some sort, each chapter seamlessly blending into the other, developing each argument in greater detail. the opening scene, dense in textures, sets the tone of what follows, a thick ethnography. heir of what chicano poet and anthropologist renato rosaldo (1994) aptly called “deep hanging out,” cartographies describes political struggle through 1 the voices of the youth that occupied the zócalo (the city’s main square, a space for popular politics, declared a world heritage site by the unesco) while defending the city’s barricades some 15 years ago and that, to this day, remain active political actors.1 the level of repression during 2006—of which the reader perceives an eerie echo today as protests rage in our pandemic-ridden world—provides the context of the coming of age of that youth, as they become revolutionary agents. the opening chapter outlines the history of the movement. setting the coordinates of the book, it presents some of the key players of the uprising, such as the sección 22 (local 22), the local branch of the snte (national educational workers union), and the appo (popular assembly of the peoples of oaxaca). it then moves swiftly on considering how the use of grassroots radio and online television stations, the execution of state functions (e.g. governance, policing, and trash collection), protest art, barricades, as well as the occupations of streets and buildings helped foster intergenerational networks of political action. these “laboratories of radical imagination” provide the backbone of the author’s argument on how the occupation of spaces enabled a dialogue between the youth and older members of society, creating networks of solidarity while shaping political subjectivities. space making materializes as one of the core concerns at the heart of this book as the second chapter takes us to the occupation of two collective social and cultural “counterspaces” (lefebvre 1991)—vocal and casota—which provided the grounds where 2006 political actors reframed indigeneity. temporality is also a crucial dimension of magaña’s exploration of the new political horizons in the years that followed the upheaval. this spatial-temporal conjuncture is theorized here as a palimpsest namely, a super-imposition of epochs, movements, ideas/information, and objects (3–4) which disproves linear thinking. through this multidimensional and intergenerational approach to horizontal political dissent, we discover the mutually constitutive relation between rural movements of resistance and emergent urban indigenous and migrant political identities. anchoring these networks in the idiom of comunalidad—indigenous communal life, identity, and epistemology (71)— magaña’s move to decolonizing anarchism and the politics of resistance is a muchwelcomed theoretical intervention. chapter 3 carries the above conversation by linking social movements to transient spaces of direct political action, as they 2 transform to become longer-lasting laboratories of horizontal politics. returning to the cases of vocal and casota, this chapter brings into clearer focus the importance of spatiality and temporality in challenging established structures of power. moving from the zócalo to the counterspaces—central to the ideas of “decolonial anarchism and urban autonomy” (102)—, we realize how such spaces fostered and strengthened existing social and political relationships. chapter 4 takes us in the thick of a very rich ethnography illustrating the dialectic of space and official structures of power through everyday political action. through three vignettes, we observe the tensions that arise in the organization of mass mobilizations in the city center while the concept of “network” that guides this book starts to develop more pointedly. evoking david graeber’s (2011: 57) work on direct action network, the reader grasps that: “one must be able to imagine oneself and others as integrated subjects in order to be able to produce beings that are in fact endlessly multiple, imagine some sort of coherent, bounded 'society' in order to produce that chaotic open-ended network of social relations that actually exists.” that is exactly what magaña shows with great ethnographic sensitivity. exploring the power dynamics playing out in these public spaces, we witness frictions and “spatial disruption” but also the solidarities and collective practices at the core of political actions through the lenses of the palimpsest and “rebel aesthetics.” as physical counterspaces fade into the background, chapter 5 leads us on the streets of oaxaca with two graffiti crews (aka crew and arte jaguar) and local anarchist and punk movements. whilst rebel aesthetics take center-stage by visually appropriating oaxaca to disrupt the dominant spatial-political and cultural order (while still upholding some aspects of individualism and patriarchy) the mounting militarization and state surveillance, which undergird control over public spaces, becomes more apparent. triggering the forced reorganization of autonomous and horizontal politics as collectives close their spaces down, the youth’s political future may seem bleak. but, as magaña concludes, the movements—sometimes co-opted by the neoliberal market or retreating to rural communities—do not so much disappear as they transform to constitute the aesthetics of future radical imagination, and the legacy of the 2006 generation. 3 this book is a crucial addition to the study of political protests and revolutions, for researchers working in oaxaca or mexico and beyond these geographical borders. the author’s clear decolonizing agenda shows him accomplishing the rare feat of “walking the talk.” magaña does so through a thorough engagement with his collaborators in the field (one has the sense that they are on equal terms). skillfully interweaving the voices and sovereignty of his interlocutors and their politics of indigeneity to a wide scholarship, he builds his theoretical argument on a widely decentralized scholarship across the proverbial western “pond.” to anthropologists having conducted fieldwork in oaxaca, the book is an ethnographic treasure-trove. rich in information, it sheds light on the complexity of local politics and social movements. more than anything else, it is the depth of magaña’s analysis, capturing the youth’s interconnected understanding of race, politics, and subcultures, that makes this book a must-read for researchers of social movements in the americas, and beyond. cartographies also has the virtue of depicting an unflinching portrayal of the politics of race in mexico that does not essentialize indigeneity for the reader but takes her deep into the intricacies of indigenous identity with ethnographic mastery. it is a truly beautifully written book— yet unromantic— an eye-opener for any researcher of grassroots movements. one might be left longing for more sustained development of “decolonial anarchism” beyond mexican borders, or even hope to come across additional lyrics and trivia of the oaxacan punk and (especially) the hip-hop scene. however, magaña’s sound theoretical intervention that illuminates the afterlives of the 2006 social movements makes up for these very negligible shortcomings, which may just as well be a caprice of a reader nostalgic of the youth and political promises held by the 2006 uprising. 4 1 � coined by renato rosaldo in 1994, the term “deep hanging out” describes an anthropological method and a more involved form of participant-observation, where the anthropologists immerse themselves in their field as opposed to conducting short interviews with interlocutors. the term was subsequently used by and wrongly attributed to clifford geertz (1998). references geertz, clifford. 1998. deep hanging out. new york review of books 45 (16): 69–72. graeber, d. 2011. revolutions in reverse. essays on politics, violence, art, and imagination. london: minor compositions. osorno, diego. 2007. la primera insurrección del siglo xxi. mexico city: random house mondadori. rosaldo, renato. 1994. “anthropology and ‘the field’.” conference held at stanford university and uc santa cruz. february, 18-19. myriam lamrani is a multimodal anthropologist whose work focuses on revolutionary politics, nationalism, intimacy, and images. she conducted her doctoral research (ucl, 2018) on images of death, devotion, violence, and nationalism in oaxaca, mexico as a member of the erc project: comparative anthropologies of revolutionary politics (carp – 2014-2019). she is the co-winner of the j.b. donne essay prize on the anthropology of art (2019) and an honorary research fellow at university college london. as of september 2021, she will work on nationalism through images of migration, comparing greece and mexico, as a marie sklodowska curie fellow at harvard university (2021). © myriam lamrani an unseen side of our global migrant crisis review by: mohamed kamara march 29, 2021 isabella alexander-nathani, 2020, burning at europe's borders: an ethnography on the african migrant experience in morocco, london and new york: oxford university press, 288 pp., isbn 9780190074647. keywords: human rights, refugee crisis, race, africa, european union burning at europe’s borders addresses what is now universally known as the african migrant crisis from a perspective that is not often given voice. a long-standing problem first brought to the world’s attention by the tragic april 2011 shipwreck off the coast of lampedusa, italy, the crisis is only expanding in north africa and across the mediterranean region. much has been said and written about the crisis and from multiple disciplinary and policy perspectives in recent years. ċetta mainwaring’s at europe's edge: migration and crisis in the mediterranean (oup 2019), which focuses on european migration policies and the maritime danse macabre unfolding off the coasts of small countries like malta, is one good example. but regarding the oft-ignored experiences of black africans on terra firma in the maghreb, no study is as thorough, sustained, or intellectually rigorous as alexander-nathani’s book. years of ethnographic fieldwork, during which alexander-nathani embedded herself in smuggling rings and forest camps and had prolonged interactions with diverse groups of migrants and moroccans, allowed her to obtain a panoramic view of the issue. acknowledging her own privilege as a white american working in north africa, even if she is not always immune from police harassment because of her gender and foreign status, alexander-nathani writes with deep compassion for her subjects as well as a keen sense of what makes a compelling story. through a careful and theoretically sophisticated analysis of data that does not obscure the human story behind it all, alexander-nathani presents us a holistic account of the lives of socalled sub-saharan africans trapped on the fringes of moroccan society—a liminal space where they wait and prepare for a crossing into europe that may or may never happen. an engaged writer, filmmaker, and human rights activist, alexander-nathani problematizes interconnected notions and realities of race, class, citizenship, identity, gender, legality, home, and liminality as they play out in morocco in both time and space. she characterizes african migrants as “quintessential postmodern subjects” (192) thanks to their uncanny ability to constantly remake themselves by adapting to their precarious circumstances. the organizing principle of the book is ‘hrig,’ a moroccan arabic word for ‘illegal immigration,’ which also means ‘burning.’ the term is used to refer to the literal burning of identification papers that link migrants to their past. but as a metaphor for the ardent desire to forego one’s past for a better future, the term could also denote the symbolic burning of oneself so as to be reborn. the author uses the derivative ‘harraga,’ a maghrebine word that can be translated to mean those who burn: “a burner is one who has sacrificed himself or herself in the hopes that their family may someday know a better world” (117). the meaning of the word could be expanded to include the idea of burning or yearning for justice or for the recognition of the burner’s humanity in a world that constantly dehumanizes him or her. even though the why of migration (its push and pull factors) is not a central concern of burning at europe’s borders, it looms large on every page of the book. indeed, alexander-nathani acknowledges this when she wonders “if, among some migrant groups, researchers should begin thinking about the collection of ‘oral futures,’ or imaginaries of what lies ahead, as equally important as ‘oral histories,’ or memories of what was left behind” (160). additionally, she encourages the adoption of “visual life histories” wherein artifacts like photographs are used to elicit from respondents “different kinds of narratives about their experiences of mobility, belonging, liminality, and identity in transitory spaces” (146). all the same, the author’s intentional focus on the migrants’ present in morocco allows the reader to tune out distractions created by the ubiquitous media images of despondent africa and tantalizing europe. if the book gifts us a composite picture of migration by privileging the unmediated voices of the migrants themselves, it also offers a searing indictment of europe’s dereliction of its much trumpeted enlightenment values. european politics of what alexander-nathani calls “border externalization” (xxxiii)—modeled by australia and also practiced by the united states under president donald trump—is reminiscent of the practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’ which, among other things, allows one country to circumvent its own laws and international conventions by outsourcing to less powerful counterparts practices of abduction, detention, interrogation, and torture. this western creation of ‘states’ of exception in the global south demonstrates the flagrant willingness on the part of countries like morocco to serve as implementers of new barbaric policies from former colonial powers. burning at europe's borders is a gripping ethnography told in language as beautiful and poignant as the strivings of its subjects. long after the reading of the book, readers will hear the plaints of phino, khadija, and the teenage bambino as they seek a safe crossing to tomorrow. they will feel the angst of the senegalese exchange student, ousmane, and of adil, the black moroccan marginalized in his own country. they will also remember the voices of ‘white’ moroccans and others who align themselves alongside and against the embattled migrants. in this sense, burning at europe’s borders is a social justice handbook anchored in an uncompromising adherence to scientific research and the pursuit of truth. an important addition to the annals of anthropology, african studies and the global study of contemporary migration, no curriculum on the topic will be complete without this book. more generally, it is indispensable reading for anyone interested in understanding the largest humanitarian crisis of our time, one that is rendered all the more urgent by the deleterious effects of climate change and the alarming resurgence of nationalisms globally. we (politicians, policymakers, academics, students, and ordinary citizens) ignore it at our peril. “at the very least,” alexander-nathani exhorts us, “it is our global responsibility to ensure that migration journeys do not trap individuals in places as dangerous as – or even more than – those they are fleeing” (xxxiv). this book comes with a companion website [insert link: https://learninglink.oup.com/access/alexander-nathani-student-resources#tag_all-chapters], including chapter-by-chapter discussion questions and other teaching resources, created by oxford university press. another useful companion to alexander-nathani’s debut book is her forthcoming documentary film, the burning [insert link: https://www.smallworldfilms.org], which chronicles the incredible journeys of three families from across the african continent as they move toward the promise of safer shores. bibliography: mainwaring, ċetta, 2019, at europe's edge: migration and crisis in the mediterranean, london and new york: oxford university press. mohamed kamara is an associate professor of french and africana studies and is the program chair of africana studies at washington and lee university. a refugee from sierra leone, he earned his b.a. from fourah bay college (university of sierra leone), his m.a. from purdue university, and his ph.d. from tulane university in 2001. his research and teaching interests span african history, french and francophone literatures, post-colonialism, race, migration, and refugee studies. in addition to his academic research, he is also a poet, fiction writer, and editorialist. © 2021 mohamed kamara https://www.smallworldfilms.org/ https://learninglink.oup.com/access/alexander-nathani-student-resources%23tag_all-chapters microsoft word teo final.docx 1 spiritual journeys within the patriarchy of modern thai buddhism by women buddhist practitioners martin seeger. 2018. gender and the path to awakening: hidden histories of nuns in modern thai buddhism. silkworm books. keywords: thai buddhism, biography hagiography, female buddhist practitioner, female sainthood gender and the path to awakening by martin seeger is important for its interdisciplinary contributions to anthropology, sociology, gender and religious studies. it is a textual and ethnographic study of seven female practitioners of modern thai buddhism, and sets out to challenge the generalized and oversimplified description of female practice, gender relations and hierarchies in the mainstream discourse about gender and thai buddhism. seeger analyses how the women buddhist practitioners perceive themselves and their spiritual practices by focusing on their descriptions and reflections of their spiritual aspirations, paths, achievements and obstacles (4). he uses hagiographical and biographical accounts of these women and their authored texts as a focal point to unravel and examine thai beliefs in relations to female sainthood and female buddhist practice in modern thai buddhism ( 8-9). seeger has made an important scholarly contribution in this book by demonstrating how thai women practitioners navigate their way through the patriarchy of thai buddhist institutions. from the outset, the bhikkhuni order is not officially recognised in buddhism. therefore, the religious contributions of women buddhist practitioners are often left understudied. with seven thai women buddhist practitioners as case studies, seeger has demonstrated how they often appear to accept, support and employ the patriarchal hierarchy of thai buddhism. these women were and are renowned thai women practitioners at local, national and international levels across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who have successfully navigated the patriarchal hierarchy of thai buddhist institutions. while they abide by the hierarchical 2 structure, accepting their secondary positions to the monks, they have gained recognition and teachings directly from the senior monks, earning them respect that has lasted for decades even after death. therefore, seeger has debunked the generalized and oversimplified conventional descriptions of female practice, gender relations and hierarchy. furthermore, seeger has highlighted the agency of women renunciants in ensuring the religious influence of thai renunciants. as seeger concluded, women are not deterred by their gendered roles, rather they are active and creative agents who were committed to their spiritual practice since a young age (248). they accepted, adopted, supported and employed the patriarchal religious hierarchy, that there is no institution for the bhikkhuni order and had no desire to be reborn as men. instead they made use of the mae chi institution, focusing on overcoming mental defilement (kilesa), which has been successful as reflected from the support by the (often high ranking) monks. another significance of seeger’s work is his innovative use of data from biography, hagiography, photographs, paintings, architectures, videos and visual materials available online (10). his demonstration of collecting and using the data is a useful reminder of the need for innovation in choosing and using different research methods based on changing technologies in mass media. for instance, while seeger set out to collect the biographies and hagiographies of thai female practitioners, he also found that thai buddhists are more interested in listening to oral accounts, watching films and visiting sites of veneration. besides printed and visual materials, seeger also collected memories and oral accounts of the monastics and laypeople. furthermore, the collection of a variety of data demonstrates the innovation of seeger’s research methods in overcoming a lack of textual resources for a more comprehensive understanding of female renunciation and practices from a historical perspective. with the combination of biography and hagiography, seeger has illuminated the various religious experiences of women practitioners and their modes of religious expression not only through the perceptions of the women practitioners themselves but also through their followers. the originality of this study is the source of data which are derived from the texts that are circulated within thai society for centuries, yet are often scattered and ephemeral. seeger has demonstrated how these texts are often resourceful in informing the history, biography, cultural and religious data pertaining to the woman renunciants. the following are highlights for each of the chapter of the book: 3 in chapter 1, seeger outlines the major themes for his analysis in the book. the themes pave the way for him to explain the ambiguities and changes to the roles of women in modern thai buddhism. the chapter also provides the context for the case studies of six thai women practitioners in the study. in chapter 2, seeger traces the evolution of biographies and autobiographies of buddhist monks and female practitioners in thailand. he presents the detailed biographies of six thai women practitioners across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to demonstrate the evolution of their religious influence in thai buddhism. in chapter 3, seeger explores the notion of sainthood and how female practitioners employ the flexibilities of sainthood in thai buddhism, that is, by juxtaposing pali literature and social constructions. the flexibilities contribute to ambiguities of the journeys by women practitioners in attaining supernatural powers, supramundane states of mind and high levels of awakening. the ambiguities are ways that women practitioners assert their sainthood while challenging the dichotomy of being fully or properly ordained. in chapter 4, seeger analyses how female sainthood is reinforced and reified not only by the hagiographical literature but also by the stupas, amulets and relics, the remains of the body that is not decayed or emits a fragrant odour. seeger contends that these objects were more effective in demonstrating accomplished practices of the female practitioners while they were still adhering to hierarchy relations with the monks (seeger 2018, 164). in chapter 5, seeger analyses the importance of orality and memorisation as media for thai female practitioners to acquire buddhist knowledge and practice. with evidence of another seven case studies of women who had received teaching from buddhist monks, seeger demonstrates that sexual identity is not as much a concern as the spiritual potential of these women to understand the dharmma (208) and their literacy was not a determinant for limiting their access to buddhist teachings. in chapter 6, seeger discusses the complexity and diversity of religious hierarchies in thai buddhism that intersect with gender. these hierarchies are interrelated, dynamic and often affect one another (219). the chapter also demonstrates how female practitioners experience gendered obstacles in various ways based on their social and educational backgrounds and contextualizes their experiences. my interest in this book is its contribution to the growing literature about informal or micropolitical movements or activities by subaltern groups. for example, cross (1998) has demonstrated that “marginal” political actors such as street vendors can employ co-operative political strategies as subtle forms of evasion and manipulation to gain access to selfempowerment. the study has made an important contribution by intersecting the informal and subtle political movements of the subalterns with gender. an immediate and more relevant 4 example to this study is a renowned work by asef bayat’s (2013) life as politics: how ordinary people change the middle east which demonstrates how middle eastern women have negotiated their ways through the labyrinth of patriarchal islamic institutions. seeger, in this study, also demonstrates how women buddhist practitioners have negotiated for spaces for spiritual practices and religious attainment successfully, which are evident from their hagiographical and biographical texts over the century, and above all, acknowledgements from the senior high-ranking monks. works cited bayat, asef. 2013. life as politics: how ordinary people change the middle east. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. cross, john christopher. 1998. informal politics: street vendors and the state in mexico city: stanford university press. seeger, martin. 2018. gender and the path to awakening: hidden histories of nuns in modern thai buddhism: silkworm books. sue ann teo graduated with a phd in religious studies from the victoria university of wellington. teo’s research interests are in minority, gender and micro-politics studies. currently, she is working on a research project about inter-marriage between different indian communities in malaysia and in exploring the institution of casteism among the diasporic hindu communities. teo’s studies are multidisciplinary in nature ranging from anthropology and sociology to gender and religious studies. © 2020 sue ann teo microsoft word edited_freidenberg review (003).docx 1 immigrant spaces: experiences from maryland review by carlos g. vélez-ibáñez freidenberg, judith. contemporary conversations on immigration in the united states: the view from prince george’s county, maryland (lexington: 2016). judith freidenberg’s work, contemporary conversations on immigration in the united states: the view from prince george’s county, maryland may be more fully appreciated if the following statement is considered as the underlying medium through which and from which the full power of her work can be understood. she stated most recently in another book, “i suggest that it is access to valued scarce resources that prompts the erection of human differences that get solidified into borders, which divide and limit and which engender vulnerabilities and marginalize some. borders, in short, are metaphors for power differences that result in mechanisms invisible to policy documents that stratify populations along an inclusion-exclusion continuum” (373). i this premise can certainly be applied to the 2000 mile u.s. mexico bifurcation in which inequality is the central historical characteristic. in freidenberg’s book, her focus is in maryland among immigrants from various cultural origins so that “the border” and its inequalities are part of the configuration of relations between populations of arrival and those established according to the dictums of citizenship. how this emerges is the core of her work. the research was carried out between 1968 and 2009 and provides a richness of detail and process that is rarely part of most contemporary ethnographically-oriented fieldwork and spans immigrants from three continents. using multiple methods including 70 ethnographic interviews, surveys, media, archival research, and population data of especially the prince george’s county area, the book is organized around three major parts. the first two chapters are dedicated to the 2 historical creation of prince county and its “colonial” origins and as well provides us with wellgrounded rationales for the emergence of ideas of rights of origins and their exclusive boundaries of difference. part two is divided into three chapters and is very rich in the ethnography and data of those interviewed and surveyed, and gives us a compelling framework of similarities and differences of experience and motivations. part three in my opinion, very worthy of notice is an explanation of how these varied and complex populations are made to fit within the slotted ideological premises of an “american way” that requires homogeneity and not its opposite; that requires language and cultural erasure, not multiplicity; and requires singular identities but separated somehow from the reality of their class-based structures. but the populations are not easily made to fit as freidenberg shows. freidenberg successfully negotiates her myriad sources of data and life histories to create what she terms “immigrant space”—that is, the voiced narratives of the multiple spaces and places in which these populations maneuver and live daily. she states that immigrant space is “thus, somebody not living in her place of birth [who] will forever inhabit a world peopled with experiences of present daily life mingled with a past lived in other nations” (147). their space and time is an interstitial fusion between the local and extra-local, between the transnational and the national, and between the multilayered relations of kin, friendship, work, home, and public spaces which cannot be reduced to a single cultural or national identity. to expect so would be to arrogantly expect erasure and their lives of achievement, success, failure, and tragedy cannot be pigeonholed to a reductionist assimilationist “whiteness.” theirs is a constant negotiation between the present and the future, between the possible and probable, and between themselves and the myriad networks in which they enter and exit as a matter of course and not predefined by monocultural expectations. thus, to return to freidenberg’s initial conceptual frame that began this discussion of the manner in which valued unequal resources prompt the erection of human differences, “immigration” as a single heuristic is by premise one that guarantees “otherness” and the creation of cognitive, political, social, cultural, and linguistic differences and their ensuing borders. these guarantee stereotypifications, intolerable toleration, and a kind of “seeing man” rationale in which the “immigrant” is expected to become reduced to a caricature guided by political policies guaranteeing this process. freidenberg, provides us a deeply nuanced alternative vision. 3 carlos g. vélez-ibáñez, a tucson native, received his ph.d. in anthropology, uscd (1975). his intellectual interests are broadly comparative, and his publications include twelve books in english and spanish with three others translated to spanish as well as more than seventy-five articles and chapters. he was the founding director of mexican american studies at san diego state, and later held professorships in anthropology at ucla and the university of arizona where he was also the founding director of the bureau of applied research in anthropology. he became dean in 1994 at the university of california, riverside, of the college of humanities, arts and social sciences, and presently, he is regents’ professor and founding director emeritus of the school of transborder studies and motorola presidential professor of neighborhood revitalization, and professor, school of human evolution and social change at arizona state university. © 2019 carlos velez-ibanez i carlos vélez-ibáñez and josiah heyman (2017) the u.s.-mexico transborder region: cultural dynamics and historical interactions. tucson: university of arizona press. microsoft word edited_1_statehood or sovereignty review anthropology book forum.doc 1 "statehood or sovereignty? unearthing hawaiian history and politics through the lens of the contemporary sovereignty movement" review by naomi alisa calnitsky j. kehaulani kauanui, paradoxes of hawaiian sovereignty: land, sex, and the colonial politics of state nationalism. durham, nc: duke university press, 2018. keywords: sovereignty; sexuality; indigeneity; colonialism; land rights. in paradoxes of hawaiian sovereignty, author j. kehaulani kauanui unearths one historical period, the earlyto mid-nineteenth century, to explore transformations wrought by christianity and the introduction of the anglo-american legal system upon three spheres in the hawaiian islands: land, gender and sexuality. in doing, so she examines the consequences of such changes for the ways in which "contemporary sovereignty politics" in the islands have evolved (2-3). the author approaches this task with the theoretical tool of paradoxes as means to present new ideas linked to the problematic history of colonialism and sovereignty in the islands, and simultaneously to represent the concerns of the indigenous sovereignty movement in the twentyfirst century. she begins by exploring tensions inherent to external (i.e. us government) efforts to represent indigenous hawaiians as equivalent in status to american indians in terms of prospects for political representation and engagement vis-a-vis the united states, a notion rejected by activist mililani trask in 2014, owing primarily to the sovereignty movement's continued engagement with the discourse of kingdom-based nationalism. the imagery and history associated with the hawaiian monarchy's presence as an agent of international relations 2 and of hawaiians' relations with outsiders through the nineteenth century is revisited as it feeds into contemporary indigenous formations of nationalism and sovereignty politics. the book is composed of four chapters, the first concerning questions of indigeneity and identity, the second matters of land and sustenance, the third questions of marriage, gender and propriety, and the fourth addresses discourses revolving around sexuality and "savagery." the book delves into the question of colonial biopolitics to discuss the arrival of liberal governance in the nineteenth century as a process wherein deviant sexualities were increasingly managed and regulated by the state as indigenous chiefs and elites worked in "tandem" with missionaries to achieve increasing sense of "racial respectability" (23). as a result of colonial processes, indigenous women experienced a "degraded gender status" as western social norms were increasingly imposed on and internalized by kanaka maoli or indigenous hawaiians. the idea that indigenous sovereignty stems from the land itself is foregrounded in the author's discussion of indigenous sovereignty discourses, which often refer not only to historical facts and events (i.e. the fact of the monarchy) but also to indigenous constructions of sovereignty through language and ideas. since "sovereignty" is an adopted, western concept, indigenous political, legal and cultural terms are introduced in kauanui's text, including the term ea (life, breath, to rise, rule, independence) (28). as a diasporic hawaiian scholar with a specialization in anthropology and american studies, yet without an intimate knowledge of the indigenous hawaiian language, the author's involvement in sovereignty politics since 1990 informs her methodological approach. her 2008 study, hawaiian blood: colonialism and the politics of sovereignty and indigeneity, predates this study, prompting the immediate question of how paradoxes of sovereignty, effectively published ten years later, departs from the previous book. hawaiian blood's emphasis on genealogy rather than land and sexuality makes it unique, while paradoxes addresses many issues, like christianity and colonization, that have been amply explored in other scholarly works.1 in this regard, in some places the book draws from the previous and pathbreaking work carried out by historian patricia grimshaw. what does make paradoxes unique, however, is its self-professed emphasis upon "critical discourse analysis and archival research with a close examination of contemporary historical documents of hawaiian 3 nationalist statements and position papers" (31). historical and contemporary articulations of hawaiian sovereignty are, as a result, explored here side-by-side with fruitful results. while the book examines a number of competing theoretical threads, they are tied together under the umbrella of colonialism's past and the evolution of hawaiian statehood, with an eye to the impact of constitutionalism, political production and monarchical evolution in the decades of the mid-nineteenth century. the arrival of a more institutionalized patriarchy, through the application of western legal norms upon indigenous ones, was one critical result of changes implemented from “above” during this era. this study is fundamentally interdisciplinary, drawing in part from a range of schools and approaches, including native studies, cultural studies and american studies, as well as anthropology and history. the examination of governance and self-determination alongside the question of gender makes this study unique. in her theoretical formulations of how indigeneity has operated in the hawaiian context, the author points to robert nichol's concept of the "settler contract" as an extension of the social contract, whereby domination and hegemony of western colonial governments over indigenous peoples was and continue to be enacted through the social contract model (53). chapter two examines the divergence between western conceptions of property and the kanaka maoli/indigenous hawaiian reverence for the land, as refracted through indigenous hawaiian deities that have manifested components of the land and natural environment, inflecting it with meaning and a sense of shared spiritual literacy for centuries. hawaiian deities effectively are "living entities with names" and are understood to literally embody the physical world (77). as this spiritual canon might be linked to the sovereignty movement, it can indicate a rejection of western ontological modes of organization, and restore power to the notion of original occupancy as a mode of existence that is explicitly linked to a "distinct" relationship to hawaiian lands, which resultantly continues to exist either beyond or outside of western legal frameworks (80). despite these ideals, the author remains sufficiently objective so as to highlight the dissonance between contemporary trends in land expropriations in the islands (81) and the specificity of desires of the sovereignty movement. 4 the great mahele, which in 1848 re-divided lands according to an imported western model, and which was taken up pragmatically by kamehameha iii in an effort to protect his kingdom from further foreign encroachments, alongside the 1850 kuleana act, are revisited to discuss the evolution of land owning patterns and property rights across the kingdom from the mid-19th century onwards. indeed, the story of early land privatisation in the hawaiian islands has been amply documented in other works, most prominently stuart banner's possessing the pacific.2 here, as banner notes, accommodation to foreigners would rework the "internal politics of land tenure in the islands."3 missionaries, as well as their offspring, were amongst those who would benefit economically from these changes (83; see also schultz 2017). what sets this study apart is its effective emphasis on the story of colonialism and governmentality in the islands and the body politic's transformation with time (93; 97). the indigenous population would be cut in half by epidemics over the course of 1803 through 1831; in turn, these changes would dramatically impact patterns of sustainable agriculture which predominated prior to the great mahele and help signal the onset and ascent of commercial monoculture throughout the islands. oral and written deeds to the land predominated prior to the mahele. under this system lands were primarily awarded or bestowed from above, in a top-down fashion, following the process of kalai'aina or carving of the lands (87). alongside this, the paradigm of kuleana (responsibility or interest) predominated. modern capitalism's ultimate dismemberment of these prior systems, (100) is charted here in some detail, with a focus on those capitalists whose scale of ownership has implicated them more directly in contemporary indigenous sovereignty demands and legal conflicts (97-105). moreover, the "very concept of sovereignty" is revisited through a nod to recent trends in the indigenous agricultural and ecological restoration movement (112). the historical prosecution of adultery amongst indigenous hawaiians is a key theme explored in the third chapter, as western missionary norms were increasingly enforced. the institution of christian marriage accompanied the social pressures permeating the indigenous world, and as the author successfully shows, "the missionary pursuit had an emotional element to it" (138). owing to the advance of coverture, indigenous women were effectively displaced from politics and disenfranchised as legal actors once married. (151) the final chapter creatively considers how 5 reforms enacted by hawaiian chiefs reworked the "savage" sexualities that were normative amongst indigenous kanaka maoli to secure recognition from outsiders, adopting western heteromonogamy as a model (159). this history of biopolitics is also impressively brought up to the present day, where discourses of "erotic autonomy" have taken precedence (192). in all, kauanui's study constitutes a significant addition to the existing anthropological and historical scholarship that engages with events taking place in the nineteenth century in the islands, and scholarship linked to the contepmorary sovereignty movement, complementing the existing scholarship in a nuanced and commanding way. there is no doubt that this study will be of interest to scholars in the field, and its varied insights will constitute an enduring gift to the decolonization movement and its undertaking, both in the islands and more broadly amongst indigenous communities worldwide. notes 1. see for example, jennifer thigpen, island queens and mission wives: how gender and empire remade hawaii's pacific world, (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2014), joy schultz, hawaiian by birth: missionary children, bicultural identity and u.s. colonialism in the pacific (lincoln: university of nebraska press, 2017) and patricia grimshaw, paths of duty: american missionary wives in nineteenth century hawaii (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1989). 2. see stuart banner, possessing the pacific: land, settlers and indigenous people from australia to alaska (cambridge, ma: harvard university press), in particular the chapter on the great mahele. 3. naomi alisa calnitsky, "on the margins of empire? toward a history of hawaiian labour and settlement in the pacific northwest." journal of the polynesian society 126.4 (2017):420. references banner, stuart. possessing the pacific: land, settlers and indigenous people from australia to alaska. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2007. calnitsky, naomi alisa. on the “margins” of empire? toward a history of hawaiian labour and settlement in the pacific northwest. journal of the polynesian society 126 (4): 417-442. 6 grimshaw, patricia. paths of duty: american missionary wives in nineteenth century hawaii honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1989. kauanui, j. kehaulani. hawaiian blood: colonialism and the politics of sovereignty and indigeneity. durham, nc: duke university press, 2008. schultz, joy. hawaiian by birth: missionary children, bicultural identity and u.s. colonialism in the pacific. lincoln: university of nebraska press, 2017. https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803285897/ thigpen, jennifer. island queens and mission wives: how gender and empire remade hawaii's pacific world. chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2014. https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469614298/island-queens-and-mission-wives/ naomi alisa calnitsky is an independent scholar and researcher based in winnipeg, canada. she received a doctorate in history at carleton university in 2017 with a focus on agricultural migration patterns between mexico and canada between 1974 and the present-day. she was a commonwealth scholar in history at the university of otago, new zealand in 2008. her current book project, seasonal lives: twenty-first century approaches is currently underway with university of north carolina press chapel hill. her research and writing has focussed on hawaiian trans-pacific migration in the nineteenth century, mexican portrait photography, and seasonal labour migration histories of the western and south pacific. © 2019 naomi alisa calnitsky from lead through activism to activism through lead reviewer: dr. juan m del nido life without lead: contamination, crisis and hope in uruguay, by daniel renfrew, oakland, ca, university of california press, 2018, 296 pp., $85.00 (hardback), isbn 9780520295469, $29.95 (paperback), isbn 978-0520295476 keywords: lead, uruguay, environmental anthropology, activism, latin america life without lead examines how lead poisoning became the first environmental problem to reach mass awareness in uruguay, a self-styled continental haven of stable, middle class, “it can’t happen here” industriousness. factories in montevideo began smelting lead during uruguay’s 1950s import substitution industrialisation efforts. emboldened by tacit or explicit support from democratic and dictatorial governments alike, lack of protocols and/or controls concerning refuse disposal, and little public awareness, these factories, smaller businesses and microentrepreneurs smelting in backyards discarded lead and lead-laced contaminants in rivers and unclaimed land in la teja, the historical and cultural heart of montevideo’s working class. residents used these waters and newcomers settled precariously on this land; by the turn of the millennium the first clinically-confirmed cases of long-suspected lead poisoning began making headlines. neighbourhood activists, sympathetic politicians and militant paediatricians fought to visibilize lead contamination as a pervasive, silent threat to all uruguayan people, and to relocate families living, literally, on lead-laced dirt floors. much of this work, daniel renfrew shows, involved challenging the terms of contention of uruguayan medicobureaucratic discourse. when health protocols were finally set up, contamination tolerance thresholds were exceptionally lenient in international terms, downplaying the seriousness of lead poisoning as an epidemic and reducing the number of cases in need of an assistance already insufficient. these activists secured relocation for many families, the redefinition of medical intervention protocols and the phasing out of tetraethyl leaded gasoline, but they never managed to frame lead contamination as a uruguayan epidemic. medical discourse, national statistics and popular common sense still account for lead poisoning through a culturalist take of the uneducated poor. the author positions this work as a study of the various dimensions of a lead-poisoning epidemic through an ethnography of grassroots social movements (9) and at the theoretical intersection between environmental justice, knowledge and power, and government and resistance (11-15). lead poisoning and activists do indeed come into being jointly, for example in renfrew’s excellent analysis of the medical, legal and economic arguments involving activists, business representatives and government officials concerning who is to blame for what kind of contamination, why, and how that blame and that contamination are to be historicised and circumscribed (127-143). particularly original is the author’s attention to the knowledge battles his informants had to wage to unsettle settled science in chapter six, we are all contaminated. state doctors wrote off exceptionally high concentrations of lead as circumstantial outliers; aggregated and disaggregated soil samples such that averages were constantly “normalized”; and explained the case for this selective pragmatism through the logics of a realpolitik clinical approach to the uruguayan biopolitical, since otherwise the entire country would be off the charts (189-198). renfrew makes a very nuanced case against explaining these encounters through corruption, ignorance or indolence, focusing instead on how the contaminated bodies of the poor became the site of environmental and clinical knowledges in dispute. aside from that chapter, life without lead seems to work the other way around: it reads more as an in-depth study of a grassroot social movement through an ethnography of various dimensions of a lead-poisoning epidemic. at times this difference is irrelevant: renfrew’s very point is that were it not for these activists’ efforts, lead poisoning would have never been problematized in the first place. yet in several instances lead is a wholly adverbial presence, a means towards a main narrative spearheaded throughout the book by the grassroots movement. for instance, the third chapter, la teja shall sing, minutely details the experience of a murga, a musical festivity-cum-parade proper to the river plate basin, and the history of an activist publication, as sites of ritualized, idealized resistance and authenticity (83-114). lead is there, but by the time it enters the narrative as a concern of the publication, in murga lyrics and in schoolchildren’s homework (104-108), it can only do so as the (fascinating!) modifier of a subplot that has already become about the semiotics of a somewhat heroic associative life. often, the interesting technical, sts-y arguments the book makes are crowded out by the very richly detailed context, history, affects, semiotics, performativity and poetics of activism. contributions like “counterexpertise,” defined as alternative scientific discourses within western medical epistemology deployed for strategic reasons (33-34), and spectral science, “science that has become unmoored (...) and translated selectively to fit locally disputed contexts” (189), crucial to problematising lead by the author’s own account, go unmentioned for the 150 pages separating these quotations. when they reappear to explain the grassroots fight to redefine both lead poisoning and its appropriate care, their exact meanings are hard to tell apart, and both fuse with what the author calls “graphic evidence” (202): the deployment of grotesque, dramatic imagery, clinical and cultural, to visibilize lead as a medical problem. as an ethnography of activism, life without lead joins the work of ethnographers, also often activists themselves, studying economic-environmental grassroots movements and political ecology of latin america through the continent’s alleged, or attempted, turn away from neoliberalism. to an anthropology increasingly seeing its duty in ethico-narrative terms, and finding those terms in a certain kind and intensity of portraiture, these works add the task of examining “popular” struggles. in this convergence romanticization is near inescapable. renfrew knows this; his excellent analysis of uruguay’s recent political and economic history (57-71) and a nuanced take on simplistic discourses blaming “neoliberalism” for lead poisoning (25-34) convincingly embed this activism in industrial and employment conditions, montevideo’s geography and complex political networks – activism as a social condition. still, a general conflation between “being from la teja” and “resistance,” an insistence on “traditions of solidarity and collectivity” (68, also 70, 72, 74) and passages as “la teja (…) would prove through its collective response (…) that there was still fight resonating deep from within the spirit of its proud residents” (74) confirm a tone of working class culture panegyric that a passing declaration of fissures within this collective (71) does not dispel. part of the difficulty of shedding this romanticization is of course that through it this ethiconarrative duty produces the conditions where it itself finds, produces and signals its legitimacy. following several pages of quite impressionistic accounts of the destitution and contamination of the poor where he “looked into the eyes of a baby girl (…) and (he) felt complicit with her poisoning” (147-166, quote in 166), renfrew asks “how do we render the look and feel of ‘shattered people’ living in polluted and ‘ruptured places’?”, and “how do we avoid the voyeuristic ‘dismay of images’ in a media-saturated world that often (…) aestheticize(s) or pathologize(s) suffering?” (ibid, my emphasis). readers unconcerned with this particular ethico-narrative duty might find the book flirts with a somewhat baroque, and ultimately barren, solipsism. certainly, the latter neither defines nor challenges its contributions in terms of rigour, nuance and originality, but does confirm in tone and positionality life without lead’s concern with activism and its struggles rather than with lead. although some sections are heavy on theoretical reviews and references, this book remains an engaging, accessible and interesting read and one of the very few book-length studies of uruguay. beyond anthropology it will be well suited for regional studies, environmental, human, cultural and economic geography, and of course, popular politics and activism reading lists. juan m. del nido is a postdoctoral fellow at the max planck cambridge centre for ethics, economy and social change, university of cambridge, uk. his research focuses on political and economic reasoning; the logics, rhetoric, and affect of materialities and infrastructure; and new technologies. his manuscript examining the conflict around uber’s arrival in buenos aires is forthcoming with stanford university press. © 2021 juan m. del nido microsoft word bikowski publish.docx doing archaeology in “meatspace” and “metaspace” reviewer: kyle s. bikowski reinhard, andrew. 2018. archaeogaming: an introduction to archaeology in and of video games. new york: berghahn books. keywords: archaeology; gaming studies; digital culture; video games; virtual spaces scholars are becoming increasingly aware that video games are growing ever more entwined in every aspect of culture in the west and many parts of asia, from work and education to recreation. so much so, that muriel and crawford (2018) have coined a term for this process: videoludification of society. it stands to reason, then, that archaeological studies of the recent past, present, and future will also need to take games and virtual spaces into account to better understand global cultures. this is where andrew reinhard’s book, archaeogaming, comes in by presenting readers with an introduction to the major themes and methods to research this developing field. reinhard defines archaeogaming as the archaeology both in and of digital games and “the literal interpretation of games as sites, built environments, landscapes, and artifacts, no different than any place on earth that has been manipulated, managed, and transformed by people past and present” (2). archaeogaming discusses four major themes: archaeology in the real-world of video games and game spaces, depictions of archaeology in games, archaeology of the digital, and material culture of the immaterial. chapter 1 opens with an examination of the 2014 excavation of the atari burial ground in alamogordo, new mexico with “the worst game ever made”, 1982’s et: the extraterrestrial. according to reinhard this “was the first dig that solely featured video games, and as such it drew attention to what archaeology could mean when digging artifacts from the recent past in front of a global, public, connected audience” (27). through engagement with garbology, the study of modern refuse and trash, reinhard demonstrates how the discovery of over one thousand game cartridges provides insight into business decisions, the life cycle of a game (from entertainment to trash and to artifact-ascommodities), and issues of electronic waste (the cartridges had not degraded at all). to further illustrate archaeogaming in the real world, reinhard examines how retro gaming stores, arcades, and even closed development studios can be archaeological sites. chapter 1 concludes by showing how archaeologists can aid in the preservation of games, including digital content, and track the changes to games through development. chapter 2 examines the ways in which players and developers perceive archaeologists and archaeology and how that manifests in the game. to demonstrate, reinhard includes an alphabetical list of games with archaeologists as main characters, with a short description of each, including some non-playable archaeologists. in addition to noting some of the positive aspects of misrepresentation (e.g., increased interest in the discipline), he also notes how games can shed light on ethical concerns of the field (e.g., partage and looting). he argues that with a “lack of proactive communication by archaeologists to the public about what we do, we abdicate that job to media, specifically television” (73). reinhard suggests an approach to change these perceptions with a combination of three things: recognizing there will always be disparity between actual archaeology and game depictions, the use of games to open a dialogue with developers and players, and by archaeologists making their own games. chapter 3 comprises the bulk of the book. here, reinhard presents an easy-to-understand guide to the methods and tools used in archaeogaming. he argues that the process is the same as archaeology: project plan, survey, excavation, documentation, and then synthesis and publication. some of the tools recommended are grids placed over the screen, an app to help create standard measurements, and airborne methods of travel in game to act as drones, all of which serve to survey the site. while the general methodology is the same in both synthetic and natural world archaeology, reinhard notes that stratigraphy could be looked at as the layers between game updates. additionally, archaeogaming carries the benefit of having artifacts that do not need to be cleaned when found, nor is there a risk of contamination during excavation. reinhard then instrumentalizes the guide with a case study of the game no man’s sky1. through the case study, he cogently shows the reader how these methods work, discusses limitations and drawbacks, and even revisits the site a year later to see how updates have changed elements of the game. chapter 4 presents the challenges of studying digital games once the hardware required to play them no longer exists. reinhard presents an examination of material memory, in that games can provide links to the past as well as memories triggered by the games. this is followed by an examination of real-world video game museums and museums in video games, and an examination of studying the game code. he notes that experimental archaeology also has a place here, such as when people try to create food recipes in the real world based on those in games. looking to the future, reinhard examines cosplay, imagining future archaeologists discovering the helmet of master chief from the halo games, asking “will we know enough then to recall and understand the connection to the halo universe? i can imagine pop culture and video game specialists on-site who were trained for this very moment of discovery” (187). the chapter wraps up with a discussion of the reconstruction of ancient sites within video games. in archaeogaming, reinhard presents a passionate look at a cool subject, displaying his love for both archaeology and gaming. more importantly, he consistently manages to take his work further than simply being a neat idea to show the practicality of archaeogaming as a sub-field and method. despite not being part of his stated themes, reinhard manages to tie each chapter into a larger picture of archaeologists engaging with the public and how the future of the discipline may be impacted by a world in which the significance of material objects are tied to virtual spaces that leave no physical trace, as well how these virtual spaces reveal culturally significant ideas. through these themes, reinhard successfully and compellingly justifies the need for archaeogaming to be studied, as these discussions often have impacts reaching beyond the gaming world. overall, archaeogaming is exactly what reinhard claims it to be, an introduction. his focus on major themes creates an accessible entry point for anyone who may be interested in the topic, regardless of their prior knowledge about archaeology or gaming studies. as such, this book makes an excellent addition to both undergraduate and graduate courses, by both laying a solid foundation and opening multiple doors for future scholarship. 1. see www.nomanssky.com for more details notes muriel, daniel, and garry crawford. 2018. video games as culture: considering the role and importance of video games in contemporary society. new york: routledge. bibliography kyle bikowski, m.a. student at louisiana state university, studies the anthropology of video games, gender, science and technology, and nerd culture. his current research examines how the interplay between the virtual and actual worlds have helped shape the gaymer identity. © 2019 kyle s. bikowski microsoft word warner_final.docx 1 building community in coastal deserts: perspectives from western south america gabriel prieto and daniel h. sandweiss, eds. 2019. maritime communities of the ancient andes. gainesville: university press of florida, 462 pp., isbn 13: 9780813066141 keywords: archaeology, peru, andes, coast, maritime michael moseley emphasized the importance of maritime resources to the development of social complexity in the andean region in his theory articulated in his maritime foundations of andean civilization (1975), which became a central (and controversial) text in the field. this volume builds on his and others’ foundational work and asks, “how did ancient andean coastal communities build themselves, and their identities, around their proximity to the pacific ocean”? maritime communities of the ancient andes, edited by gabriel prieto and daniel sandweiss, is based on a session conducted at the 2014 society for american archaeology annual meeting. the book contains an introductory chapter followed by 14 chapters in four sections organized by time interval, beginning with the first human occupations of the pacific littoral of western south america and culminating in the 17th century ce colonial period. the introduction orients the reader around the goals, themes, and contents of the volume well. the editors trace the history of coastal research in andean archaeology, including questions regarding the timing of human migration into the region, human-environment interactions, the emergence of economic specialization, and the development of social complexity from the exploitation of abundant marine resources. they compare these trends with new research, including the rest of the volume, which seeks to delve into more complex perspectives on the development and history of andean maritime communities (amcs). they emphasize a key issue: the lack of a clear 2 delineation between fishing and farming, and that the two economic practices combined were likely what led to social complexity along the andean coast. section i focuses on early amcs spanning the period 13,000-5,500 bp. the first two chapters examine what is now northern chile and far southern peru, specifically the atacama desert. in chapter 2, santoro et al. emphasize that inland communities become sources of agricultural goods unavailable to amcs along the arid coast in trade networks that spanned both time and space. in chapter 3, salazar et al. suggest that members of amcs gained social capital via travel to highland areas for lithic resources, which alongside other specialized skills became the basis for increased social complexity, semi-sedentary behavior, and territoriality. in chapter 4, dillehay discusses northern peru, specifically the site of huaca prieta in the chicama valley. examining ~9,000 years of human occupation (~12,500 cal. bp – 3,800 cal bp), dillehay summarizes previous research and emphasizes the importance of both marine and terrestrial resources and exchange systems in the development of social complexity. section ii examines the emergence of more complex social systems 5,500 2,500 bp. in chapter 5, creamer and haas discuss developments in the norte chico, a region of north-central peru spanning four valleys, from 3,000 1,800 bce. creamer and haas present evidence for economic and ideological power as drivers of social complexity, noting that they have not found evidence for state-sponsored violence in the preceramic norte chico. in chapter 6, helmer shifts the focus north to the nepeña valley, discussing amcs and early urbanization, specifically the early horizon (900 200 bce) settlement of samanco. helmer notes that despite intensified irrigation agriculture, marine resources from settlements like samanco played a key role in the economy of the nepeña valley during this period, especially in trade with inland communities. chicoine et al. continue the discussion on the nepeña valley in chapter 7 with an examination of the faunal remains recovered from caylán, the largest early horizon center in the lower nepeña valley. though ~15 km inland, chicoine et al. note that marine fauna were key to the subsistence of caylán’s residents. prieto moves the discussion north in chapter 8, discussing evidence for amcs conducting subsistence agriculture during the initial period (1,800 900 bce) at the site of gramalote. drawing together multiple lines of evidence prieto concludes that fisherfolk in the lower moche valley were likely cultivating plants in household plots for their consumption and use in fishing technologies. sutter and prieto continue discussing gramalote in chapter 9, 3 examining bioarcheological data for evidence of ethnic identities unique to amcs. using biodistance analysis, which allows researchers to assess the genetic relationship between individuals based on dental morphology, sutter and prieto find that the residents of gramalote were not genetically isolated, but regularly intermarried with inland agropastoralists in the moche valley. section iii discusses the role of amcs in larger social networks and organizations 2,500 600 bp. in chapter 10, billman et al. examine household life at cerro la virgen, a town belonging to the chimu empire and located close to the capitol city of chan chan in the moche valley. combining faunal, botanical, and artifact analysis, they find no specific economic focus within the house compounds examined, suggesting that the settlement was likely self-sufficient rather than a specialized production center supplying chan chan. they note that the agricultural activities conducted in the pampa would have required extensive irrigation provided by the chimu state, and residents may have “paid” tribute in the form of agricultural products or textiles for usufruct rights to irrigation. goepfert et al. bring us to the far north of peru in chapter 11, providing new data about the early initial period (200 bce-600 ce) to middle horizon (600 – 1,000 ce) transition in the sechura desert. they report the discovery of a resource processing area rich in marine animal remains, which they suggest was likely part of an extraction and preparation network for export to settlements associated with the moche culture. in chapter 12, stothert et al. discuss increasing social complexity and economic specialization and intensification in coastal ecuador from 700 – 1,500 ce. they argue against the hypothesis that increased demand for spondylus shell from northern peru drove social complexity, noting such demand occurred alongside other cultural developments in ecuador that led to a unique form of decentralized chieftainship. section iv completes the volume by examining ethnohistoric and historic data regarding amcs from 600 300 bp, or the spread of the inka empire through the early spanish colonial period. in chapter 13 marcus et al. discuss how zooarchaeological evidence from the site of cerro azul in southern peru could reflect el niño-southern oscillation (enso) activity. their results are inconclusive, but they note that other studies successfully used the biogeography of various species recovered from archaeological contexts to reconstruct shifts in enso. van valkenburgh et al. bring the discussion back to northern peru in chapter 15, focusing on evidence for maritime subsistence strategies at the late prehispanic to colonial period settlement of carrizales in the zaña 4 valley. they contend that leaders of amcs claimed identity as exclusively extractors of marine resources to avoid tribute burdens from spanish colonial authorities, noting that species richness in both faunal and botanical remains increased during the colonial period and included a wide variety of terrestrial organisms. in the final chapter, susan ramírez reexamines documentary evidence for specialized fishing communities in the early colonial period. she notes that while there is extensive documentary evidence for amc specialization, there is also evidence for their interdependence with agricultural communities and fluidity of economic identity. this volume is a comprehensive collection of recent scholarship on coastal life in prehispanic western south america, and as such is a vital resource for anyone looking to increase their knowledge on the subject. while likely too advanced for introductory archaeology courses, this text would be excellent for use in advanced regional courses and discussions on broader topics such as human-environment interactions or the development of social complexity. works cited: moseley, m. e. (1975). the maritime foundations of andean civilization. menlo park: cummings publishing company. jacob warner is a phd candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university. he specializes primarily in reconstructing past climates and environments from carbonate geochemistry, but also has interests in zooarchaeology, coastal adaptations, and climate change, specifically in terms of andean prehistory. © 2021 jacob warner historical forensics: the use of medicine and forensic principles in bioarchaeological and historic research. review by amy l. hair 2 aug, 2021 charlier, philippe, 2017, when science sheds light on history, gainesville: university press of florida, 175 pp., isbn 978-0813056548 key words: forensics, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, medicine, diagnosis when science sheds light on history by philippe charlier is an excellent example of interdisciplinary research in biological anthropology, medicine, and history. the book, while in no way intended for specialists, provides readers with case studies spanning from mesolithic morocco (9,000 bc) through nineteenth century colonial encounters while simultaneously exposing the audience to a range of relevant ethical considerations. the book is divided into four parts that explore health and disease chronologically with a variety of materials ranging from physical human remains, autopsy reports, to death masks, and more. the book opens with an introduction by charlier and bernard proust who argue in support of interdisciplinary approaches to forensic and paleopathological research to both inform on health and disease throughout the human experience and to advance methodologies in forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, and the history of medicine. in part one, “prehistory,” charlier discusses the social context of disability and care in the human past. consisting of two chapters, this section describes numerous cases of disability in the past, including the bioarcheological analysis of toothless elderly individuals and those with healed cases of severe trauma (6). an entire chapter is dedicated to an amputation case in neolithic france. in this case, the left, distal humerus of this individual was amputated with no evidence of other trauma, infection, or hemorrhage (9). this case lends the greatest support to charlier’s argument about the role of care in human antiquity and provides readers with a short glimpse into social bioarchaeological theory used in contemporary research by scholars like tilley (2015) or agarwal and glencross (2011). part one is an excellent introduction to social theory in biological anthropology for non-specialists, while simultaneously beginning their medico-legal explorations into the human experience. part two, entitled “antiquity,” contains 19 case studies from roughly 5,000 bc in proto-dynastic egypt through roughly 300 ce in the roman empire. this section describes numerous cases of ailments in the past, and throughout each the author emphasizes an interdisciplinary and social approach that accounts for both medical and social contexts. for example, in chapter 6 charlier describes a child excavated underneath a statue of emperor domitian (19). this individual displayed several interesting characteristics including skeletal anomalies often associated with down syndrome and perimortem cranial ax trauma, factors that the author believes could be representative of religious sacrifice (20). the author ends this section with chapter 21 that describes a case of a large sternal teratoma, that is, a twin who died in utero and was subsequently consumed by the other, in a 2nd to 3rd century roman enslaved cemetery (63). a large, well-developed teratoma with dentition was excavated in the sternal region of a 25–35year-old female (63). teratomas are large tumors that develop tissues and organs including teeth, muscle, or bone. the author reassures readers by stating that it likely caused no harm to the individual except possibly breathing difficulties (64). part two provides numerous examples of interesting pathologies in the past, and while too brief for a specialist, introduces students and recreational readers to a range of diseases often invisible in the bioarchaeological record. the third part entitled the “middle ages” discusses a range of case studies throughout the era. of the twelve chapters in this section, chapter 24 is particularly interesting as it combines bioarchaeological, mortuary, and social theory for readers to understand the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach. this study addressed the remains of an individual that had been disposed of in an ancient grain silo near modern-day paris (72). analysis of tartar recovered from the individual’s teeth showed remains of a parasite native to asia or africa, indicating that this individual was non-local and othered in death by the local population (72). another chapter in part three discusses the portrayal of diseases in the mount athos medical library in texts and frescos (87). throughout chapter 29, the author recalls how some of the illnesses described in these 14th16th-century texts were quite realistic including the of edema, however; many ailments like paralysis and skin diseases were idealized (88). this chapter is refreshing as it takes a step away from traditional bioarchaeological research and incorporates literature and art in the study of ancient human health, a feature that is helpful to both understanding the occurrence of such diseases but also how they were perceived in antiquity. the final section, entitled “renaissance to modern times” contains 8 diverse case studies that reinforce the value of interdisciplinary research in bioarchaeological and historical research. part four begins with a fascinating study of diane de poitiers’, a prominent french noble women and courtier in the 16th century, remains (111). this study in particular investigates atypical burial processes that ultimately resulted in her internment in 1577, eleven years followed her death (111). in addition, this case sheds light on the study of medieval medicine, namely gold, and the limitations of modern methods in reconstructing historic narratives (113). another interesting case is detailed in chapter 37 where charlier analyzes a strange autopsy report from the 18 th century (129). the atypical autopsy raised several flags, as one of the two participating physicians treated the individual prior to death (130). this chapter is a welcomed addition to part as it highlights the diversity in evidence that can be used in archaeological and medicolegal investigations. the author concludes with an epilogue and two additional chapters that address biological and ethical concerns that accompany the study of human remains. charlier set out to explore disease and health in the past through a medical lens and provided everyday readers with insights into both the biological dimensions of human health in antiquity, but also the ethical and social contexts that accompany many studies in bioarchaeology. at times the author is brief in his explanations of historical context, however, and the number of cases included in the book demanded such brevity. regardless, charlier has created an excellent addition to bioarchaeological literature, particularly for hobby readers and those new to forensic or archaeological literature. further, the author highlights the value of a multidisciplinary approach by incorporating methods and theory of medicine and biological anthropology into investigations of the past. references agarwal, sabrina c., and bonnie a. glencross. 2011. “building a social bioarchaeology.” in social bioarchaeology. hoboken, nj: wiley-blackwell. tilley, lorna. 2015. theory and practice in the bioarchaeology of care. new york, ny: springer. amy l. hair is a ph.d. student at louisiana state university. she is an anthropological bioarchaeologist interested in labor, health, and bone histology. previous research has utilized threedimensional methodologies and their applications in bioarchaeological research and preservation. © 2021 amy l. hair microsoft word blomqvist-publish.doc the power of drugs: implications from substance-use in ancient cultures review by tony blomqvist mickelsson fitzpatrick, scott. ancient psychoactive substances (2018). university press of florida. ancient psychoactive substances is an endeavor in the history of what the contemporary society perceives and classifies as both illegal and legal mind-altering substances. edited by dr. scott fitzpatrick, this investigation and anthology draws from numerous sources in a cross-disciplinary manner, ranging from biomolecular analysis to interpretations of the substance-use itself and the social context it was consumed in. not only does ancient psychoactive substances give a fascinating historical account of the cultural settings of former substance-use, it also highlights the emergence of the research field in question. specifically, central to the volume is the relationship between that of mind-altering substances and people. ultimately, the practice of substance-use seems to transcend both cultures and time, with great implications for further research. the volume consists of eleven chapters and an introduction, in which fitzpatrick introduces categorizations of various substances. the three subsequent chapters investigate substanceuse in eurasia, the eastern mediterranean and the western hemisphere. the fourthand fifth chapter is concerned with substance-use in ancient america. chapter six to eleven is primarily concerned with substance-use in the caribbean, amongst the ancient maya people, amazon and the andes. the chapters provide an overview of various stimulants and plants in different cultural contexts, and a good portion of the chapters also provide a thorough description of the substances’ respective biological and physical composition. this is accompanied by historic accounts, intertwined with different purposes and sometimes intrigues. for example, the authors touch upon greek perceptions of “scythians” (25) and their peculiar use of cannabis in funeral ceremonies, highlighting cultural differences and contrasts in relation to how substances are, perhaps, “supposed” to be utilized. such examples shed light on more cognitive processes on a group level and potential intergroup dynamics in relation to various substances. furthermore, the volume is concerned with how the effects of mind-altering substances may have impacted spiritual and religious practices in the past. the authors argue that cannabis “...through the ages has allowed humans to cognitively recognize the god within and facilitate communication with their spirit world” (37). in a time dominated by spiritualism and shamanism, it is plausible that mind-altering substances must have had a profound effect on the connection between human and faith in god-like phenomena. one could argue that the elevated religious experiences due to mind-altering substances may very well have had imprints that still last to this day. given the proposed historical impact of the substance in question, it is fair to say that further societal impact must be thoroughly discussed and examined, as cannabis specifically may be the most widely used illegal drug in our contemporary society (richardson, 2010). by indicating such potential impact, ancient psychoactive substances makes a significant contribution towards future research related to societal impacts due to substance-use and dramatically deepens the overall impact of the volume. in chapter six, quetta kaye dwells deeper into the interpersonal relationships and power structures that may have existed in the context of substance-use. such power structures may vary in forms and operate on both individual, group and community level. however, these levels are inherently intertwined. this may be characterized by an individual who possess the knowledge specific to the mind-altering effect or access to such material (or both) when operating in groups or communities. quetta kaye draws accurate parallels to that of shamans; shamans were plausibly held in high regards due to their medicinaland spiritual knowledge connected to substances (169). although acquiring a great deal of social status, the shamans were also social servants. they served the community as a whole with their practices. thus, it becomes apparent that the power dynamic is, partially, a dynamic relationship. the shaman may be well respected and be in possession of individual power, but the group and other circumstances (e.g., environmental) will determine how dependent the group in question are upon the shaman and his or her practices. within these power structures mentioned, lies the opportunity to form social cohesion and intimate in-group connections. ultimately, this may be transformed into something that could be bestowed upon as political power. once again, the volume delicately highlights how psychoactive substances may have been utilized with greater purpose than one could initially imagine. other former and still important societal issues are also reflected in chapter six, where daniel seinfeld analyzes depictures of mayans and intoxication rituals. in a very hierarchical fashion, females are being depictured as mere servants in intoxication rituals. in such rituals, the males are clearly asserting a dominant position, to say the least, and seems to have exclusive access to any god-like experience the ritual may provide. seinfeld discusses these findings in the light of contemporary television commercial, where one can behold males usually being served beer by attractive women (191). as the author argues, the gender identities in the context of alcohol, in this instance, are still very much present in today’s society. ancient psychoactive substances provides a rich overview of the matter in question, in what seems to be a successful holistic approach. one has the opportunity to either dive deep into more biological matters and domains which pertain to archaeologists, but also to more social matters that is interesting to any social scientist. the connection between former impact and current status of certain substances in our society is particularly intriguing; the volume makes a strong case for making historical inquires when investigating contemporary substance-use. the only flaw one can come to think of is that the majority of the book is concerned with american populations. to summarize this review, the current volume is a fascinating empirical tale of substance-using ancient cultures which instantly increases the curiosity of the reader. moreover, these captivating historical narratives are accompanied by more hard data on the actual substance in question. thus, this fusion makes the book more readily available and ultimately interesting to a broader audience. finally, in the eyes of a social scientist, the volume is surprisingly more concerned with societal issues and how substances were utilized in interpersonal relationships than one would expect. a range of such issues are discussed in the light of substance-use, including eligious practices, power structures and gender. tony blomqvist mickelsson is a phd student in social work at södertörn university. his dissertation revolves around immigration and the use of sport as a vehicle for social change in the baltic sea region. however, he has a wide array of scholarly interests. coming from a ma in forensic psychology and a ba in criminology, deviant behavior and drug-use has been of great interest. additionally, working as a research assistant in a psychophysiological lab early sparked interest in neurological processes. works cited: fitzpatrick, s. 2018. ancient psychoactive substances. university press of florida. richardson, t. h. 2010. cannabis use and mental health: a review of recent epide miological research. international journal of pharmacology 6: 796–807. © 2020 tony blomqvist mickelsson microsoft word ce_225-695-1-sm-comments revision sbu.doc 1 forest fires in the capitalocene review by susann baez ullberg wilder than wild: fire, forests and the future film by stephen most & kevin white 2018 key words: wildfire, forest, disaster, california, cultural burning wilder than wild: fire, forests and the future is a more than timely documentary. as global warming continues, wildfires are increasing in frequency and scope. fire seasons in all continents are not only getting longer, but the wildfires are also characterised by being larger and of higher intensity. they are turning into wilder than wild, or into so called mega fires – the predicted fires of the future. while the filmmakers don’t refer to the term anthropocene, it is clear that a vicious circle has been created with climate change producing the conditions for devastating fires, which threaten societies and ecosystems, while the greenhouse gases released from these fires contribute to an increase in global warming and drought. recent examples abound. the 2019-2020 wildfires in australia are the most widespread in the country’s recorded history with huge human, ecological and material losses. wilder than wild is thus not only a welcome contribution to the debate on environmental politics, but a necessary and urgent one. the film has a global scope although it zooms in on wildfires in california. here, forest fires have shaped the landscape since ancient times, and pyrophilic species normally thrive after each fire season. today’s mega fires are devastating however, making recovery hardly possible. in addition, while past wildfires used to affect mainly rural areas, today urbanisation and demographic growth in california have made urban areas equally vulnerable. three cases of mega fires are at the forefront in the film, namely the rim fire in sierra nevada in 2013, and the wine country and thomas wildfires in 2017. told through the personal lens of one of 2 the filmmakers, who has visited the region since he was a child, and testimonies of local residents, the history of these places and the social effects of these particular disasters are revealed. their stories convey that disaster events are both material processes of destruction and cultural processes of communitas that loom large in affected communities. but this is not a disaster commemorative film only possible solutions to manage future fires are also presented. members of yurok communities in north-western california who are interviewed in the film tell that they used to practice regular prescribed burning of this forest land as a means to keep the ground clean and their forest world in balance, thereby reducing the amount of ground vegetation and flammable debris that constitute fuel for fires, preventing fires from becoming disastrous once they occurred. this changed in the nineteenth century when the us forest service and national parks like the yosemite were created, aiming at protecting trees as renewable resources or as wilderness. regular forest fires were then framed as a threat and fire prevention and suppression turned into the principal government policy, embodied by the advertising icon smokey the bear. this policy is starting to change today. in the film, forest and fire management experts are interviewed, supporting prescribed burning rather than fire suppression, arguing that even though this contributes to global warming and health hazards through smoke, the losses produced by mega fires are a far worse scenario. it is not difficult to feel distressed by this gloomy global scenario. the filmmakers thus make an effort to conclude their message by presenting a number of public initiatives in california that offer local solutions. private-public stakeholder collaboration is organised in the stanislaus national forest. so called cultural burning as practiced historically by yurok people are now organised in collaboration with surrounding communities and public agencies. new forest is planted by civil society organisations in areas burnt in the rim fire. this are all laudable initiatives and encouraging scenes, in line with the film maker’s voiceover making his final remarks: in this time of change, we need to work together. just as landscapes have to become more resilient, so do we. this is all well and good, and in this regard, this is a well-made documentary that addresses a pressing contemporary problem, yet the film lacks a critical perspective. capitalism, the forest industry and all the political and economic interests in california and beyond that has produced climate change and the socio-ecological vulnerabilities that enable mega fires are 3 completely omitted from the story. after yet another failed un climate summit in december 2019, decision makers need critical messages that urge them to act now. unfortunately, wilder than wild falls short in this regard. susann baez ullberg is assistant professor of anthropology at uppsala university. her research interests include environmental and disaster anthropology. she has undertaken fieldwork in argentina, peru, spain and sweden. among her publications are work on flooding and social memory, water infrastructures and expertise, and the use of moral arguments in the wake of wildfire. her current research involves the anthropology of aquifers and a multi species ethnography on bark beetles. © 2019 susann baez ullberg microsoft word red hangover review_2.doc thinking against the blackmail of democracy review by sinan dogan. red hangover. legacies of twentieth-century communism. ghodsee kristen. 2017. duke university press. barely two years into being a student/scholar of “post-socialism,” and an immigrant in the usa, two sources of human histories have grown intertwined within me. narratives of post-socialism reveal conflicts between the idea of collectivized justice and human dignity, and that of state as an institution whose irreducible goal is to control and govern. whereas the experience of immigration, in relation to “americanness,” has helped me to ask the question “for whom?” concerning liberty, representative democracy, and entrepreneurial values. seemingly paradoxical yet curiously, echoing impacts of narratives of post-socialist transitions, as well as constantly curated histories of socialist pasts can be deciphered from the current predicament of capitalism and authoritarianism. is it possible to historicize the times that are after the end of this history? red hangover offers insights concerning these intellectual and ideological sensibilities by using a variety of writing, in both fiction and non-fiction genres. the book starts with an incisive point: the ideological war that marked the cold war has not ended. crises of the recent years, such as the annexation of crimea by russia, the syrian civil war, the rise and fall of the daesh, and authoritarian leaders’ global rise to power, can be traced back to legacies of “really existing socialism” and the triumph of liberal democracies over socialism. having spent several years in bulgaria and germany, alongside visits to other parts of the eastern bloc, ghodsee presents the reader with ethnographic insights and historically engaged commentaries on the daily lives of socialisms and post-socialisms. the centrality of one argument is clear: democracy and capitalism should not be thought of as inseparable, as the inequalities and disenfranchisement created and exacerbated by neoliberal capitalism have done more harm than good to democracy. the first chapter tells the story of the utterly disappointing socioeconomic desperation in bulgaria through acts of self-immolation. resonating with bargu’s (2014) “necroresistance,” these acts are far from being divergent from social reality due to their extreme nature, but indeed define the reality through premediated political acts. in dimitar dimitrov’s words, the man who set himself on fire in front of the president’s office and survived: “under communism, we had money, but there was nothing to buy. now, there is everything to buy but no money. […] one can’t live in a constant recession” (8-10). “cucumbers” follows the autobiography and carefully archived dossiers of an ordinary man, mr. andreev, an agricultural planner whose major success was to plan the growing of imported cucumbers. through his dossier, the reader gets the chance to peek into bulgaria’s deteriorating waste management system, collectivized agriculture, and alternative futures where the ethnographer becomes a spy in coordination with the agent andreev who poses as a cucumber expert. “pieces” is a fictional story that strongly demonstrates a variety of freedoms from “post-socialist democracies”: thriving bulgarian entrepreneurs who sold arms illegally to war criminals during the bosnian war, prevalent structural and explicit racism against the roma, and orphans whose organs are harvested and sold through multinational organizations. “belgrade, 2015” recites a fictionalized dialogue between the wife and the son of a recently deceased serbian man, discussing whether a star or a cross would be on his tombstone. in “#mauerfall25,” ghodsee discusses her observations on the event that commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. western triumphalism after the fall has led to aggressive expansion of the neoliberal dominance over former eastern bloc countries, through policies that stripped social rights and securities away from citizens, as well as political and military maneuvers that left most of the nations in the midst of social and political crises. using the discourse during the commemoration event as a vantage point, ghodsee argues that today’s “refugee crises” and ongoing wars in the middle east can be attributed to the interventionist politics by “liberal democracies.” in “the enemy of my enemy” and “venerating nazis to vilify commies,” we read a bold critique of anticommunist politics, which find a platform through the rise of far-right conservatism whose attempts to legitimize xenophobia and authoritarianism find expression in the rewriting of socialist history. in “a tale of two typewriters,” we read a social history of typewriters made in germany over the course of the twentieth century, while “gross domestic orgasms,” which was advanced in ghodsee’s (2018) later book why women had better sex under socialism, provides an engaging analysis of “how the two contrasting political and economic systems of the twentieth century manifested themselves in the realm of intimacy” (101). “my mother and a clock” postulates the part of the cold war in which socialist realism and abstract art have been pitted against one another. the author unsettles the paradigm of “freedom vs. authoritarianism” by pointing to the commercialization of modern art and limitations imposed on the artists who produce within the dominance of free markets. “post-zvyarism” is a playful yet sobering sequel to orwell’s animal farm, which includes the post-socialist transition of zvyaria farm. citizens of the farm who first toppled their exploitative human owner, and then the oppressive pigs’ government, face the harsh realities of liberal democracy and go on to elect a social democrat-turned-crony capitalist ex-intelligence officer dog muttro. first delighted by the private ownership of the farm’s facilities, animals are quite rapidly dispossessed and ultimately eliminated by humans whose capital flow impeded any possible economic development from which animals could benefit. the story can be read as an essential guide to post-socialism as it brilliantly combines widely varying histories of post-socialisms in a coherent narrative. the thirteenth chapter presents a near-future scenario where dr. ghodsee seeks refuge in germany due to political suppression in the usa and is interviewed by an immigration officer. in this transcript of the fictional interview, dr. ghodsee’s democratic party membership is the main concern of the interviewer who eventually provides a positive recommendation for political refugee status. but the officer advises against the professor’s employment in german universities due to the hesitant support for warmongering democrat politicians. this does not fit the ideal of employing “educators [who] must be men and women willing to question authority and resist tyranny in all its forms” (178). finally, “democracy for the penguins” elaborates on and questions the liberal idea of democracy as a market endeavor. ghodsee starts by presenting the anthropologist david scott’s argument that “former colonial powers now deployed the idea of democracy, in much the same way as they had once mobilized the concept of civilization, to justify violations of the sovereignty of developing countries” (180). after reviewing the critical literature on the growing incompatibilities between capitalism and democracy, the author argues that political theories and ideas can be separated from their failed implementations. this applies to both communism and democracy. “[t]he triumphalism of the west [which] legitimated the military, political, and economic violence” has employed liberal democracy to suppress radical alternatives in the name of freedom (1923). ultimately, the author urges that “those who still believe that people should be treated with equal respect and accorded the same opportunities to live and thrive in a peaceful, diverse, and sustainable world” (197) to come together, despite the internal differences, and strive to “make democracy great again” (198). overall, red hangover provides an immensely valuable contribution to the literature on post-socialist futures and critiques of liberal democracies. dr. ghodsee’s unapologetic approach concerning atrocities committed in the name of socialism as well as freedom and democracy is certainly inspiring. with its creative and engaging writing style, red hangover is an empowering book for those of us who feel estranged and cast aside by the looming darkness. sinan dogan is a ph.d. student and teaching fellow in the department of anthropology, university of pittsburgh. his research interests include anthropology of care and mental health, informality, and romania. works cited: bargu, banu. starve and immolate: the politics of human weapons. new york: columbia university press, 2014. ghodsee, kristen. why women have better sex under socialism: and other arguments for economic independence. random house, 2018. © 2020 sinan dogan microsoft word berhane migration by boat.doc 1 seeking refuge in an era of naturalized borders review by fiori s. berhane migration by boat: discourses of trauma, exclusion and survival edited by: lynda mannik berghahn books, 2018 images of drowned children, of african men and women in bright orange life vests, of newly arrived syrian refugees on greek islands—all these snapshots continue to shock and, in turn, numb european publics to the daily realities of the european migration crisis. despite the sensationalist term ‘crisis’, as lynda mannik rightly points out in the introductory chapter of the multi-disciplinary collection of essays entitled migration by boat, human beings have migrated by boat for centuries. moreover, it is only since “world war ii that the legalities of such migrations have become increasingly contentious” (2018:1). starting in 2015, european governments have taken ever more extraordinary measures to ensure that migrants do not land upon their shores. the latest measures, including the criminalization of ngos that operate search and rescue missions in the mediterranean and the tasking of nominal authorities in libya with intercepting and detaining would-be migrants, have resulted in precipitous drops in the number of migrants entering the european union. while this number declines, antimigrant populists continue to gain ground in european elections. this seemingly paradoxical situation is not without historical precedent, as the authors in this edited volume make clear. this collection of essays, adding to the scholarship of refugee and migration studies, travels through both time and space in its survey of boat migration. the authors chose to focus on boat migration because much is made in contemporary discourses of both the danger this form of migration poses for the migrants themselves and the threat that refugees who travel by boat are seen to present to societies in the global north. shifts in refugee policies throughout the 1980s and 90s first portrayed refugees from the global south as uncontrollable masses threatening western economic prosperity and security. 2 these refugees and migrants are generally perceived to be threats to international order as they transgress consecrated notions of territory, demarcated and increasingly impassable borders, and racialized forms of national belonging. as migration policies in global-north nations shift towards securitized borders, the attenuation of the right to settle, and the closure of available channels of authorized movement, migrants from the global south find themselves undertaking dangerous maritime journeys. as the authors argue, while these journeys present clear challenges for those involved, they also create new forms of belonging, confound “terrestrial nationalism” (nguyen, ch. 3), and sew complex webs of sociality along the way. the book is organized with four themes in mind: public and private memorialization, artistic production, media and representation, and the phenomenological aspect of boat migration. the essays in this book are a corrective to negative media representations that mark this phenomenon; the authors also work to recover the voices of those who survived the journeys and those who did not. as such, this is a valuable collection of case studies examining boat migration in all its complexity. the geographic focus spans australia, the euro-african mediterranean, and north america. in the first section titled embedded memories for public consumption, the authors engage with memorialization politics. roseman’s piece traces the rise of a memory-activism movement centered around british child-labor migrants’ passage to canada from the late 19th to the early 20th century. in particular, roseman analyzes children’s literature produced in the 1990s that commemorates the repressed history of canada’s use of child labor migrants. tao’s piece examines “how migration by boat has been remembered and represented in three recent programs at the australian national maritime museum” (p.49). the author focuses on the display “waves of migration,” which aims to historicize the different refugee groups that have arrived in australia in its post-war history. the following essay on “oceanic spatiality and the vietnamese diaspora” best addresses the themes of the collection. the first ‘boat people’ to seize public consciousness were vietnamese refugees fleeing the vietnam war in the 1970s. as such, nguyen’s piece touches upon memory, loss, trauma, and the constitution of new forms of sociality and belonging that boat migration engenders. the author does so through a critical engagement with vietnamese diasporic literature, arguing, in effect, that the sea “[is] a space that facilitates and bares the traces of various human movements—one of them being asylum seekers” (p.70). this repositioning of the sea as the central site of human mobility and migration taking place at this historical juncture is the crux of this collection of essays. never has migration been so dangerous in the post-war moment, a fact that the authors unveil as a consequence of the global migration management policies of wealthy states. 3 the second section titled “the artist and the illegal migrant” focuses on the politics of commemoration, specifically of artistic production. the three essays in this section all refer to border-externalization programs, such as the remote detention centers of the euro-mediterranean and australia. the first, written by horsti, focuses on artistic representations of europe’s border externalization policies. she analyzes the mimmo paladino’s sculpture displayed on the sicilian island of lampedusa, entitled porta d’europa, and that of kalliopi lemo’s piece at crossroads, which displays relics of migrant boats as part of an exhibition at the brandenburg gate in berlin, named at crossroads. while the authors argue that the violence of europe’s border-externalization policies is kept out of view, these artistic works recenter the border both spatially and symbolically in western metropoles, confronting the cultural amnesia that surrounds migrant deaths at sea. rutherford’s piece, a critical analysis of j.m. coetzee’s the childhood of jesus, links coetzee’s allegory to australia’s treatment of migrants in its offshore processing centers and to a wider framework of how australians understand the originating violence that brought australia into existence. by using the concept of “holing,” “the propelling or projecting a subject into a negative space” (pp. 102), rutherford argues that australia’s policies around irregular maritime migration serves to “hole asylum seekers semantically, spatially, juridically, and discursively” (pp. 103). david alvarez’s follow-up essay argues that the small boats used to traverse the strait of gibraltar “implicitly contest the priorities of current cross-mediterranean mobility regimes” (pp. 117). together the essays contest the politics of forgetting that border externalization schemes effect by keeping the violence of the border far from public view and deliberation. the third section, much like the previous one, focuses on memorialization politics through discursive analysis of efforts to memorialize migrant deaths at sea. salerno’s piece locates the commemorative efforts of the katër i radës, the pivotal shipwreck marking the beginning of europe’s regime of death in the mediterranean. salerno argues that efforts to memorialize the wreck, which excluded the voices and testimonies of survivors, failed to mourn those who lost their lives adequately, as it only served to reify existing discourses of italian hospitality. the memorial, which focused on the reaction of local italians, ignored the need of survivors, their families, and friends to grieve for those who died. instead, the memorial turned into a celebration of locals’ hospitality in the face of strangers. olivieri’s piece examines the efforts of mothers of tunisian migrants to hold public authorities accountable for the disappearances of their sons at sea. their efforts work to re-politicize migrant death as a consequence of political decision making, which values western security over the rights of refugees. in the third 4 essay of the set, mannik departs from the previous two approaches, which center on european migration, and engages in a discourse analysis of news reports about the arrival of sikh refugees to nova scotia in 1987. it succeeds in tracing how media panic over the arrival of boat migrants shifts public opinion rightwards on the political spectrum. in the fourth essay, hintjen emphasizes the role small islands play in the reporting on the european migration crisis. all four authors in this section agree that media reports on boat-migration do little to humanize boat migrants or to elucidate the political decision making that has made seeking refuge so dangerous. the final section acts as a rejoinder to the politics of representation that the previous section unmasks. by focusing on the subjective experience of boat migration, the authors shift the emphasis to those who should matter most— the refugees themselves. the narratives of refugees who survived these maritime journeys frame this final section. sue hoffman examines the complicated relationships engendered by human smuggling through the example of iraqi refugees and their journeys to australia. papa saw et al.’s essay draws upon the experiences of senegalese boat people migrating to europe to chart the complex affective responses elicited by migrant trajectories—in both failed and successful attempts to reach europe. briskman and demasi’s final piece looks towards the 2010 janga boat crash off christmas island, in which 50 people died within sight of land. the plurality of voices in this collection of essays serves as both a strength and a potential weakness. the collection does an excellent job tracing the political and legal transformations of migration regimes; however, while i recognize the difficulty and sensitivity of conducting ethnographic research with vulnerable groups like boat migrants, the collection would have been better served by the inclusion of more ethnographic insights. moreover, while the two canadian examples underscore the geographic breadth of boat migration, the reality remains that the european union and australia have taken to securitizing the seas just as other powers, like the united states, have increasingly deployed natural barriers, like the desert, as forms of border violence, a topic explored in excellent theoretical and empirical depth in jason deleon’s the land of open graves (2015). canada has, largely, avoided these issues due to two factors: it’s lack of geographic proximity to the global south and because of the canada-united states safe third country agreement, which stipulates that refugees apply for asylum in the first country of entry. this agreement functions much like the dublin regulations in the european union, which shifts responsibility for migrant reception and rescue to its southern partners. this is, however, only a minor critique; migration by boat is an exhaustive survey on maritime migration in an 5 era of securitized borders. it is also an incredibly valuable compendium for students and scholars in migration studies, critical border and refugee studies, and for those who generally grapple with our contemporary moment. works cited: de león, j. 2015. the land of open graves: living and dying on the migrant trail. oakland, ca: university of california press. fiori berhane is a phd candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at brown university. she is currently finishing her fieldwork in italy on eritrean migrants' political polarization and memorializing practices within what is largely termed the ‘migration crisis’. her work engages theories on forced migration and refugeeism and identity, memory and politics, with an emphasis on chronicity and notions of crisis. her research has thus far been supported by the fulbright iie, the wenner gren foundation for research in anthropology, and the mellon demographic fund at the population studies training center at brown university. © 2018 fiori s. berhane microsoft word wolter final.docx 1 exploring familial relations across the globe parin dossa and cati coe. 2017. transnational aging and reconfigurations of kin work, new brunswick, new jersey: rutgers university press, 242 pp. isbn 9780813588087 keywords: transnational aging, kin work, migration, intergenerational relationships, care in the twenty-first century, older people’s aging trajectories are increasingly influenced by transnational migration, either their own or that of their children, or sometimes both. how do these mobilities affect intergenerational relationships and conceptualizations of care within families? transnational aging and reconfigurations of kin work, edited by parin dossa and cati coe, sheds light on the significance, asymmetries and tensions of reciprocal and intergenerational familial ties regarding care and kin work, both reconfigured within transnational contexts. in nine chapters, this volume presents ethnographic case studies from across the globe that document the multiple intertwining of aging, migration and kin work and how different dynamics, practices and processes of transnational care (re)shape experiences of aging as part of the life course. in the first part of the book, the kin-scription of older people into care, neda deneva, yanqiu rachel zhou and kristin elizabeth yarris discuss intergenerational kin work by highlighting the transformations of care work within changing familial relations that are influenced by socioeconomic and political changes on the national and international level. deneva (chapter 1) describes bulgarian grandmothers within the eu whose lives are extensively affected by the tensions of reproductive and productive labor and are constrained by fulfilling kin obligations. in a nuanced way, she shows how the ‘young-old’ grandmothers become most vulnerable by sacrificing their own social and financial security in order to care for their grandchildren and aging in-laws living abroad and how the changing familial relations evoke new forms of 2 dependency. in chapter 2, zhou focuses on the changing aging trajectories that develop among chinese grandparents that follow their emigrated adult children to canada to take care of their grandchildren as a consequence of insufficient welfare policies of the canadian state. while the aging caregivers, one the one hand, see migration as a valuable opportunity for their own children and maintain the cultural significance of the family from their homeland by passing on “intergenerational love” (49) to their grandchildren, they simultaneously experience their unpaid work and new lives also as a challenge to find their roles by being “not a master, not a guest, not a servant” (54) in their children’s homes. kristin yarris illustrates in chapter 3 the ambivalent emotions that nicaraguan grandmothers develop towards migration while caring for their grandchildren whose mothers have migrated to the united states. yarris exposes in sharp detail that the experiences of their spouses’ migration in the past shape the grandmothers’ narratives of their daughters’ migration towards their grandchildren. while “replacing” their absent daughters, the nicaraguan grandmothers, firstly, perceive this absence as either a threat to their own and their grandchildren’s well-being and upheld values or, secondly, as a sacrifice of the mothers to sustain their left-behind children and families. in the volume’s second section, reconfigurations of kinship and care in migration contexts, the authors elucidate how kin work and care are reshaped against the backdrop of migration. in chapter 4, erin raffety reveals how chinese foster mothers, abandoned by their migrated children, recuperate from socioeconomic disadvantages by caring for disabled children that are later adopted by international parents. against the common picture of older people in asia that are merely reacting to their children’s decisions, the author highlights the agency of older foster mothers by actively bringing news perspectives on kinship and inducing social change within society. furthermore, raffety elucidates that the relationship between foster mother and child, despite and because of their vulnerable positions, their mutual bonding reintegrates them into society and improves their social and economic status. khan and kobayashi (chapter 5) examine middle-aged hindu women that have migrated from sri lanka and india and now live in multigenerational households in canada. here, they find themselves in the complex situation of satisfying the needs of not only their children but also those of their parents and in-laws apart from their own requirements. in their study, the authors reveal that these women are challenged by meeting their responsibilities as caring daughters and other obligations in their country of residence that contrast their notions of ideal cultural and familial values and a caring self. loretta baldassar (chapter 6) looks at how different types of communication technology impact care within transnational families. in her research among different age cohorts of italian 3 migrants in australia, she emphasizes that the intensity and frequency of care exchange is affected by the distance of the people, not necessarily only in a spatial but also in a temporal sense. the chapters in section three, aging, kin work, and migrant trajectories, by cati coe, delores mullings and parin dossa describe rich in detail the impacts of transnational migration on aging trajectories. cati coe (chapter 7) discusses the retirement strategies of aging ghanaian care workers that want to return home after working for decades in the united states. as their work was only low-paid and the desired form of care within the us is not available to them, they decide to return to ghana where they can live from their savings from work and social security paid from the us. though the aging ghanaians choose to return, coe points to the return as a logical consequence of the given circumstances within the system of global capitalism and imaginations of respectful elder care based on their personal working experiences. in chapter 8, mullings examines the kin work of older caribbean canadian women from a critical race feminist perspective. the women in her study migrated decades ago and were, during their working lives, low-paid and suffering from chronic diseases in higher age leaving them in financial need during their retirement in canada. despite their vulnerable situation, these women contribute not only by caring financially and emotionally for their family members at ‘home’ but are also involved in religious and social communities as volunteers. mullings argues that their poor financial and health situation mirrors the inadequate social infrastructures of canada and the caribbean to support older migrants responsibly. chapter 9 by dossa examines the last stage of life among of canadian ismaili muslim migrants in palliative care centers. she highlights the significance of kin work during the last stage of life by pointing at the care relations between the dying and their family that acknowledge the former’s work during the lifetime. this is particularly visible as kin care for their dying family member although they have other obligations in their busy lives. dossa’s and coe’s edited volume transnational aging and reconfigurations of kin work is an indispensable contribution to research on transnationalism, family relations and aging and a must read for anyone working on these topics. apart from providing various ethnographic writings from different authors that describe their findings nuanced and rich in detail, the book enables the reader to gain new perspectives into the lives of aging migrants. unfortunately, south-south migration was not taken into consideration in the selection of the chapters which would have completed the global perspectives on transnational aging and kin work. 4 nevertheless, the book is a foundational work and helps social and human sciences scholars as well as students obtaining a deeper understanding in the conceptualization of transnational processes and dynamics influencing aging and reciprocal kin work. nele wolter is a doctoral fellow in the research group "ageing in a time of mobility” at the max planck institute for the study of religious and ethnic diversity in göttingen. her dissertation project focuses on working practices among ageing internally displaced persons in cameroon and how these practices intersect with different forms of im/mobilities and temporalities. her research interests focuses particularly on migration, aging, humanenvironment relationships, and the anthropology of work. © 2020 nele wolter microsoft word basta publish.doc the ‘truth’ behind haitian zombies review by natalie a. basta, north dakota state university philippe charlier. zombies: an anthropological investigation of the living dead and translated by richard j. gray ii. 2017. gainesville: university press of florida. pp. 160 isbn: 9780813054575 keywords: zombie, haiti, vodou, forensic, tetrodotoxin in zombies: an anthropological investigation of the living dead, philippe charlier uses biomedicine and physical anthropology to discuss the presence and cultural significance of zombies in haiti. charlier is qualified to evaluate zombies because he is a coroner, forensic pathologist, and paleopathologist with previous experience in archaeology and anthropology. his experiences give him the knowledge needed to assess the biological and cultural aspects of zombies. charlier’s text is composed of nineteen chapters and is sprinkled with small instances of charlier’s humor, an effective method to make the reader feel like they are on the journey with him. he uses a multidisciplinary approach to complete a self-described “anthropological investigation between life and death” (3). his justification for calling it an anthropological investigation comes from the use of traditional ethnographic methods such as participant observation, material collection, and interviews (x, 83). however, because of charlier’s limited scope of anthropological methods, i do not believe the text can be advertised as a traditional piece of anthropological literature such as an ethnography. i thoroughly enjoyed reading charlier’s text, but it lacks a theoretical framework that could provide the structure needed for the piece to align with the style of other anthropological texts. additionally, it does not go into detail on the methods he used to gain his information. his methods are briefly mentioned on two pages in the text, which implies that he is relying solely on observations and participation within the vodou world, completely disregarding any anthropological bodies of literature that would enhance his arguments. despite not being a traditional text, there is a place for the book within anthropology classrooms, specifically advanced courses. the text would be a useful tool for helping seasoned anthropology students learn that the field is accepting of non-traditional texts and methods. charlier begins the work with an overview of zombies and how they are understood by haitians. when i first think of zombies, my mind jumps to the popular works of zombieland and walking dead. however, these zombies are not what charlier means when he uses the term. the zombies we see on popular television are fictionalized characters that are meant to provide entertainment, but the zombies discussed in the text are important cultural entities that do not provide enjoyment. the zombies as understood by haitians take three forms. the first are children who died without being baptized; however, this form of zombie is no longer recognized by haitians. the second is a ghostly spirit that moves around without being attached to a body, akin to a ghost or specter. the third, which occupies charlier’s attention throughout the book, is a person who has become cataleptic (trance-like with a rigid body) due to poisoning. because the person becomes unresponsive to external stimuli, she is considered “dead” and can, therefore, be buried. after burial, she is exhumed by a specific type of vodou priest called a “bokor,” which is associated with evil magic. she is then considered a zombie, completely submissive to the bokor. zombification can be explained through poisoning from the tetrodotoxin of the fugu fish, a type of pufferfish that is considered a delicacy in haiti. interacting with this toxin leads to various clinical symptoms, the most severe of which can lead to a state of apparent death or actual death. the process occurs when an individual comes in contact with (either through physical contact or ingestion) a sub-lethal dose of tetrodotoxin which causes a state of apparent death. often a scorned family member or friend will hire a bokor to poison someone because that person wronged them in some way. the person who consumes the toxin is then in a state of apparent death, which justifies a funeral and burial. soon after the burial, a bokor exhumes the body, resuscitates it, and the individual is considered a zombie. the zombie will live their life following the bokor’s orders, and the bokor has full control of the zombie, stripping it of its autonomy and agency in life. according to charlier, zombies exist at the “convergence of toxicology, medicine, magic, and religion” (31). while medical explanations exist, the cultural reality of zombies finds purchase in religious discourse. the zombification process is carried about by bokors, which are prominent members of the vodou religion. in addition to stripping them of their autonomy, the zombification process strips individuals of both biological and social personhood because when they are buried and a death certificate is signed, they are no longer considered to be living human beings. the legal status of zombies is a confusing matter because they are legally dead even if still biologically alive. the question then arises as to whether or not zombies can ultimately rejoin the world of the living. charlier is concerned with this question throughout his investigation. he learns that zombies have no legal rights and no true nationality. at the time of charlier’s research, there were no avenues for zombies to be “re-instated” as human; however, one criminal law attorney, emmanuel jeanty, is advocating for a certificate of resurrection that would allow zombies to regain their personhood. jeanty is concerned with the legal status of zombies because if zombies are not legally recognized as people, they cannot be held accountable for any crimes (69-70). when a bokor creates a zombie, he is punishing that individual for wrongdoings in life. he takes away the zombie’s individuality to create a soulless being that is easily influenced by the power of suggestion. essentially, the zombie becomes the bokor’s slave. while it was never explained why the zombie is so heavily influenced by suggestion, it is known that the zombie carries out orders without any sense as to why (37). my previous coursework leads me to wonder if the enslaved zombie is tied to haiti’s long history of slavery and mistreatment by others. haiti’s history of slavery is not addressed by charlier; however, a discussion of the history would undoubtably contribute to the text. overall, the book is written (translated) in a compelling manner that will likely make it a wellread piece within and outside of academia. charlier’s thorough knowledge of anthropology and forensic pathology are obvious, and his well-placed humor adds levity to what is ultimately a tragic story about individuals losing their place in the world. i suspect that the text will find a place within the field of medical anthropology, as it highlights the intersection of culture and biology in haiti. i highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in vodou or zombies. natalie basta is a master of science student in anthropology at north dakota state university. she has completed previous research on the use of radiocarbon dating in determining the death date of unidentified forensic remains. she is interested in police practices, personhood within the prison system, forensic death investigating, and the role of death care workers in post-death practices. © 2020 natalie basta microsoft word a possible anthropology_book review final_krishnan.doc playing with possibilities review by shweta krishnan a possible anthropology. methods for uneasy times. by anand pandian. duke university press, 2019. a possible anthropology begins with a question: should i stay (in the discipline) or should i go? the author anand pandian sets up the premise of this book in a conversation with the indigenous métis scholar zoe todd on the subtle and everyday forms of othering that continue to lace the discipline of anthropology, marginalizing certain bodies and bodies of work, while continuing to canonize others. together, they wonder how to make anthropology more open to play, plurality and possibility, even as it stubbornly clings to old paradigms of knowing and allows “the bony white hands of the forefathers” to constantly “claw us back” (3). a possible anthropology, strives for alternative possibilities. at its heart, this book is a critique in the foucauldian sense. in conversations with the french historian-philosopher both in the introduction and the coda, pandian endeavors not to denounce contemporary anthropological praxis but to recognize its limitations and to open it up to new possibilities. in other words, a possible anthropology aspires to reorganize anthropological methods in the contemporary to produce conditions for a different anthropology: an anthropology yet to come. a possible anthropology is both an ethical and a political project. pandian writes for a future by historicizing and politicizing anthropology’s object: the human. this critique is not necessarily new. for several years now, scholars have been delving into other disciplines — critical feminist studies, critical race studies, queer studies, transnational studies, indigenous studies among others to write with, for, and as members of communities that are marginalized, misrecognized or misrepresented in anthropological quests for universalizing theories about ‘the human’ and ‘humanity.’ pandian situates himself with these scholars. but while their works attempt to take these interdisciplinary theories to particular field sites, pandian brings these theories home: critiquing the project of imperialism as it shapes the discipline from within, and aspiring to write not only against this persisting trend but also for an anthropology that can take as its object: a humanity that is yet to come. pandian’s endeavor is deeply ethical and political in yet another sense. he develops ‘a humanity yet to come’ by bringing the humanity of contemporary anthropology in conversations with the precarity that assails the discipline, its practitioners and their interlocutors today: climate change, the refugee crises, the rise of totalitarian and fascist regimes, and cries around the world demanding resistance, subversion and change. how does one ‘do’ anthropology within such chaos? pandian does not attempt to play hero or god by laying out a clear path. instead his quest is reminiscent of haraway’s advice to “stay with the trouble” (haraway 2015): he asks us to stay with the vulnerability and the precarity, and to find in the way they throw open the category of ‘the human,’ inspiration rather than desolation. pandian’s book is organized into three essays, focusing on empiricism, experience and on the promised ‘humanity yet to come.’ the first two essays pave the path to the third. yet, each of these essays also stand alone, allowing scholars to read the book in phases or teach only selected extracts. throughout the book, pandian is in dialogue with several scholars: some of whom appear as secondary interlocutors — their published works scaffold the author’s thoughts. others are primary interlocutors — people with whom pandian develops his commentary on both the limitations and the possibilities within the discipline. with them, the author wanders into spaces where anthropological knowledge is produced — the proverbial fieldsites, departmental corridors, offices, classrooms, homes, and conferences. in conversation with their curiosity for the world, he builds a theory that pushes the reader to reach into the uncertainties besieging us today and develops in conversation with the chaos newer possibilities for doing anthropology. the first essay opens up questions on empiricism. he develops his commentary in dialogue with two anthropologists who were contemporaries, but never met during their lifetimes: zora neale hurston and bronislaw malinowski. the essay opens with malinowski’s thoughts in freedom and civilization. reflecting on the second world war, the polish anthropologist claims, “what we are now fighting for is nothing short of the survival of culture and humanity,” (15). writing years after the category of ‘culture’ was thrown wide open by authors in books such as writing culture (2010), women writing culture (1996), recapturing anthropology: working in the present (1991), fictions of feminist ethnography (1994), pandian strives to expose the vulnerabilities that straddle the category of ‘humanity.’ but his writing is not an invective against malinowski’s steadfast dedication to preserve the category of humanity. instead, pandian delves deep into malinowski’s brainchild — empiricism — and attempts to re-read ‘humanity’ using the works of zora neale hurston. in spite of being boas’s protégé, hurston struggled against the racist undercurrents of anthropology two-fold: she herself seemed to most of her contemporaries an oddity by virtue of her race. additionally, her interlocutors, as people of color, had an awkward relationship with the category of ‘human’ that anthropology strived to understand. but racism did not stop hurston from becoming a remarkable empiricist. with hurston, pandian enters a world where possibility emerges at the horizons of humanity, and from her love of pluralism and multiplicity, he finds another way to approach malinowski’s emphasis on empiricism. thus, two contemporaries who never met in their lifetimes meet in pandian’s writing and invite attention to the possibilities of empiricism. through this careful re-reading, empiricism re-emerges as a site for staying with the vulnerabilities and frailty of humanity. pandian’s second essay focuses on experience. he dialogues with the late, claude levi-strauss to meditate on reading, with michael jackson on writing, with jane guyer on teaching and with natasha meyers on the pleasures of fieldwork. early in the chapter, pandian dwells on levistrauss’s unapologetic love of myth. in this chapter, pandian enters many spaces where anthropology happens: the field and the places of meditation and writing that follow later. in levi-strauss’s house he discovers bookshelves that scale walls and a radio that allowed the french anthropologist to read without distraction. pandian dives into this world of music and myth, examining how levi-strauss’s theories of the connections between myth and music emerged from his own experiences of reading. similarly, pandian finds himself in jackson’s home, in guyer’s classroom and in meyer’s fieldwork, tracking each anthropologist’s method against their own life histories and experiences. what emerges is a method for making anthropology plural by acknowledging the different positionalities from which different anthropologists observe, read, write, and teach. the final essay of a possible anthropology is the most aspirational by far. it focuses on what the book aspires to produce — a humanity yet to come. here, pandian seeks to find a place for anthropologist within a world where activists, artists and fiction writers are collaboratively attempting to redefine narrow approaches to human. he walks his readers through the corridors of the 2016 world conservation congress, engaging with indigenous speakers who attempt to find their voice in the global debate on human efforts to alleviate the conditions of the anthropocene. pandian invites entry into the creative world of richard lage and judith selby lage, where abandoned plastics become artwork that invite questions into trash disposal and recycling. finally, the author comes to dwell on the works of ursula k. le guin, whose fiction in “dreaming alternative worlds,” as a fan once wrote to her (100), offers a new way of looking at the world we live in. from these works, and in conversation with the works of donna haraway, edwardo kohn, anna tsing, ilana feldman, miriam ticktin, hugh gusterson, and others, pandian expands on his theory of ‘a humanity yet to come:’ how can one see ‘the human’ as a category produced by the exclusion of some humans and all nonhumans from the very definition of humanity, how can one see ‘the human’ as a category produced in collaboration with imperialist and capitalist projects, how can one learn to see ‘the human’ as a category that is always porous and in connection with everything that was excluded in its production? it is such a humanity – entangled, collective, plural — that pandian’s empiricist and experiential methods seek to produce. throughout this book, one feels the gravity of deleuze and guattari’s provocation about ethnography’s capacity to “summon ‘a people to come’” (107). in this chapter, pandian turns directly to the french philosophers and invites his readers to plant the seeds for “an anthropology yet to come,” by rethinking and rereading both anthropology’s past and present engagements in the world. a possible anthropology calls attention both to the ways in which anthropological institutions are set up, and the ways in which anthropology as a discipline contributes to social critique. in that sense, this is a book that practicing anthropologists and students of anthropology must both read. i would recommend this book both in introductory classes and in classes for methods. while graduate students focusing on an anthropological career are most likely to find questions about ‘a humanity to come’ most useful, i also believe that undergraduates are very likely to benefit from reading these essays, alongside works that are considered canonical. a final word on the book: in his introduction, pandian draws on susan sontag to note that his book focuses on the anthropologist not as the hero, but as a “medium in a wider world of thought and implication” (9) he writes with an understanding that as mediums anthropologists themselves become open to the precarities and vulnerabilities of the world in which they work and write. he also recognizes that disciplinary practices often ask us to shed this vulnerability in order to produce knowledge that sounds sure of itself. pandian instead offers methods to stay with and write with the open-endedness and vulnerability of fieldwork, so that knowledge acknowledges itself to be situated, collaborative and always in-the-making. shweta krishnan is a phd candidate in the department of anthropology at the george washington university. her research interests include anthropology of religion, environment, indigeneity and south asia. works cited: behar, ruth and gordon, deborah. 1996. women writing culture. berkeley: university of california press. clifford, james and marcus, george. 2010. writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography, 25th anniversary. berkeley: university of california press. fox, richard. 1991. recapturing anthropology: working in the present. sante fe: sar press. haraway, donna. 2016. staying with the trouble. durham: duke university press. viswesaran, kamala. 1994. fictions of feminist ethnography. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. © 2020 shweta krishnan microsoft word kovalyova-publish.doc 1 what is it an archive of? making sense of lively ruins of mumbai mills review by natalia kovalyova finkelstein, maura. “the archive of loss: lively ruination in the mill land mumbai.” duke university press. 2019. how does one live in a place that refuses to recognize one’s existence? this question motivates cultural anthropologist maura finkelstein’s ethnographic work in mumbai whose textile mills were once central for the city’s industrial profile. that industry has long fallen into disregard and all but disappeared except for a few tenacious “pockets of productivity” (p.4), un-recognized by the city’s authorities who consider the mill land history. but the stories that a shrinking cohort of mill workers share with the author come in sharp contrast with the official narrative and its verdict of “loss and absence” (p. 4) placed on the case of mills. organizing those vernacular stories into five “archives,” as she prefers to call them — of the mill, of the worker, of the chawl (tenements), of the great textile strike, and, finally, of industrial fire — the author sets out to demonstrate how her informants “experience infrastructure and ruination” (p. 22). the resulting book the archive of loss: lively ruination in the mill land mumbai uses the trope of an archive to refer to a repository of very special records: embodied in the workers on the factory floor, who live their past “inside out,” configuring the present and paradoxically rarely glancing into the future (p. 24). chapter one presents the “archive” of the mill land and shows its vitality in the face of encroaching nonresidential development. a decade into her fieldwork in central mumbai, finkelstein finds some mills still in operation and workers continuing to forge a semblance of a “normal” life as they go for chai, cook meals, visit friends, and, of course, come to work. chapter two looks into the “archive” of the worker and focuses on feelings and psychical sensations of human bodies that serve the bodies of steel (that is, the machines). chapter three takes the reader to the workers’ tenements and into the “archive” 2 of the chawl. there, the cycle of poverty appears the hardest to break since the home life sets the horizon of expectations so low as to block people’s imagination of a better or even different life and compels them to keep the future at bay. chapter four probes into an important historical event in the mill land, namely, the great strike of 1982-1983. however, one would search the archive of loss in vain for the stories of brave rebels rising against their oppressors. what surfaces instead are ethnic tensions and persistent xenophobia towards migrant workers from the north that seem to have been driving the strike and enabling the majority to pose as vulnerable victims. finally, chapter five addresses a series of mysterious fires that consumed the city mills with an envious regularity. yet, when cast against the cinematic portrayals of industrial fires and their messages of the inevitable and triumphant advent of capitalism, the mills of mumbai beg to differ. they are hardly profitable anymore and barely manage to pay their workers. therefore, their repeated incineration is unlikely to have served anyone’s financial purpose. instead, notes the author, those fires stand out as “a spectacle, a ritual, a movement of absolute transformation,” much like a funeral pyre does (p. 157). and, most importantly, spinning stories —rumors, rather — about the fires allows the workers to claim the limelight, so to speak, in which to derive new meanings and to speculate about looming possibilities. exploring the ruins and chasing what she “cannot see” (p.18) as she rehabilitates the un-recognized, the author inevitably side-steps many hard issues, such as caste, post-colony, or globalization whose stamp on the city is unmistakable. also, conspicuously missing from the account are the mills’ owners even as their behind-the-scene activities ensure that the mills are not razed in the developmental rush, new machinery is occasionally delivered to the premises, and contracts with new trading partners are sought out in order to keep the mills afloat. it is quite possible that the owners and the mills’ management mitigate between the official narrative of the defunct industry and the still productive ruins or that they contribute to reconciliation of their apparent contradiction. yet, we do not get to hear their side of the story. moreover, having heard the voices excavated across the five archives, the reader familiar with the archival enterprise would wonder about the ontology on which those alternative archives are built and how their terms could be deployed for claiming new knowledge and, with it, new power — the core products of all archives as described by jacques derrida, michel foucault, ann laura stoler, terry cook, and other sociologists, anthologists, cultural critics, and archivists. having selected the archival 3 analytics, it is imperative to demonstrate how (or whether) the five archives assist the mill workers in becoming more “resilient, persistent, and visible” (stoler, 2013, p. 5). yet, the question of power is inadvertently skirted in the mill land accounts, an omission particularly striking since the opening pages of the book report the haunting presence of the british raj in the official narrative. if nothing at the mills count as a colonial legacy — and the stories from various “archives” do not mention the colonial past, it is important to ask how they escaped the marks of an imperial project or, mostly likely, how the imperial “tangibles” managed to “fade out of focus” (miller 2005 cited in stoler, 2013, p. 5). tackling the question of power, of the structure of domination in post-colony, and of the lives lived among the imperial debris makes the archive of loss an engaging reading for those willing to advance the project started by maura finkelstein and to approach ethnographically both the official records and the alternative archives. students of other places, cultures, and societies that claim the label of “postindustrial” will find the book useful when searching the ways to document “post-industry” in its daunting hybridity. finally, to scholars of empires and their aftermaths, the book offers a detailed description of decay and ruination as a prolonged process that follows its own logic and unfolds according to its own rules, supporting a ghostly presence of the past that refuses to die down. reference stoler, a.l. 2013. introduction: “the rot remains: from ruins to ruination.” in a.l. stoler (ed.), imperial debris: on ruins and ruination (pp. 1-35). durham, nc: duke university press. natalia kovalyova (phd, ut austin) studies the relationships between discourse and power in a variety of contexts. her most recent research focuses on archival practices in organizations and aims at understanding the enduring practices of control over public memory, group identities, and knowledge making. © 2020 natalia kovalyova we think with animals, and thereby we are human review by melinda reidinger animals and inequality in the ancient world by benjamin s. arbuckle & sue ann mccarty (eds) university press of colorado, 2015 as soon as i learned about the publication of animals and inequality in the ancient world, i was eager to acquire a copy because of my own interests in the historical uses of animals and in food studies. we’ve all heard the maxim about animals being good to think with, but what thoughts will the social zooarchaeologists who contributed to animals and inequality give us to chew on? the volume contains seventeen chapters plus an introduction by the editors, so i will serve up a few samples here to whet your appetite. the emerging subfield of social zooarchaeology seeks to answer old questions that we still ask today about human and animal relations, negotiation of unequal status, and even about the ontological nature of “animalness”—all in the past tense. the authors of the present volume take these questions around the globe and back to various depths of time to visit cultures ranging from the ancient shang, the romanized provinces of the mediterranean, anatolia, benin, mississippian and mesoamerican cultures, and more. since many of the more popular works to emerge in the last few years on animal domestication have been written by geneticists or medical researchers, these essays aim to bring a sense of historical depth to understandings of the transformations of the relationships between humans and myriad other creatures, many of which were never domesticated and therefore escaped analysis in the popular studies. as they trace out different people’s relationships with other species, the archaeologists also explore the ways in which our relationships with animals have marked different statuses within human social groups. many of the essays in this volume pick up upon and further the pioneering work of ian hodder, entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things (2012) who explored categories and contingencies of artifacts, and tim ingold who suggested that we “listen to what non-western peoples (and indeed certain western philosophers critical of mainstream thought) are telling us, we can begin to grasp a quite different view of life: not as the revelation of pre-specified forms but as the process in which forms are generated. every living being, as it is caught up in this process and carries it forward, arises as a undivided centre of awareness and agency –an enfoldment, at some particular nexus, of the generative potential of a total field of relations …in other words, the use of metaphor should be understood as a way of drawing attention to real relational unities rather than of figuratively papering over dualities” (1988, xxiv). since well-preserved animal remains can often be found in abundance at archaeological sites, this volume’s editors benjamin s. arbuckle and sue ann mccarty note their usefulness for interpretive work in their introduction: “the materiality of animals can effectively be used as repositories for, and to express, a wide range of social information.” as per the title, the information mainly referenced here is of social status: how it was acquired, maintained, or lost through access to living or dead animals, or their parts or services (such as traction, or sport, as was the case with falcons). roderick campbell, who studied the ancient shang culture of china, notes that both “animals” and “inequality” are “intertwined systems of classification” (251), which means that we have to view them in multiple, and nuanced ways. “it is no longer good enough to describe animals solely in terms of calorie content; now we must also consider how people used animals to negotiate status and power, frame memories of themselves, and reference their position in social landscapes. such renderings add a needful dynamic element to landscape studies, where animals are seen as active elements in shaping human action” (norman: 311). inequality may have been traditionally characterized as difference in rank or dignity, or nowadays as differential access to important resources, but michael mackinnon reminds us that although inequalities “permeate myriad components of culture,” “upon closer inspection one realizes such imbalances themselves may span multiple components. who or what has more, and why? who or what ranks higher, and why? who or what is privileged or special, and why?” (mackinnon: 315). here is where we want to take a look at animals to help tease out the differences, because, “most cultures distinguish whole ranges of agency, animacy, and potency: from the inanimate, the insect, and the beast through to the sage, the immortal, and the god. the common, organizing intermediary of these categorizations and point of reference is, of course, humanity. moreover, “humanity is generally not so much a point in this spectrum of being as an attenuated and contingent range. the demarcation between god, human, and animal is blurry, shifting, and shaped by local ontologies of order” (campbell: 251-2). zooarchaeology, thus “provides one lens through which inequalities of wealth or status may be visible materially, yet this ideally forms part of a strategy involving analysis of multiple material categories and techniques…the conjunctive approach ideally correlates household-associated faunal assemblages with other indicators of status or wealth to more convincingly infer inequalities…the multiple, independent lines of evidence that build such arguments may include faunal remains, botanicals, other artifacts, use of space, architecture, bioarchaeological data, and documentary history” (sunseri: 167). what’s in the pie? clearly, this volume is intended for archaeologists (particularly faunal analysts) and their advanced students, and to a lesser extent for anthropologists and historians who work on some of the particular topics or cultures covered, or on animals or inequality in broader ways. yet, i feel that there is much here that other readers can draw from as well. the volume’s authors collected and interpreted their faunal data using approaches that are standard within the field today, but they did not select any methods that were experimental, because that was not its raison d'être. i am not going to pretend for the purposes of this review that i know my way around an archaeology lab, but it didn’t matter because the authors do not exclude non-experts from the circle of knowledge. in fact, one of the aspects of all of the essays that i found particularly appealing was the deft manner in which comments and embedded definitions that seem like “asides“ draw even non-specialists into the conversation. some particular examples that come to mind relate to differences among animal fibers such as wool, hair, and kemp, the old huntsman’s definition of “excoriation,” the “corbyn bone,” the original contents of a “humble pie,” and the frequent inclusion of common english names for animals next to their latin ones. “what is an animal?” was the deceptively complex question asked by ingold’s eponymous 1988 volume, which seems to have inspired a number of the present volume’s authors . the question defies us to take it seriously, because it seems to submit to a simple us/them definition for an answer. however, this is just exploiting the privilege of an uninterrogated querier to make a definition of others by assuming their exclusion, so, to turn that back around: what is it about animals that makes us human? can we channel descartes through lévi-strauss and say “i think with animals, therefore, or rather thereby, i am human?” if there isn’t an answer that fits all humans and all animals at all times, how do some groups or individuals become (socially) more or less human than others? and can we draw scales from some absolute form of animality (or other non-human quality) through partly, fully and more-than human beings, such as gods/spirits/ancestors? how will these scales look in cross-cultural comparison? and within a particular one, how does one come to occupy one of these positions within complex networks or hierarchies of beings? as one answer, sugiyama et al. provide an ojibwa concept of personhood, defined by agency and capacity for metamorphosis through establishing interpersonal relationships, which seems to extend beyond humans and animals to also encompass plants and other natural objects (13). this involves an intricate dance with the productivity of the landscapes they can either access themselves, or through their political or other ties. “through granting personhood to animate and inanimate beings, amerindian societies perceive that as humans move through an empirical natural environment they are also moving through a cultural landscape that becomes the setting for developing meaningful relationships with their surroundings” (saunders 1991:109). thus, in this case, the animal and human are “constructed”—created by a culture-specific system of classification and etymology based on repeated relationships that are negotiated personally and/or collectively with the ‘other-than-human persons’ (hallowell 2002; ulloa 2002)” (ibid). when ethnozoology creates hierarchies of animals, such as the one uncovered in the burial offerings found in the mexican basin city of teotihuacan (classic period), the domestication and management of the powerful beasts styled as “masters of animals,” such as jaguars, eagles (the “jaguars of the sky”), wolves, and pumas, put those who made the creatures submit to their power at an analogous vertical distance above those they ruled to the predators’ distance from their prey. animals that were captured, kept within the city, and then ultimately sacrificed by ruling elites served as metaphors for or exemplified state power and leaders’ personal charisma and helped those who wielded them to incorporate cosmological qualities into their performances. “it is obvious that the species that the teotihuacanos picked for state-level rituals were determined by the widely established symbolism of the most ferocious carnivores present in the landscape. these were empowered animals, beasts that gained a fundamental role in state societies through their ecological and biological characteristics, their interaction with humans, and their status as top-level carnivores within the natural hierarchy” (sugiyama et al.: 26). animals also had a part to play in constructing mental maps and cosmologies of empire. as in the above case, the temple in tenochtitlan also held buried remains of species that were not considered comestible, but were imbued with symbolic values. this time, however, there was a geographical breadth to their selection that emphasized the conquests and political or economic ties thus established as well as resources that were available through tribute and trade to the rulers of an empire that reached out to both the pacific and atlantic oceans, spanning a vast array of ecosystems in between. “the use of fauna in offerings to recreate[s] vertical tiers of the universe and configure[s] veritable cosmograms…thus, coral, clams, and snails symbolized the aquatic underworld; felines, turtles, and sawfish, the surface of the earth; and eagles, herons, and hummingbirds, the skies above” (luján et al.: 36). the taxa identified had lived in nine different environments including coastal seas, reefs, estuaries, freshwater environments, grasslands/pine-oak forests, hillsides and prairies, temperate and tropical forests, temperate and arid mountains, and deserts” (ibid: 44). some of these creatures were distinguished by unusual features such as strangely-shaped bodies, long spines, sharp teeth, or unusual colors (ibid: 36). in the authors’ opinion, the mexica priests who buried these faunal assemblages “endeavored to express, through ritual language, a typical ‘definition by extension’—that is, a definition that expressed the whole by enumerating each one of its parts (ibid: 53). but it was not only the bearers of state power who used animals to characterize their status. as h. edwin jackson discovered, “ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts indicate the importance of animals as representatives of different parts of the earthly and cosmic realms of [prehistoric mississipian] indian conceptualizations of the universe. these associations were often inferred from particular characteristics of certain taxa; simultaneously, as determined by the realms they represented, the associations conferred supernatural qualities on the elite social stratum…there were likely to have been multiple dimensions on which these qualities were measured: pure–polluted, order–disorder, weak–strong, and harmless–dangerous, for example” (jackson: 113). here, researchers discovered there were subtle differences to be teased out in the frequency of particular cuts of meat, the scale of feasting, access to prestigious craft items made from non-food animals, or sometimes the presence of remains of an animal, such as a squirrel, that was known to represent diplomatic office in later societies that arose in the region surveyed. animals could be also be used to fit into more abstract cosmological schemata, as exemplified in abigail holeman’s study on the use of red and green feathers from non-indigenous scarlet and military macaws in northern mexico. the use of color/directional symbolism, sometimes associated with birds, animals, stones, shells, clans, deities, seasons, etc. is well known across the pueblo lands of the american southwest all the way down to southern mesoamerica, with local variations in the correspondences. the parrots’ brilliant plumage therefore participated in a structuring principle that governed many areas of life and granted access to arcane powers to those who wielded the most powerful color-bearing objects. she writes: “along with others, i argue the power to create and maintain a hierarchical position lay in the ability to control and mobilize ritual knowledge…or as whiteley put it in reference to the hopi, ‘secret ritual knowledge serves as the. . .”currency” of power. . .[and] both configures the structuring of hierarchy and provides the idiom of political action.’ to be effective, this ritual knowledge must be displayed in highly controlled contexts; in other words, it must be displayed in rituals” (130). in the case of the items crafted with the parrot feathers in paquimé, they must be understood within the context of “repeated associations of red and green across different media, suggesting the scarlet macaw was folded into a local system of meaning. these items may have taken on significance mainly in reference to each other, or the red and green in combination. this suggests that red and green were part of a ritual complex that bestowed rank on those who were able to use these symbols and display their knowledge in rituals associated with both human and avian mortuary practices. the limited distribution of both the birds and the ceramic hand drum suggest that access to these items was restricted…there was clearly a limited group of people allowed to mobilize the red and green colors together, and therefore a limited number of people who could demonstrate their ritual knowledge in this particular way by linking themselves to the deities and/or powers associated with these colors” (139-140). lest it seem that animals can only be passively manipulated by humans beings into symbolizing their position vis-à-vis others of their kind, the study by neil l. norman entitled “pythons, pigs, and political process in the hueda kingdom, benin, west africa ad 1650–1727” discusses the roles played by pythons in “multiple scales” (oof! that was a bad one!) and locations within the historical kingdom of hueda. his contribution “builds on attempts to expand the theorization of socialized landscapes beyond built places and the unbuilt spaces connecting them, to include the numerous animate, nonhuman things that did memory work, actively framed social relations, and served as mediums for configuring and reconfiguring identity. in short, the chapter argues that pythons were part of the materiality of the huedan social world and thus builds on this volume’s focus on writing animals into human landscapes to arrive at a more complete rendering of past social landscapes” (p. 297). as part of both the human and natural landscapes (ibid: 305), pythons shaped relationships between people, their cosmos, and their domestic spaces: huedans today associate ditches with pythons, because ditches contain aesthetic elements associated with the constrictors. these shadowy and dank spaces are ideal for python habitation; they provide the cool and moist temperature that protects a python’s skin, and the vermin that provide a large portion of their diet. when viewed from the surface, the ditches trace a sinuous pattern on the landscape and shape movement away from their voids in undulating patterns. such shapes and patterns are also associated with the movement of pythons, as are strips of white cloth flapping in the breeze and a cord or string placed on the ground. the logic is clear: ditches that evoke the aesthetic elements associated with pythons and that restrict practitioners’ movements are potent landscape features aimed at protecting the family, or families, living in interiors of house compounds from uncertainty located on the outside (norman and kelly 2004; p. 306). beyond protecting and delineating the huedan household compound, the snakes also served as senior or tutelary deities, and were sometimes also used to lend grandeur to massive affairs of state, such as an annual parade by the king and his retinue to their temple, thus bringing something of the wild into cultural spaces. h. edwin jackson describes a general rule for elite control of animals and their gifts to humankind: “in societies with centralized economies, autocratic rulers and/or other elites also often had control of the rearing of domesticated animals, and were able to ‘divert livestock resources as needed to support the goals of state, as well as control access to animal products in a manner that ensured that the social and political order was reflected by patterns of consumption” (p. 107). however, when animals are neither wild (such as the pythons), nor primarily slaughtered for meat or for materials for craft products – because their consumption may be uneconomical – it can be useful to examine variable access to secondary animal products. “mechanisms of communication in an ancient empire: the correspondence between the king of assyria and his magnates in the 8th century bc” – assyrian empire builders (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sargon/) close examination of faunal remains can help disentangle the webs of interrelationship between groups who have interwoven yet distinct roles in a society, as levent atisi manages in his “tracing inequality from assur to kultepe/kanesh: merchants, donkeys and clay tablets.” he writes: “systems of animal management and exploitation played a central role in establishing and maintaining systems of inequality at kanesh during the mba.” in an area where ethnicity seemed to be a fluid concept lacking fixed markers, “asymmetrical access” to animals that could be ridden, driven before a plough, used to carry packs, or sheared for wool not only shored up an individual’s or a household’s position by providing immediate services and a form of economic surpluses and heritable wealth, but, could even (in the case of wool, anyway) on a larger scale “protect the trade network” and “legitimize the local political agendas,” which were based upon keeping the social roles disparate (p. 243). now that we’ve seen the uses to which animals-as-things can be directed, roderick campbell helpfully re-complicates the question of how these things come to be by opening up his brilliant essay “animal, human, god: pathways of shang animality and divinity” with the etymology of the concept of the “thing”.1 he colors between the “lines” traced out by tim ingold (2007) by stating that “the nature of things is not bounded and atomistic, but rather collective and interconnected. second, in seeing people in the same terms he implies at least potential equivalence. third, by conceiving both people and things as tied-together paths of growth and movement, he asks us to consider the dimension of time and the potential for transformation” (p. 251). in this study, the positioning of human beings takes place within the context of their shifting identification with polarized qualities like wild/tame or male/female. a given human being may be positioned closer to gods and deified ancestors or to livestock than to other humans occupying the middle ground – but each individual is a moving target. displacement from one position on the scales of honor, value and service to another would take place after particular types of actions had been performed upon one, or fate had taken a decisive course. war, in particular, was capable of wreaking such changes, for it “combined the divine, the human, the animal, and the material in a crucible of violence that dialectically transformed both the defeated and the victors, captives, and captors. meeting as equals on the field of battle, the captured losers would be reduced to something less than human, the capturing victors elevated to something more” (p. 256). besides war, hunting was another deeply consequential activity that, “along with sacrifice and divination, formed a suite of kingly ordering practices aimed at the domestication of the enemy, the wild, the dead, and the numinous” (p. 252). if each person’s status is liable to change, humanity, campbell tells us (as i already cited above, but repeated here for emphasis), “is generally not so much a point in this spectrum of being as an attenuated and contingent range. the demarcation between god, human, and animal is blurry, shifting, and shaped by local ontologies of order,” or, to put a finer point on it, distinctions are graded by legible acts of ordering (as above, though those are not the only ones). along this scale, “animal” becomes a relational term of being and agency rather than a “fixed category of bounded things”. he suggests following ingold’s (2008) lead and viewing animals, therefore, as “shifting nodes of interconnected properties and relationships” (p. 252), which allows us to trace out the unique life stories of individuals. the genius of this chapter, which i have to admit was my favorite in the whole collection, was the way that following these movements generated laconic biographies. portraits like the one below, of a sacrificed warrior, provide excellent illustration for the author’s primary argument about the fluidity of these categories: “…from child to kinsman, to respected warrior, to nameless captive, to animalized sacrificial livestock, to symbolically destroyed body, to ritual deposit and animating force. this pathway of ren [person] crosses that of other categories of offering at the locus of elite sacrifice such as niu (cattle), shi (pig), chuan (dog), or yang (sheep/goat) but diverges from most of them thereafter, terminating as ritual deposit rather than passing through the kitchen and the meal to the midden, or the workshop to a new life as a bone artifact” (p. 254). human/animal relationships can be enigmatic. if you’re still reading this review, you may have worked up an appetite by now. the anthropological book forum is not yet interactive enough to dispense snacks, but we can open up a discussion of food and you can go get your own. arjun appadurai’s (1981) concept of “gastro-politics,” or using food to create and reinforce competitive social advantage, as the editors parse it, is nothing new. (“the history of the world, my sweet, is who gets eaten and who gets to eat” – sweeney todd.) yet, while this may be a commonly entertained understanding, new examples can always be found that challenge our ideas about who had access to what sort of victuals, how they were distributed, or – even more specifically – what various parts or cuts of meat may have meant to those who parceled them out and consumed them (or perhaps craftily re-sold or redistributed them through unofficial channels.) as susan defrance illustrated with findings from the wari site of cerro baul, southern peru, sometimes elite status is indicated by a “luxury of variety” in both food and nonfood animals. “the ability to acquire a variety of animals reflects elite control of trade networks, the means to transport food items from distant lands, and the ability to order specialists to acquire local wild animals through hunting or other capture methods…a variety of fauna may also signify gifts or offerings that are brought by supplicants or individuals invited from the hinterland to the regional capital. a diverse range of foods circumscribed in their spatial distribution may indicate that elites created a class of luxury foods and restricted the intake of these foods to enforce their social standing” (p. 63). where people are able to hunt, fish, or gather animal sources of protein outside of organized networks of husbandry, the elite’s share of the butchery may be defined more by relative abundance, or the cuts of meat they consumed. or, perhaps, by their ability to hold larger-scale feasts than others (see watson: 146 for discussion of hayden’s typology of distinctive and solidarity-type feasts), or access to more luxurious ritual or craft goods. on the other hand, there have been places where a more monotonous diet could indicate elite status. such was the case with pork in the roman empire/romanized provinces, where the elite associations for pork-rich diets developed through elite identity labeling and military dietary influence. “both of the key social groups (elites and the military), it appears, regularly promoted the consumption of pork, where viable, as a means to display inequality. they wished to be viewed as special and privileged in this respect, and pork consumption helped characterize this inequality” (pp. 329-330). as a general principle, “elite control over animal-based commodity production” has been viewed as “one of the primary factors that fueled the rise of complex societies in multiple regions of the old world” (arbuckle and mccarty: 6). but do the elite always enforce their will? and is their will always to further expand the disparity between their own position and others’? when can we observe pushback from below, or attempts by elites themselves to rein in their own powers? the essay by joshua wright about the mongolian structures called khirigsuur, and the one by naomi sykes on venison consumption patterns in roman britain speak of sacrifice and monumental architecture that undermines social inequality and of fellowships of poachers and smugglers. turning first to mongolia, the dominant landmarks provide an interesting case study in the institutions that helped knit societies together in the steppes of inner asia, where nomadic pastoralists tended to leave behind public monuments rather than domestic structures. the author argues that these building projects “discourage inequality by commemorating events of social cohesion…the largest monuments are not monuments to hierarchy but are instead demonstrations of community solidarity and leveling mechanisms in a bronze age society in which models of social order were being negotiated by early nomadic pastoralists” (wright: 275). in the mongolian human ecology, each family was equally reliant upon horses for food, travel, traction and some other secondary products such as milk and bone. while the animals were certainly repositories of value and personal wealth, they were also “common, quotidian tools” (ibid: 283) to which everyone had access, for the nomadic lifestyle required it, and she suggests that the monuments, although they contained the bones of sacrificed animals, nonetheless signified living horses (p. 277) in a permanent way. ritual centers where horses were “consumed” (in sacrifice) therefore performed, in a sense, the same action as each herder when he culled his own. such acts were constitutive of a common cosmology and reflected a mortuary order which was not centered on hierarchy but “on the affirmation of common experience in a mobile world in which humans and animals interact within a landscape made up of subsistence resources and monumental structures” (ibid: 283). “[t]he answer to the question of ’who caused the horses to be sacrificed at these monuments’ is that those who gathered there did. they did so not by the command of one person, living or dead, but by the will of the group” (ibid: 286). furthermore, the khirigsuur [stone mounds with outlying structures; all of which contained the remains of horses] were not formally much different from funerary monuments for wealthy, charismatic leaders, though the latter would typically contain few equid remains (ibid); so if this can be styled a “popular” type of architecture, it was not set apart from an elite type. “the rhetoric of meat apportionment: evidence for exclusion, inclusion, and social position in medieval england” by naomi sykes focuses on the procurement, portioning, and distribution of venison. she reminds us that “as animal carcasses are, by nature, hierarchical, the giving and receiving of meat often plays an important sociopolitical role, with cuts of different (perceived) quality being given to individuals as a meaty symbol of their age, gender, wealth, or power...exclusion from such performances can be equally expressive, communicating separation and social difference” (p. 356). for her analysis, she uses animal bones as a primary material since there is little textual evidence for the foodways of the time, then she turns to knives, including the renowned seax, and ceremonial drinking vessels which first served as practical, then mainly symbolic tools. she describes a complex interlocking of estates and duties revolving around exchanges of foodstuffs: the period’s economy was based on the accumulation and redistribution of food, whereby landholders were paid in kind for the use of their land, with portions of these food rents given over to support kings and their court as they toured their kingdoms. kings could, in turn, transfer accrued provisions to religious institutions that, unlike the itinerant royal court, were stationary and depended on supplies gravitating toward them. lower down the social scale, estate workers could expect to receive food payments in return for their services…the skeletal distribution for religious houses suggests that ecclesiastics were taking receipt of pre-butchered joints of venison and possibly skins (indicated by the high representation of feet), and it is feasible that these were gifted by the king or local nobles in return for pastoral care. the overrepresentation of heads on elite sites finds resonance with the practices of modern hunting and pastoral societies. (p. 360) in this society, to maintain one’s position against other comers was akin to a zero-sum game. when others could gain the same privileges, then one’s own position had to be slipping. “[f]or the thegns it was not enough simply to hunt more often; in order to maintain their social position they had to stop the lower classes from doing likewise. so, whereas it had previously been accepted that wild animals were res nullius (property of no one), the late anglo-saxon elite established private game reserves and other restrictions that curbed the rights of peasants to take and consume wild animals “ (p. 362). that is not to say, though, that peasants did not participate in hunting, but they would be hired as beaters and drivers. “together with the overall reduction in game representation seen for lower-status settlements, this hints that the peasants were being excluded from hunting culture and presumably also the halls where venison was divided and consumed” (ibid). by the late anglo-saxon period, everyone knew their place and their duties well: they had by that time already been laid out formally within charters and documents such as the rectitudines singularum personarum (p. 365). therefore, there was no more need to swagger with ostentations carving and serving implements. while cultural debates rage on the effects of inequality in the societies we live in, they seem to take on the character of polarity: that this much inequality is too much, or that much is still tolerable, or a range is identified that might be pushed wider or squeezed back together. these debates are generally constructive for us and will, of course, continue. however, part of the message conveyed by the end of this collection is that inequality can also be a creative and constitutive force within a society. “inequality should not always be associated with social division because, although it is clear that venison was being used to define social position, its communal consumption must simultaneously have served to create community” (sykes: 368). it seems clear that inequality should not always be viewed in negative terms because, in many respects, community does not exist without it – even in the least hierarchical societies there is internal ranking” (p. 370). while such examples are far from abundant, it is instructive to observe where people seem to have been brought together in juicy, creative, and beneficial ways, and where, on the other hand, divisions have fomented trouble. in conclusion, i heartily recommend this volume to anyone who would like to read interesting and unusual case studies that have been unpacked by archaeologists from various corners of the globe and strata of human history. those who study human-animal-environmental relationships or who are interested in acquiring a new lens through which to view social inequality will find it well worth their time and it will open up new challenges for their own research projects. note 1. here is an even more detailed etymology, which has been painstakingly crafted from six different reference works: ”it is possible to trace back the origin of the substantive thing to the indo-european root *ten-, which had a main acceptation of "to extend (in space or in time)". originally, this indoeuropean root denoted the idea of a "meeting at a fixed time", which could certainly explain the development of the meanings "affairs", "things", and "thing" during the evolution of the substantive. the substantive thing is related to the gothic þeihs ("time, assembly taking place at a fixed time") through this indo-european root. the indo-european root then generated the proto-germanic root *thenzán, from which the substantive thing originates in old english. through its proto-germanic root, the substantive thing is related to the following words: thing ("assembly, action, matter, thing") in old frisian, thing ("assembly, action, matter, thing") in old saxon, thing in old dutch, dinc ("law suit, matter, thing") in middle dutch, which became ding ("thing") in modern dutch, and ding, dinc or thing ("assembly, law suit, thing") in old german, which then became dinc ("assembly") in middle high german, and then ding ("matter, affairs, thing") in modern german…”which brings us to our modern english concept of a “thing,” which, of course, is deeply entangled with many forms of law, decisions by assemblies of important persons, and trajectories through time and space. if you are still reading this, the nerd in me salutes the nerd in you. source: http://www.dualjuridik.org/uk/etymology/thing.htm references cited appadurai, arjun 1981. “gastro-politics in hindu south asia. american ethnologist vol. 8, no. 3, symbolism and cognition (aug., 1981), pp. 494-511 dualjuridik: http://www.dualjuridik.org/uk/etymology/thing.htm hodder, ian 2012. entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things. chichester: wiley-blackwell. ingold, tim 1988. what is an animal? london: unwin hyman. 2007. lines: a brief history. abington: routledge. melinda reidinger studied cultural anthropology at the university of virginia and now teaches at anglo-american university in prague. her current research interests are in the entanglements of native and recently created breeds of animals with totalitarian regimes in central europe, and in the history of the fruit tree plantings along country roads. managed landscapes, exurban rituals and retreats, and the persistence of romantic ideas of nature and civilization are some of the most frequently recurring themes in her work. © 2015 melinda reidinger microsoft word gaini 2_with comments.doc 1 from mogadishu to melbourne – rediscovering place in a globalized world review by firouz gaini lems, annika. being-here: placemaking in a world of movement. berghahn books 2018, 220 pp. isbn 978-1-78533-849-6 in her monograph, annika lems searches for answers to questions about the meaning of place, home and memory through the biographical narratives of three persons who left somalia in early adulthood and quite accidentally ended up in melbourne (australia) after complicated trails through different countries. the main body of the book, nine chapters organized in two parts entitled ‘emplacement’ and ‘displacement,’ discusses and analyzes the experiences and life stories of the two main protagonists, omar and halima, who with their storytelling (or ‘story-building’), 'have opened up the possibility of understanding human emplacement as located at the crossroads between the closeness of place and the infinity of the universe' (213). in this seminal publication in the framework of existential phenomenological anthropology, lems links sein (being) and da (here) in her theoretical illustration of the relationship between space and place in a globalized world. a perspective reflecting her empirically-based effort to rethink the meaning of place in dominant contemporary anthropological scholarship. storytelling, she says, 'is another crossroad at which places and memories from the past and impressions and experiences from the present begin to leak into each other' (216). drawing on anthropological and philosophical studies of space and place, with focus on the work of existential and philosophical thinkers, for instance heidegger, casey, bachelard, who, she says, stress that 'there is no being out of place' (17). lems advocates a 'turn towards lived experience of place' (21). in moving through places, and not just through ‘indifferent space,’ lems argues, people 'shape them and are in turn shaped by them' (22). resonating ingold’s wayfarers, showing how people move through – not across – the world in the quest for a better life. being-here is an impressive book. it demonstrates the power of storytelling among people who were born in a country famed for its love of the art of storytelling. mohamed ibrahim, omar and halima, who fled their native country because of the war and violence and the disintegration of somalia, do not want to be labelled 2 refugees. through their life stories, a method creating 'an understanding of humans as being born of and into the world, we get a more complex understanding of displacement' (p. 51). we are looking at their everyday struggles, walking and talking with them, and getting used to ‘the lived messiness’ of the story-telling moment (38-43). lems focus on 'everyday acts of meaning-making' in order to get a richer understanding of the 'role of place in a world of movement' (53). her humane and intersubjective approach to the life worlds of omar and halima, linking her own experiences as an european academic immigrant in australia to their cultural narratives, and her personal reflections on home and family to their stories about somali family networks and ‘home building,’ creates an image of people who want to dwell in a place 'open enough to perceive opportunities to move forward in one’s life' (119). melbourne is their home and they want their children to be recognized as australians without having to excuse the migration history of the family. omar says for instance: 'yes, i am somali, and i am born somali from one of the somali families; however i didn’t chose to be born somali; it just happened that way. but i believe australia offered me more than what somalia offered me in terms of the past and in the present' (134). of course, memories from somalia, the smell, the sky, the colors, the sounds, etcetera, is part of the ‘story.’ some things of the past are easy to talk about, others are kept in silent painful stories. drawing on ricoeur’s concept of memory places, but connecting it to the present, lems argues that memory places illustrate the 'lived messiness of life’s temporal flows.' in her creative autobiographical book 'what the oceans remember' (2019), sonja boon writes her family’s story and its movement between countries and continents through centuries. in the last section she writes: 'maybe origins are a mirage. maybe belonging is a fiction, something each of us creates for ourselves. and maybe, then, home is the journey itself' (262). for the somali community in melbourne, and most clearly through the voice of halima, 'home, place and family seem to almost become one' (158). they have their shops and social events in melbourne, keeping people connected to each other, and helping the unemployed and lonely to find new hopes for the future. they invite, according to lems, an understanding of place allowing it to 'touch and reach out to the wider world' (157). nevertheless, the loss of somalia as a place to return ‘home’ to, its extreme destruction through the last decades (‘the age of desperate exodus,’ as ahmed samatar calls it), is traumatizing. it is, says halima, a lost place (178). halima and others from her community do not give up, they work hard to establish a ‘place-bound stability’ and to avoid the ‘continuous state of limbo’ (204). they work hard ‘to belong’ (205). this contradicts images of nomads avoiding homeboundedness in the twenty-first century. it also opposes the simple ‘rootlessness’ as the expression of mobility and freedom. paradoxically, many people experience roots 'like an extra pair of wings,' says hage (22). 3 being-here is a thought-provoking book unravelling the key role of storytelling in migrants’ movements, place-making and everyday struggle. her study breaks out of the tautologies of the study of international migration, manifesting the openness, in its ambiguities and potentials, of human life. § firouz gaini is a professor of anthropology at the university of the faroe islands. gaini has done research on young people, identity, place and gender. young people's migration plans and attachment to place (local identities) is one of the main topics of his ongoing research projects. gaini is also one of the editors of a book on islands and gender to be published by routledge in 2020. works cited: boon, s, 2019. what the oceans remember. waterloo (canada): wilfrid laurier university press samatar, s. 2010. ‘somalia: a nation’s literary death tops its political demise’ in m. höhne and v. luling (eds.), peace and milk, drought and war: somali culture, society and politics. new york: columbia university press, pp. 207-220 ricoeur, p. 2004. memory, history, forgetting. chicago il: university of chicago press © 2020 firouz gaini microsoft word 237-733-1-rv_pusok_final.docx 1 on making a living and of the reproduction of the working class work and livelihoods: history, ethnography and models in times of crisis. susana narotzky and victoria goddard (eds.). new york and london: routledge, 2017; 223 pp. (list of figures, list of contributors, index). isbn 978-1-138-81398-4 the chapters in work and livelihood: history, ethnography and models in times of crisis give anthropological (analytical) and ethnographic depth to understanding the effects of flexibility on individuals and communities affected by the restructurings of heavy industry in the post-socialist countries in europe and south america. this “polysemic concept” (narotzky cited in this volume, p. 212) is also central to zygmunt bauman’s understanding of what he calls a liquid modernity – a permanentization of “times of crisis.” reading work and livelihood in conversation with bauman’s analyses (e.g., bauman 2007) not only provides us with an intriguing contrast of anthropological and sociological perspectives about the modernities people(s) navigate in, but also allows for different subjectivities to enter this often much too alienating discourse. structured into four sections, these are framed by an introduction (victoria goddard) and the concluding remarks (susana narotzky) of the editors, in which they emphasise the main themes and theoretical outcomes of the volume. in section i (past, present and future: generations in times of crisis) pine (lublin, poland), perelman and vargas (san nicolás, argentina) and díaz crovetto (volta redonda, brazil) discuss changes in generational dynamics connected to processes of privatization, globalization and adherence to capitalist norms. they describe and analyse the (im)possibilities of generational transmission in circumstances where dramatic changes in the structure and functioning of local heavy industries, and the accompanying changes in the role of these factories in the social and economic fabric of the local communities force workers to adopt new strategies in attempting to secure jobs for the younger generation. in places where steel and mining families were the norm defining continuity 2 for the place and the community, or where the fall of socialism disrupted lives and livelihoods, the different generations perceive and have to navigate very different realities. generational transmission – in its traditional sense – becomes redundant, and in this friction of differing experiences, both parties feel a certain kind of loss. in section ii (continuities and discontinuities), d’aloisio (melfi, italy), trappmann (west germany and uk) and spyridakis (piraeus, greece) analyse changing gender relations brought about by the employment of female workforce in heavy industry, and increasingly challenging ideals of masculinity due to long-term precarity and deindustrialization. informal activities and a wide social and kinship network are employed to subsidize wage-work. male workers (or former workers) experience redundancy and take ever higher risks with dangerous jobs, while female workers need to carry the double burden of domestic responsibility and inflexible factory shifts. in section iii (lives of worth), don kalb (eindhoven and wroclav), and wódz and gnieciak (będzin ksawera, poland) give voice to informants who express a sense of loss of worth. devaluation of lives is experienced both on a personal level in failure to narrate life experiences in a way that is meaningful or relevant to the lived experiences of younger generations, and on the level of social status and identity in the gradual devaluation of production work in face of knowledge-based industries in the processes of capitalist transition throughout eastern europe. in a parallel process, places are (in a quite literal sense) stripped of their value in sites of mines. whereas extractive and production sectors were heavily invested in before and during socialism, these sites are almost entirely neglected since other, more profitable sectors can function with fewer, more specialised workers. in section iv (politics and resistance) buzalka and ferencová (podbrezová, slovakia), kasmir (spring hill, usa) and sabaté muriel (galicia, spain) describe the stratification of the working class, in the rise of another kind of worker (p. 209) alongside those working in the factory: the temporary, the outsourced, the ever more precarious. capitalism, and socialism both “undermine the effectiveness of and status of workers’ organizations” (p. 16), which are often (like in the case of cowley workers presented by kasmir) overwhelmed by the task of protecting the exploitative, unhealthy jobs of workers. the idea that accompanies the rising of the other kind of worker is flexibility. one of the tantalising ideas of modern consumerist culture is the potential to be reborn an infinite number of times: with each new job, each new product, each and every present that is void of the constraints of the past and the consequences of the future (bauman 2007). flexibility is desirable. but for whom? whereas bauman will stress the power dynamics inherent in this concept that is restructuring society (societies) 3 on every level and of the precarity and alienation attached to these dynamics, the chapters in this volume, and the surfacing themes of worth, place, power, continuity and discontinuity, and the ethnographic accounts and anthropological analyses give nuance and human reality to understanding what modern life means for the most vulnerable. also central to the volume is the tension between the abstract concept of space and the concreteness of place, the domain of actual living people. whereas space is an abstraction of capital, of state power, an abstract assessment of political, economic and symbolic value, place is important for informants and anthropologists on multiple levels. on the one hand, place is multidimensional and multi-scalar. it is what is perceived, experienced, changed, located and referenced in people’s experiences and narratives, in their accounts of navigating through a world. it is where they work, and which “in workers’ vision are where they need to make a living in all the social complexity that this entails, i.e., sustaining life, being a social person, someone with dignity and respect” (p. 212). and in these endeavours they tend to their social relationships (perelman and vargas, d’aloisio, trappmann, spyridakis, sabaté muriel, see also ingold 2000), they engage with the landscape (wódz and gnieciak, buzalka and ferencová), they co-create, maintain and re-negotiate value (pine, díaz crovetto, trappmann, spyridakis, kalb, wódz and gnieciak, sabaté muriel) and experience time in the longue durée. “the attempt to hold back worthlessness is their main purpose and often results in moving from place to place and creating trans-local places” (p.212), as narotzky sums up in her concluding remarks. on the other hand, place is where people(s) are located. in their ventures to “hold back worthlessness,” people strive to “make history,” and in this process, difference emerges in the tension between place and space, which is experienced in spontaneous entanglements of people’s lives, and emphasised in intentional production of differences as a means of control (p. 207). the tensions between place and space are analysed in anthropological work in their endeavour to comprehend the impacts of capital, corporations, and hegemonic power, whereas places are emphasised and described as distinct and different in ethnographic work to draw on (assumed) knowledge about the specifics of historical, cultural, economic and political background regarding their accounts. apart from the insightful analyses, one of the merits of the volume is the range of ethnographic methods it employs, and the resulting material, which comprises life stories and personal narratives (e.g., kalb, pines), ethnographic accounts of specific places (eg. wódz and gnieciak, spyridakis) and comparative analyses of larger regions (e.g., kasmir, trappmann, buzalka and ferencová). 4 should anyone be interested in recent ethnographies of the working class, political ecology, anthropology of space and place, extractive industries, post-socialism and understanding precarity and informal workers’ networks, this volume is indispensable. references: bauman, zygmunt. 2007. consuming life. london: polity. ingold, tim. 2000. the perception of the environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. london: routledge. imola püsök is a phd student at the university of pécs. previously she has studied at the university of aberdeen and the babeș-bolyai university in cluj napoca. her areas of interest include environmental and economic anthropology, landscape and dwelling, mining and postindustrialism, post-socialism, knowledge and knowledge production, anthropology and education, youth and adolescence. for her phd thesis she is researching changing social, economic and environmental relations in roșia montană, a post-indistrial town in romania. © 2020 imola püsök microsoft word keil final.docx 1 twenty-first century world-making through processes of domestication blanchette, alex. 2020. porkopolis: american animality, standardized life, & the factory farm. duke university press. isbn – 978-1-4780-0840-8 in porkopolis, the “industrial pig” is a being that binds and organizes the socio-ecological worlds of both the book’s subjects and its readers. alex blanchette’s compelling ethnography centers on a factory farm in an unspecified town in the united states’ midwest. home to one of the densest populations of sus scrofa in the world, the factory kills up to 20,000 pigs every day. rejecting the notion that north america is post-industrial, blanchette explores how concepts and experimental practices of industrialization are finding novel ways of extracting profit from human and pig bodies by redefining “animality” and inventing new forms of interspecies labor and relations. blanchette’s examination of the conceiving, raising, and killing of pigs deftly highlights how this process is both founded on and performs divisions in class, race, and gender. porkopolis’ sober analysis of human and pig entanglement defies simple tropes of domination, objectification, and alienation. while the author’s ethical and political commitments are not explicitly brought to fore until the final chapters, the detailed ethnographic description of laboring bodies within industrial capitalism speaks for itself. porkopolis reveals a project deeply troubling in its scale, imagination, and treatment of pigs and humans alike. divided into five parts, the book’s overarching narrative focuses on a different stage in the industrial pig’s life and death cycle, with each part composed of two chapters. organized in this manner, porkopolis develops a unique and engaging rhythm. the initial chapter in each part opens broad questions and themes, illuminated through ethnographic vignettes as well as images from photographer-collaborator, sean sprague. the following chapter then interrogates in further depth these themes through rich and multi-faceted ethnography. blanchette structures the book’s analysis by creating a productive juxtaposition between two classes of employees 2 at the factory farm. first, the managerial staff, whose vision for the industrial pig express dystopian concepts of animality, where employees are “slaves to the herd” and aim to monopolize all aspects of life related to the pig. and second, the floor workers: marginalized and often non-white, migrant laborers, whose compartmentalized yet intimate and practical engagement with pigs point to gaps in, critiques of and alternative realities to those constructed at the executive level. a strength of blanchette’s study and analysis is that it is not confined to the factory farm. part one illustrates how the farm penetrates and shapes the ecology and social lives of the town’s inhabitants, from insect biology to the air people breathe. in particular, the need for biosecurity and maintenance of pig health serves as an organizing factor, driving the compartmentalization of not only pigs but also the people that work with them. biosecurity structures and indeed the porcine body itself extends into and is interconnected with relationships and environments outside of the workplace, including who people can interact with and where their family members can work. intriguingly, blanchette notes that factory farms are not necessarily examples of anthropocentric dominance; indeed, humans are managed (or perhaps tamed?) in relation to pig needs. an interesting point yet the factory farm is neither anthropoor porco centric; the vitality of both species are threats and limitations in the objectifying calculus towards standardization and the abstract ideal of the industrial pig. part two draws comparisons between the biological notion of “instinct” to mechanization and explains how this concept of animality is employed in the factory setting an astute analytical point underexamined in human-animal literature. blanchette explores how framing the pig as instinctual enables industrial capitalism to compartmentalize, standardize, and exploit aspects of porcine nature, and simultaneously reduce, simplify and undervalue pig and human labor. on the factory floor, workers resist these attempts to devalue their work, and demonstrate the gendered skill and intimate attunement to individual pig lives required in interspecies interactions. porkopolis stands as a thought-provoking analysis of how porcine ontology is imagined and performed at different levels of engagement, and how these enact divisions in social class and value. managers, for instance, aspire to a highly abstract yet totalizing concept of the industrial pig across the entire factory which they compare to the limited facet of porcine being floor workers encounter in their assigned roles. part three proposes that, contrary to common arguments, the nonhuman animal is not necessarily alienated from humans through industrial capitalism. from a multispecies 3 perspective this is an intriguing argument, as blanchette demonstrates how the capitalist desire for maximizing growth and the continuous reconfiguring of interspecies labor has created a pig increasingly entangled with human touch and dependent on intimate practices of care. this is part of a broader shifting pattern of relations described throughout porkopolis, where the pig has become alienated to itself, and people must scaffold, augment, or serve as substitutes to biological and developmental processes. and as blanchette continuously reminds us, these new forms of interspecies labor are often organized in gendered ways and dependent on the lowpaid workforce from marginalized geographies. despite managerial aspirations towards pig standardization, the shape of porcine bodies remains variable and creates limits for machine processing. part four explores how human bodies and the quality of labor performed have now become the site of modification, as the quest for increased efficiency and profit shapes and pushes human physiology to breaking point. blanchette emphasizes the “the uncanny joint production of human and hog muscles” (178) as labor becomes increasingly specific to parts of the pig, and trauma manifests locally in the human body. highlighting this pig-human connection in this manner is rhetorically clever yet feels superficial: a more integrated human-nonhuman-human framing that includes analysis of the tools, cold cement floor, and structure of assembly lines might have given a stronger sense of how human bodies take shape and are broken in the factory farm. on the other hand, focusing on the “joint production” also draws attention to the mirroring of floor worker and pig: a constant theme throughout the book. on the slaughterhouse floor, workers come to embody the value and disposability associated with industrial pig lives. the final section is where we see blanchette’s ethical and political commitment come to the foreground. following the dissection of the porcine body in which no aspect goes to waste, the text returns to the milieu we encountered at the beginning, one saturated with porcine particles and where the pig is shaped by and shapes all manner of worlds. from bullets to book pages, crayons to data servers, the pig is invisibly embedded in our everyday lives. the condition for this thrifty utilization of porcine bodies is both the mass-killing of animals and global inequality. yet the more troubling aspect, notes blanchette, is that we have no choice in participating in the world-making processes of industrial pig. and, the consumer and dietary restrictions employed to resist the factory farm reveals our lack of proper understanding of how factory farming system works 4 indeed, this last and powerful point is good enough reason for many people to read blanchette’s ethnography. on top of that, porkopolis is very well written, revealing in its description of factory farm process, provocative in its analysis of human-animal entanglement, and an excellent analysis of twenty-first century industrial capitalism as manifest through the pig. the book is broken into linear parts, yet its analytical themes thread throughout and double back on themselves, producing a satisfying sense of coherence. as a human-animal researcher, i found this book exciting in its examination of how labor and class shapes human-nonhuman entanglement in the industrial setting, and the novel employment of multispecies sensibilities to offer an alternative perspective on the factory farm. porkopolis might also be read as a twenty-first century world-making process of domestication, radically co-shaping environments, pigs, humans, and other species in the process. paul g. keil is a postdoctoral researcher at the institute of ethnology, czech academy of sciences, and a team member of the bewildering boars project. he is currently undertaking anthropological research on hunting and feral pigs in australia. keil conducted his phd on human-elephant relations in northeast india. © 2020 paul g. keil gender, disability, and abandonment in the aftermath of war review by seda saluk sacrificial limbs: masculinity, disability, and political violence in turkey by salih can açıksöz. 2020, berkeley: university of california press. keywords: gender, disability, biopolitics, militarism, violence sacrificial limbs: masculinity, disability, and political violence in turkey is a beautifully written ethnography of the everyday lives and political activism of disabled veterans of the armed conflict between the turkish state and kurdish guerillas. the book is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted by salih can açıksöz in istanbul between 2005 and 2008 with disabled veterans as they navigate memories of counter-guerilla warfare; friend, family, and advocacy networks; and debilitating healthcare and welfare regimes. through poignant ethnographic vignettes, açıksöz examines how a deeply militarized nation-state conscripts lowerand working-class subjects into its army. the state later sends them to intense war contexts utilizing gendered economies of (national) sacrifice, only to leave them abandoned in the aftermath of war. generated by medical and financial disenfranchisement, disabled veterans’ political resentment deepens as they try to make sense of their abandonment. this resentment ultimately becomes the driving force of their mobilization in ultranationalist right-wing politics that create the conditions that harm them in the first place. chapter 1, “being-on-the-mountains,” probes how turkey's militarized landscape acts as a liminal geography in the context of the decades-long turkish-kurdish conflict. mountains inhabit a special place in this landscape both for turkish nationalism and the kurdish movement. while mountains are zones of refuge and resistance for kurdish guerillas, they are spaces for the conquest of minds and bodies for the turkish counterinsurgency through (re)naming, bombing, and maiming. through a nuanced engagement with the disabled veterans’ affective memories of being-on-the mountains, açıksöz discusses how the mountains inhabit a gray zone for the conscripts, where they become both perpetrators and victims of state violence. the chapter also powerfully shows that the turkish soldier-subject on-the-mountains is constructed in relation to the kurdish guerilla and how this construction is always gendered, sexualized, and ethnoracialized in specific ways. the masculine pride of being-on-the mountains for turkish soldiers becomes possible only through the discursive demasculinization of kurdish guerillas. chapter 2, “the two sovereignties: masculinity and the state,” details how turkey's compulsory military service operates as a hetero-patriarchal social contract between the modern state and the male citizenry. the latter is promised to become “full-fledged masculine citizens/workers/consumers” (p. 47) after paying their debt to the homeland through participating in the military. like many other social contracts, only a select group of people -heterosexual, non-disabled bodiesare included in this contract, while others -queer and disabled bodiesare systematically excluded. this conditional inclusion eventually turns heterosexual, non-disabled male subjects into non-normative bodies through the violence of the armed conflict. in the end, the state -and its military-industrial complexdoes not hold its end of the bargain and abandon disabled veterans, who ultimately find themselves excluded from public citizenship as they cannot find jobs or get married in an immensely ableist society. while disabled veterans grapple with gendered anxieties as they depend on their families for material support and daily care, the state finds the solution to restore their injured masculinity through granting them a unique political status, “ghazi.” this newly granted status incorporates veterans into the nationalist discourse as “honorable war heroes” while at the same time turning them into particular governmental subjects through state-regulated services such as job placement, housing credit, and assisted reproduction. chapter 3, “of gazis and beggars,” explores the cultural/historical grammar and everyday implications of the ghazi status. disabled veterans find themselves in the middle of two conflicting subject positions and accompanying regimes of value, as veteran soldiers and 2 disabled citizens. on the one hand, they become part of a long lineage of hyper-masculinized religio-national heroes in the public discourse, embodied in the historical figure of ghazi who sacrifices himself for the greater good of the religious and national community. on the other, they struggle with profoundly gendered cultural stigmas around disability in their everyday lives, epitomized by yet another historical figure, the street beggar. to make sense of and navigate this dual situation, what açıksöz calls a sacrificial crisis, disabled veterans develop new communities and political subjectivities, which chapter 4 and chapter 5 delve into. in chapter 4, “communities of loss,” açıksöz narrates how disabled veterans build communities from affective attachments and common loss, in the form of formal and informal associations. these non-governmental associations provide legal advice and therapeutic healing and mediate disabled veterans’ relationship with state institutions. they also function as extra-governmental actors that regulate veterans’ involvement in politics to make sure that they do not drift apart from nationalist agendas. chapter 5, “prosthetic revenge,” describes how the state institutions, advocacy associations, and veterans themselves utilize their sacrificial limbs as political commodities to make specific claims. through performative acts such as removing and displaying prosthetic limbs during political demonstrations, disabled veterans become essential figures in the state’s psychological warfare. these performances set the affective tone during the mediatized trials of the dissident political figures such as the imprisoned kurdish leader abdullah öcalan and the later-assassinated armenian journalist hrant dink. disabled veterans retake the stage with similar protest strategies when they feel betrayed by the state after the eusupported abolishment of the death penalty and the change in article 301 of the penal code that criminalizes “insulting turkishness.” in the sixth and last chapter, “prosthetic debts,” açıksöz analyzes the political economy of war disability in turkey. the chapter examines how the proliferation of imf-backed consumer credit mechanisms creates the conditions for veterans’ further disenfranchisement by burying them into financial debt in a neoliberalized healthcare and welfare system. as disabled veterans increasingly rely on bank loans to purchase technologically advanced prostheses from private companies, the removal and display of their prosthetic limbs once again turn into mediatized spectacles, this time in the form of “prosthesis repossession” by manufacturers, banks, and 3 insurance systems. the chapter compellingly shows how disabled veterans, once celebrated as honorable heroes who paid their national debts through sacrificing themselves for the homeland, can quickly become disposable subjects when they fail to pay back their financial debts in a neoliberal consumer economy. this award-winning ethnography provides a much-needed analytical lens to understand how gender, class, and disability regimes are intimately co-constituted. by putting gender and class in close dialogue with discussions around (war) disability, the book sheds light on the ways in which lowerand working-class, disabled masculinities are (re)imagined and enacted in the aftermath of militarized violence. as such, açıksöz effectively reminds us of how otherwise unmarked bodies in theories of sovereignty and biopolitics (and necropolitics) are already always gendered, classed, and ethno-racialized in specific ways. the book also makes an important contribution to making sense of the global success of right-wing nationalist political movements in the mobilization of masses, when members of those masses are the ones who are affected most by these movements’ disenfranchising politics. sacrificial limbs is a timely addition to political and medical anthropology, as well as gender studies, disability studies, and the middle east studies. seda saluk is a medical anthropologist and a postdoctoral fellow in women’s and gender studies at the university of michigan. her research broadly focuses on the politics and ethics of medical technologies through the lens of gender and race/ethnicity. © 2021 seda saluk 4 microsoft word 177-543-1-rv.docx .docx can ethnographic film and psychological anthropology become allies? reveiwed by véronique senécal-lirette afflictions: steps toward a visual psychological anthropology by: robert lemelson and annie tucker. palgrave macmillan. 2017 robert lemelson is an american psychological anthropologist at the university of california at los angeles. his research work has essentially been focused in southeast asia, in bali and java. annie tucker acquired her phd from ucla's department of world arts and cultures/dance. lemelson travelled to indonesia in 1996 to carry out his doctoral research on the influence of cultural contexts on the experience and trajectory of mental health, and to explore and better understand some of the questions raised by the world health organization (who) research conducted in the 1970s. it was during this fieldwork that a friend with a degree in anthropology came to visit him in bali. she filmed him working in the field and collected about forty hours of filming; material that remained unused until lemelson presented segments to his students and observed all the interest generated. in 2009, he hired annie tucker as a research assistant and writer to help develop a study guide for films. the six ethnographic films in the "afflictions" series are at the heart of afflictions: steps toward a visual psychological anthropology. this book is intended to complement the stories and themes explored in the films, and to shed light on the contribution of ethnographic film to psychological anthropology. the first part of the book, steps towards a visual psychological anthropology, presents the advantages of and interest in ethnographic film, such as the transparency of the fieldwork and access to emotions and intersubjectivity. this section also discusses the possibility of integrating ethnographic film with psychological anthropology, particularly with person-centered ethnography. the authors provide a history of the use of visual material (photography, drawing, film) in anthropology as far back as the late eighteenth century and present precursors such as margaret mead and gregory bateson whom they believe were the first to have explicitly used visual material in the field of psychological anthropology. the last chapter discusses the lived experience of culture and mental health in indonesia. it provides several explanatory elements on culture in bali and java, such as the perception of people with mental health disorders, the sociocultural aspects of recovery and the centrality of spirituality. the second part, afflictions: culture and mental illness in indonesia, presents the six people who took part in the filming of the series "afflictions." this allows the reader to have a global idea of who those people are, their social, cultural and economic situation, and a chance to learn more about the context in which the first symptoms of mental health disorders emerge, its forms, manifestations and repercussions both for the people and for their family and the community around them. we learn about caste functioning in indonesia, social representations, and sociocultural and gender norms. three of the subjects have a schizophrenia disorder, while the other three have neuropsychiatric disorders. these chapters allow us to understand the trajectory of each person in their recovery. the "outcome paradox" term used by the who is also revisited, and although each case observed is different and complex, there is an overall observation that the recovery of these people was based more on socio-cultural factors than on biological or psychopathological factors. the last part, the practice of visual psychological anthropology, introduces concepts such as ethics and participant consent. although people living with severe mental health disorders may be vulnerable, lemelson has surrounded himself with a team of local specialists to closely monitor each of the participants. their consent was assured throughout the process, and this team was present when needed if trauma was rekindled. this team has certainly also played a role as a cultural mediator. the scenes had to be accepted by the participants before they could be included in the series. the (positive) reaction of the community was also a validation element. this section also explores the requirements for ethnographic filmmaking, as well as the particularities, the types of equipment (which presents very precise information on the material to use), the management footage (the recording of information), production, the technical aspects of filming interviews, editing and storytelling, collaboration and intervention, compensation and ethical issues and the importance of local employees. on this subject, the author is very aware of the reticence surrounding ethnographic film; there are certainly reticences among several anthropologists to film in their field of research. indeed, fears such as those of staging, of losing authenticity by recreating a moment, of the visual being altered by subjectivity, and of the habit of field notes being lost. although ethnographic film is a medium that is little theorized and for which many anthropologists are still reluctant to use, it is becoming increasingly essential to address the question of its usefulness and use, particularly in light of the increasing accessibility to technology. whereas just twenty years ago, filming in 16mm and having a video editing system cost a fortune. the advent of 4k via smartphones, for example, and free editing software are making field shooting more and more accessible. the ethnographic film should always be accompanied by a form of explanation, whether at the level of the narrative, a discussion following the screening, or a book; which in this case still testifies to the authors' desire to give a complete vision of the phenomenon studied. the strength and impact that the image can have on a general audience must be considered, although the written word is not immune either. very few ethnographic films on the subject of mental health have been made, possibly for ethical reasons related to vulnerable populations and the fear of biased understandings that might contribute to the reinforcement of their marginalization. the book is not only relevant and informative on the subject of visual anthropology, but it is also very concrete: lemelson provides many examples of his own experience and that of other researchers, which helps to make the book practical. in addition, lemelson has impressive field experience, his data represent nearly 12 years of research using the person-centred ethnography method, which is “both a methodologically and theoretically distinct process from other forms of interviewing and data gathering in anthropology” (p.9). he always kept in mind how the subjects could be seen by others, by their communities and his work was focused on the long term: more than twenty years between his doctorate fieldwork and the publication of the book. he has a great knowledge of javanese and balinese culture, and we can feel his sensitivity in his approach to participants throughout the process, from the field to the representation made in the book. véronique senécal-lirette has a master's degree in social work from the université du québec en outaouais, with her primariy field research taking place in senegal. she has worked as a counselor for people who have experienced violence, addiction and mental health issues. her research interests include women's rights, mental health, traditions and the arts. © 2019 véronique senécal-lirette microsoft word ahlness final.docx 1 microcosms of power dynamics: the hidden world of pharmaceutical testing jill a. fisher, 2020, adverse events: race, inequality, and the testing of new pharmaceuticals, new york: new york university press, 317 pp., isbn 978-1-4798-6216-0 adverse events is the product of over a decade of research, incorporating challenging ethnographic field work with theoretical considerations. at its core, it is a book about social inequality in a disconcerting place. the book is divided into nine chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. tables and figures are distributed through the book, though largely centered in two sections. fisher does an excellent job of engaging the reader, and the book itself opens with a hypothetical thought process that an individual might go through as they as they consider whether to participate in the first phase of a clinical drug trial. the introduction assumes that readers have little background knowledge about clinical trials, explaining the difference between various testing stages in the pharmaceuticals industry, and notes two critical features of the industry. first, that phase one trials disproportionately represent racial minorities and men, and second, that monetary compensation is the primary, if not only, motivation to enroll as a healthy volunteer. the text is heavily centered on phenomenological research, interrogating how healthy volunteers experience their participation in phase one trials, especially compared to how the general public perceives their involvement. adverse events, therefore, tries to center the human experience in spaces where dehumanization is possible, as people increasingly lose agency over their bodies, being told when they eat, if they can exercise, and how much blood will be drawn. two themes are at the core of the entire book. first is the concept of imbricated stigma, the notion that people may have combined stigmas that affect the barriers they face. second is the notion of the ‘healthy volunteer’ as a model individual. together, these contribute to the social inequalities 2 on which the research empire is built and even affect the agency of individuals who participate in research themselves. individuals are rewarded for giving up their agency by submitting to controlled conditions. chapter 1 provides greater ethnographic detail about entering and staying in a clinic. it injects the reader into the environment by describing what it looks like, how it operates, and the general tone. this is also where fisher inputs a great deal of reflexive research, setting up the methodological considerations of the project. fisher is forthcoming about methodological difficulties. despite this, there is an impressive amount of data for qualitative research: she interviewed 235 ‘healthy’ volunteers for the project, lending credibility to her conversation on power dynamics and vulnerability. chapter 2 provides greater narrative and on the economic motivations of volunteers, and how someone's background shapes their view and motivations for participating in phase one trials. chapter 3 continues this theme to consider how variations in patterns of stigma and intersectionality influence perceptions of phase one trials. while fisher does not explicitly use the phrase intersectionality in their introduction, their perspective on stigma and vulnerability is consistent with the idea of intersectionality chapter 4 examines a brief history of phase one trial clinics in the united states, which provides a foundation for a conversation on study protocols in chapter 5, on how trial demands can lead to specific practices by research staff, which can affect validity concerns (analyzed in chapter 6). while chapter 7 does not draw on secondary data to articulate the risks of participating in phase one trials, the phenomenological and human centered themes are continued as fisher investigates healthy volunteer perceptions of trial safety and their self-categorization of some trials as more risky than others. in chapter 8, fisher expands on this, arguing that risk constructions are a kind of epistemology, representing the way that model volunteers make sense of knowledge from personal experiences, narratives of others, and the facts received from clinics. chapter 9 concludes this conversation about risk by articulating a common and surprising narrative that fisher found in their study: volunteers are very vocal about the economic risk of not qualifying for studies. adverse event’s conclusion brings everything together at a macro level, reflecting on the political and economic context of us phase one trials. fisher asserts that a society characterized by stigmas, 3 especially intersectional stigmas, means that there will always be healthy volunteers willing to undergo risks for financial compensation. one of the text’s greatest strengths is that it never presents an illusion of the author as being separate from their research. moreover, it does this in a way that enhances its accessibility to the general public, as sections read like an autobiography. at the same time, there is a productive sense of discomfort throughout the book that individuals are ‘selling themselves’ because they have nothing else to sell. fisher presents this perspective herself, but does give quotes that suggest that this is not an uncommon way of thinking among phase one trial participants. in talking about the human experience, fisher seems to be particularly conscientious about inferring participants’ explicitly communicated motivations for participating in trials, cognizant to not ascribe secondary meanings. culture itself is a major theme throughout the book. even as trial communities develop their own cultures, the three regions in which phase one trials are conducted in the us each have their own unique clinical trial cultures. fisher concludes the book with a warning about the dangers of invisibility: the phase one world is fundamentally invisible. even as it is robust and established in the us, along with other developed countries around the world, very few people are aware of it. that, more than anything else, gives these industries power. their hidden nature adds to their stigma and further protects the interest of pharmaceutical industries while making volunteers more vulnerable. consequently, fisher advocates for clinic and holistic industry practices that will reduce the stigma of participation. this book is an excellent read both for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of healthcare and the medical environment, as well as for readers with interests in labor and critical race and gender studies; there is no denying the impact of race, gender, and class on phase one trials. overall, this is a great read, particularly for graduate students and public readers who want to see how an environment traditionally imagined as ‘objective’ or ‘sterile’ is, in fact, affected by stigmas and bias. the effects—and events—are indeed adverse and serious. ellen a. ahlness is a board member and qualitative researcher for the nonprofit education maksad. she has served as a fellow for the technology alliance and washington institute for the study of inequality and race. her work can be found in ecologia politica, world history 4 connected, and managing multicultural scandinavia, among other journals and edited collections. © 2022 ellen ahlness microsoft word review of vorng_with comments.doc 1 review of vorng, sophorntavy. 2017. a meeting of masks: status, power and hierarchy in bangkok. copenhagen: nias press. near the ratchaprasong intersection in downtown bangkok, at the entrance to central world, the mega-mall that consumes more electricity than an entire thai province, there is a guard who seems to do nothing. the man stands by while crowds of people enter the building, passing through – and setting off – the metal detectors. i first noticed these functioning and staffed but seemingly useless gates after the intersection had been occupied by “red shirt” protestors in 2010, protests that ended with nearly 100 killed and central world in ashes. but the guard didn’t seem to be guarding anything. i imagined that the idea for the guard had come out of the emptiness of corporate bureaucracy: someone in a central group boardroom, full of memories of his mall in flames, had announced that he wanted a guard at the entrance, but the actual business of screening shoppers was untenable. so the compromise was reached: a guard killed time in what david graeber (2018) would certainly call a “bullshit job,” watching people go past and listening to the monotonous buzz of a metal detector detecting metal and doing nothing about it, and the central group executive could say, “we have a guard.” but, as sophorntavy vorng notes in her a meeting of masks: status, power and hierarchy in bangkok, the guard is actually doing a job. he does indeed stop people coming in, just not people who set off the metal detector. instead, the guard is alert for individual appearances, reading “masks” of wealth and status embedded in someone’s shirt, handbag, or written on a “lao” face (meaning someone from thailand’s less wealthy northeast). it is a careful reading of appearance and distinction that runs through thai – especially bangkok – society. seeing, navigating, and negotiating these distinctions is central to the experience of being “middle class.” 2 a concern with images has always been important in the anthropology of thailand. for lucien hanks (1962), images were outward expressions of karmic merit and moral value. later work took a more dynamic view. peter jackson, in his look at the thai “regime of images” (2004) looks at how different images are foregrounded depending on different social spheres. similarly, penny van esterik notes the tyranny of time and place over what is appropriate behavior (2000). finally, and most recently, michael herzfeld (2016) gives a riveting example of how urban villagers facing displacement strategically position themselves as either loyal clients or egalitarian co-ethnics, drawing upon conflicting but equally powerful discourses in thai history. vorng’s contribution here is to show how we need not discard a historically-informed, cultural approach (as hanks does) while taking bangkokian mass consumption and the cosmopolitan reality of bangkok seriously. here are the masks that meet: systems of prestige based upon feudal divisions are transformed and, in some cases, accelerated by the hyper-consumption of images that characterizes bangkok’s mass capitalism. middle-class women in central world and its neighboring malls carefully read not only the brand of the handbag that others carry, but exactly how they carry it (gingerly, as though it is the only expensive thing that they own; or casually, but still allowing for the glint of a brand label to show), a police officer treats a stopped motorist rudely but, upon seeing the driver’s last name, changes his demeanor entirely. vorng’s interlocutors are trapped within a certain kind of panopticon, one where subtle presentations of class, consumption, and language fix one within a network of hierarchies: rural and urban, noble and common, rich and poor, thai and lao; these are different ways that status is read, constructed and contested in bangkok, especially for the thai middle class (a term that she rightly contests). and, because consumption becomes the means to create these selfpresentations, ratchaprasong and its shopping malls – the site of consumption, display and, in 2010, destruction – are key to the data. ultimately, vorng sees this last act not as an act of rebellion against the hierarchy of status in bangkok, but rather a demand for inclusion. the book is organized around examples of these interlocking “masks,” and notes the transformations that these hierarchies undergo. class, for instance, is not static but emerges both in terms of feudal sakdina as well as new networks of elite schools and economic status. space and place (kalathesa) dictate how individuals must comport themselves and what individuals are 3 permissible (and who is excludable), as does the division between “thai” center and “lao” periphery. the necessity to consume conspicuously not only forces individuals to adhere to expectations, but also allows for a certain degree of fluidity, providing one learns the correct habitus. vorng’s research is based upon interviews with a wide variety of interlocutors, most of which (with some exceptions) identify as “middle class.” this is a category especially salient in thai political discussions, as the bangkok “middle class” often is pointed to as the heart of movements both democratic (as in 1992) and reactionary (as in the “yellow shirt” opposition to the red movement). indeed, it is upon divisions within the newly-urban, newly-bangkokian middle class that benedict anderson (1977) places the blame for the political violence that scarred the city in the 1970s. but the category of “middle-class” is, as vorng points out, both overly broad and not particularly meaningful to her interlocutors. instead, middle-class-ness is based around moments when status is enforced or distinctions are made along certain axes. these examples stick with the reader: a child told that she must not play with domestic workers, as “we are of different classes;” a woman with a darker complexion who forgets to wear the proper shirt entering a shopping mall is stopped by the ordinarily lackluster guard; an endless search for luxury goods and, more importantly, how to properly hold and display them (i.e. casually, without much possessiveness, but obviously). some room for improvement exists. vorng is reflexive about her own thai-language abilities, and the reader gets a good sense of her presence in the field, but i wonder about how her interlocutors read vorng’s own “mask.” her interviews are detailed and relevant, but interviews have their limits, and the book would benefit at times from a more ethnographic or phenomenological perspective. finally, it is up to the reader to expand vorng’s analysis outside of the context of bangkok. this said, masks is a nuanced read of space, place, gender, race and class. it would pair well with work by wilson (2004) on the same malls a decade before, with sopranzetti’s study (2017) of those who would become the red shirts (and who would regularly face the kinds of barriers that the mall door guard represents), or ünaldi’s (2016) look at space and place in ratchaprasong. 4 beyond thailand, masks provides a perspective that challenges a simplistic notion that economy leads to new social formations, or, on the other hand, those culturological ways of dividing space and place. works cited anderson, benedict r. o'g. 1977. “withdrawal symptoms: social and cultural aspects of the october 6 coup” in critical asian studies [9:3]. graeber, david. 2018. bullshit jobs: a theory. new york: simon and schuster. hanks, lucien m. 1962. "merit and power in the thai social order," american anthropologist, 64.6:1247-1261. herzfeld, michael. 2016. siege of the spirits: community and polity in bangkok. chicago: university of chicago press. jackson, peter. 2004. “the thai regime of images.” sojourn: journal of social issues in southeast asia 19, no. 2: 181–218. sopranzetti, claudio. 2017a. owners of the map: motorcycle taxi drivers, mobility, and politics in bangkok. berkeley, university of california press. ünaldi, serhat. 2016. “working towards the monarchy and its discontents: anti-royal graffiti in downtown bangkok.” journal of contemporary asia. 44(3): 377-403. van esterik, penny. 2000. materializing thailand. new york: berg publishers. wilson, ara. 2004. the intimate economies of bangkok: tomboys, tycoons and avon ladies in the global city. berkeley: university of california press. andrew alan johnson is a visiting scholar at the center for southeast asian studies, university of california-berkeley, and is a writer for firaxis games's civilization series. he received his ph.d. from cornell university in 2010, and his book, mekong dreaming, is forthcoming from duke university press (2020). © 2020 andrew alan johnson microsoft word j.pk.book review_pub.doc peoples, place and performing arts of the riau islands reviewer prof. dr. jacqueline pugh-kitingan margaret kartomi, editor, 2019, performing the arts of indonesia. malay identity and politics in the music, dance and theatre of the riau islands. nordic institute of asian studies, studies in asian topics, no 68. copenhagen: nias press; xx-340 pp., isbn: 97887-7694-259-5 dispersed from the straits of malacca across the south china sea, from sumatra, peninsular malaysia and singapore to west kalimantan, the 2,408 riau islands or kepri (kepulauan riau) comprise indonesia’s largest province. for a millennia, these islands have formed linkages in trade routes between the sumatra, java, south western borneo, singapore, malaya and beyond. the riau islands have a long and complex political history going back to at least the srivijaya empire (7th to 14th centuries). after indonesia attained independence in 1949, riau experienced various national governments, each with their own policies of development and the arts. following the end of suharto’s authoritarian new order era, which promoted the javanisation of cultures throughout this vast nation, the reformasi era saw communities and provinces looking back to their older traditions for inspiration in contemporary times. riau was granted provincial autonomy in 2004. this book investigates today’s cultural situation in riau, through focussing on the state of the performing arts of the main indigenous inhabitants of the riau islands—the malays and the orang suku laut (“sea peoples”). much of the research for this book was conducted from 2012-2016 in riau with the support of the indonesian institute of science, and funded by a research grant from the australia research council discovery projects funding scheme. entitled “the changing identity and sustainability of the music-cultures and worldviews of the riau islands’ sea nomads and sedentary malays,” the project was headed by renowned ethnomusicologist margaret kartomi of the sir zelman cowan school of music, monash university. earlier research in riau had also been carried out by members of the team. two international conferences on the performing arts of the riau islands were held in 2012 in tanjungpinang and then in 2015 at monash university in melbourne. i attended the conference in melbourne. international scholars and performing artists from riau were invited to present, along with the project researchers, and the chapters in this book have been developed from those papers presented specifically on riau. as such, this book is an important academic source on a hitherto largely neglected area of southeast asian performing arts. the book is arranged into four parts, according to locations in riau. part i, “the riau archipelago in the southern malay world” provides an overview of the whole riau province, and consists of five chapters. the opening chapter “the islands, the islanders and their performing arts” by margaret kartomi provides a detailed introduction to the book, its “across-the-arts” approach, the cultures of the malays and the orang suku laut and their performing arts genres. it also discusses cosmological and performative concepts of space in malay and orang suku laut worldviews, and the idea of generative memory codes in performance. this well-written and comprehensive chapter presents important ethnographic and conceptual information for understanding the performing arts of the riau islands that are discussed in the rest of the book. in chapter 2 “the world of the southern malays,” leonard andaya differentiates the malays of riau and west kalimantan from the malayic peoples further north due to linguistic and historical differences. he then focusses on the malays of the formerly so-called pulau tujuh islands (riau) and west kalimantan. this chapter provides detailed historical information about the malays in the riau area, as well as outside influences in the region including the spread of religions such as islam. my only question is the statement that “islam reached papua new guinea in the beginning of the 18th century” (p.45). perhaps what is meant is that it touched the western shores of the new guinea island with trade from maluku in the early 18th century. the eastern nation of papua new guinea attained independence in 1975, and islam was only recently introduced by outsiders. apart from this minor point, this excellent chapter provides an important historical background for the contextual understanding of the riau malays and their diverse and hybrid performing arts. cynthia chou, in chapter 3 “the sound of music and the orang suku laut today,” discusses the changing soundscape among these semi-nomadic people who once traversed the vast sea expanses between the islands. comparative references to publications about music of other sea peoples (p. 66) could have also mentioned studies among the west and east coast sama bajau of sabah by sather, anis nor, hanafi hussin, judeth john baptist, pugh-kitingan, and others. nevertheless, in the case of the orang suku laut, the writer shows that while some traditional singers still recall their old stories, poetic songs, and other music, their soundscape has changed markedly with the advent of indonesian christian songs (lagu gereja) and pop songs (lagu pop). the writer stresses that it is important to look at these two newer genres together in order to understand change and continuity in orang suku laut identity and culture. the younger generation regard lagu pop and lagu disko (often played at full blast) as their preferred forms of music, while lagu orang suku laut and pantun of the older generation are disappearing. in the case of lagu gereja, these songs have become a valued part of orang suku laut culture, because their sound expresses local notions of progressiveness. these two genres thus overlap in the contemporary soundscape of the orang suku laut as expressions of perceived modernity. in chapter 4, “the nobat ensemble in the riau-lingga sultanate, its colonial era demise and its recent sonic re-invention,” margaret kartomi looks at the history of the nobat ensemble of riau-lingga as an important expression of the political and cultural identity of the sultanate. the chapter traces the intricate history and development of the sultanate, from hindubuddhist times, through the coming of islam, into the dutch colonial era, the early 20th century. embedded in this history is the story of its nobat instruments over time up to the “silent” years following the formation of the indonesian nation, and the subsequent sonic rebirth of the ensemble (without some of its instruments) in 2013. this chapter is essential reading for those undertaking research on nobat in southeast asia, including those ensembles maintained by sultanate palaces in peninsular malaysia because it was through riau that the ensembles were dispersed. chapter 5 “sound, space and social relations in nineteenth century literary texts from the riau archipelago” by jenny mccallum explores the now inaudible soundscape of 19th century riau through descriptions given in written records by malay, dutch, and british observers. the writer examines historical texts describing both traditional instrumental ensembles (including drumming and cannon-firing) and western band music, as well as genres of vocal music such as syair. from these records, she identifies three broad categories of idealised sound and their social importance: azimat (“awe-inspiring”) representing malay regal authority, ramai (“busy noisiness”) connoting music for outdoor celebration and festivities, and quieter melodic merdu vocal recitations (“harmonious voices”) such as syair for religious instruction or secular entertainment. the nature of these soundscapes, gleaned from descriptions in the literature, defined political spaces and expressed intercommunal social relationships in 19th century riau. part ii, “two western riau archipelagos” contains four chapters. chapter 6 “bangsawan in lingga: the vanished era of the lingga-riau sultanate” by bronya kornhauser provides an overview of the development bangsawan theatre in the lingga archipelago, and the characteristics of the genre. using field recorded films by karen kartomi thomas, the writer then compares and contrasts two present-day bangsawan theatre performances by the diram perkase performing arts group—one from the indoor proscenium stage of aisyah sulaiman arts building of tanjungpinang, and the other in the village of sungai buluh, west singkep. she analyses the vocal and instrumental musical structures of the performances, as linked to the dramatic action. bangsawan in lingga, as in other parts of southeast asia, combined malay and european elements. in lingga, however, its themes, plots, actions and music recall the historical past of the lingga-riau sultanate. bangsawan for the lingga malays is thus distinctive in that it evokes the unique regal past of the sultanate in the present day. the biola is part of the instrumental ensemble accompanying bangsawan. hence, chapter 7 “the significance of place in the musical practice of two biola players in riau islands province” by brigitta scarfe and mouhamad hasbi (a biola player from lingga) focusses on this instrument. they give a short history of the four-stringed european biola or viola that was introduced by the portuguese. they then compare and contrast the performance practice and music of two self-taught biola players—nasri or pak itam pijat from the remote village of kampung kukang, desa pancur on lingga island, and adi supriyadi currently living in tanjungpinang. nasri’s music retains the traditional performance style with minimal amplification and local community participation, while adi experiments with mak yong, “progressive rock,” world music and electronic enhancement. yet both performers are dealing with issues of cosmopolitanism. one strives to preserve tradition in the face of it, while the other tries to adapt and hybridise tradition to appeal to younger generations. chapter 8 “kinship among penyengat musicians: the jiwa seni of raja khadijah, tengku fadillah, their forebears and descendants” by vivienne wee continues with the focus on musicians that began in chapter 9, but now examines the hitherto undocumented genealogies and life stories of key self-taught musicians and their families, who happen to be of viceroy descent. she also discusses the penyengat malay concept of jiwa seni (“the artistic soul”) as expressed by these performers and shows how this is continued in the younger generation of musicians. the importance of the viceroy’s court as an historical source of dance traditions is the theme of chapter 9 “zapin dancing and gambus music in the viceroy’s court at penyengat” by raja alfirafindra and marina martiara (translated by margaret kartomi). this provides a detailed history of the kepri style of secular zapin melayu which can be traced back to the malay palace in sambas, west kalimantan. the chapter also deals with malay concepts of space as expressed through this dance, and looks at current developments in zapin performance in riau. part iii, “the northern and northeastern archipelagos” consists of two chapters focussing on dance and theatrical genres. chapter 10 “gobang mask dance theatre: icon of the anambas regency” by syafaruddin, manolete mora and margaret kartomi describes the night time gobang dance by masked dancers on the beach and its accompanying music on jemaja island, among the remote anambas islands of the northern archipelago. this genre originated from shamanistic healing rituals and still retains some occultic elements, but has developed into a form of comedic entertainment at life cycle celebrations and other social events. gobang dancers or gobang ka normally wear conical hats and topeng ka masks representing various characters, animals and spirits. although it has its roots in animism, gobang has incorporated newer elements from its history. during one gobang performance on the night of 21 september 1896, the dutch kontroleur and the local datuk kaya joined a gobang event to capture a suspected murderer who was dancing with the gobang ka, wearing his mask as a disguise. since then, gobang performances have included four gobang lawa dressed in black dutch-style suits, boots, and helmets with green cloth scarves tied across their faces as topeng lawa masks. this continuing comic element, indicates local disdain for former colonial and unwanted outside political intrusions that may seek to stifle the cultural life of the community. chapter 11 “mendu theatre performance in the natuna islands (1984-2013): transformations in function, performance practices and style” by karen kartomi thomas discusses continuity and change in mendu, a malay theatre genre based on the dewa mendu epic, from the bunguran district of the northeastern archipelago. she compares and contrasts a traditional mendu performance from 1984 that took place at night on an outdoor stage in the village of teluk selahang near ranai, with a new streamlined version held in a sports hall of sedanau town in 2013. her detailed analysis of the two very different performances is set against the background of socio-political change, as the genre has regressed from the highly popular traditional village folk genre to the commercialised town version. part iv, “the cities: art and popular culture” contains three chapters. in chapter 12 “malay art music composers and performers of tanjungpinang and pulau penyengat” geoffrey benjamin explores the performances and repertoires of leading music composers, most of whom are self-taught but have developed their creative skills through electronic media and information from the internet. these include those from tanjungpinang who produce a variety of hybrid styles by fusing malay motifs with country, blues, jazz and pop, as well as those from penyengat whose compositions are more traditional. many of these musicians, such as adi supriyadi and raja khadijah are from families of renowned musicians of regal descent, aspects of whose work and heritage were discussed in chapters 7 and 8. while chapter 12 focusses on malay “art” musicians, chapter 13 “musical cosmopolitanism in kepri: an examination of local aesthetic responses to socio-cultural transformation” by manolete mora looks at the work of both underground and popular musicians from batam city and tanjungpinang. he compares and contrasts the work of hardcore musicians such as andy diablo with the hybrid malay pop music of others such as raja ahmad helmy and adi supriadi (featured in chapters 7, 8 and 12). he shows that the cosmopolitan kepri musical scene largely consists of two divergent music-making trends, one which identifies with major transnational musical styles, the other which adapts global music codes to enrich and develop local malay music. chapter 14 “who cares about malay music?” by nicholas long concludes the book by examining of the changing sociocultural profile of riau through the composition and performance of contemporary riau malay music by the group trio komodo—a group made up, not of malay musicians, but of members of the immigrant florinese community. this group of devout roman catholics composes and performs out of their love for malay music. this raises questions of malay identity and malayness in the context of performing arts in riau. some, such as members of lembaga adat melayu, believe that malay music should only be created by muslim ethnic malays. for others, such as those who hold to the view of the late riau cultural leader tenas effendy, malay culture should reflect its pre-colonial character of flexible accommodation of wholesome outside elements that enhance its development. hence, malay identity is inherently cultural rather than purely ethnic. in conclusion, performing the arts of indonesia. malay identity and politics of the music, dance and theatre of the riau islands is a landmark publication that fills a gap in research on the performing arts of riau. editor margaret kartomi, an expert on indonesian music, has drawn together a group of esteemed scholars and researchers from various disciplines to produce an academically deep, yet highly relevant publication. aptly illustrated with maps, colour and black-and-white photographs, diagrams, musical transcriptions and online sources, the publication provides insights into traditional and contemporary culture across the vast reaches of the kepri province. the book is a delight to read. it also has important implications for understanding contemporary change and continuity in the performing arts of other southeast asian cultures, not only among the riau malays and orang suku laut. prof. dr. jacqueline pugh-kitingan holds a b.a. hons. (1st class) from monash university (1976), and a ph.d. from the university of queesnland (1982), with research among the huli of papua new guinea for both degrees. she is currently professor of ethnomusicology in the faculty of social sciences and humanities, and head of the culture, heritage and arts cluster of the borneo institute for indigenous studies at universiti malaysia sabah, where she also formerly held the kadazandusun chair (2003-2016). having married her husband from the kadazan dusun community of tambunan in 1976, she first came to sabah, malaysia in 1977, finally settling permanently in 1982. winner of two pereka gold medals, her research interests encompass indigenous cultures of sabah and papua new guinea, music, dance and ritual systems, music and language, organology, ethnographic mapping, updating sabah’s sociolinguistic data in the ethnologue®, indigenous customary law and the sabah native courts, the megalithic culture of the kadazan dusun of tambunan district, and indigenous ritual responses to the covid-19 pandemic in sabah. © 2020 prof. dr. jacqueline pugh-kitingan microsoft word shunmugan_publish.doc rise up, organize, protest: the politics of internships during the 21st century review by natalia shunmugan call me intern (2019). directors nathalie berger and lee hyde. the video project. article 23 of the universal declaration of human rights states that: everyone without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration. this was david hyde’s final statement to the press, at the conclusion of the documentary call me intern by nathalie berger and david hyde (2019). three interns had the courage to speak up about their working conditions, rather than just “keeping their heads down” and then stepping into a salaried position after their time of unpaid labor. their actions led to the creation of the global intern coalition with protests and strikes each february 20th, which encourages interns to know their rights, know the law, and know what remuneration they are entitled to. although being paid for one’s work is a key driver of these protests (which has the support of the european parliament), the documentary exposes far more. david hyde (united nations, geneva), kyle grant (warner music, nyc) and marisa adam (obama’s re-election campaign, chicago), highlight the normative unfair labor practices across many organizations, which hire interns to work without pay. it is expected that interns are able to support themselves, that they are able to provide for their own accommodation, transport, food, visas, and medical insurance costs for periods ranging from 3 months upwards. a more traditional understanding of an internship is that it is an opportunity to get a foot in the door, a stepping-stone to jumpstarting their careers. david, kyle and marisa’s experiences expose the vectors of race, class and privilege which form the backbone of internships, and intersect with themes such as inter-generational inequality, low social mobility, and the growing global social and geographical divide. these interns highlight the urgent need to change the way internships are awarded by making them paid opportunities that are truly open to all – a ‘democratization’ of internships – which would change the power dynamics around policy making. it could mean that there would no longer be photos of paul ryan and the white house interns – who are all white – except for one asian man, going viral on twitter. these key issues lend themselves well to an anthropological analysis that looks at the interplay of power and politics. “if you can get people to work for free, why wouldn’t you?” is the question raised by white, middle-aged, middle-class men during the documentary. these attributes alone opened many doors for them, without too much effort. and then there is andersen cooper, son of gloria vanderbilt, ridiculing interns for wanting to be paid for their work. kyle and marisa are african-american, and both have had negative experiences during their internships. kyle’s internship was terminated within two months of starting at warner music, whilst marisa was downgraded from intern to a “volunteer opportunity” within three months of her starting with obama’s re-election campaign. not only was marisa the only african-american female in her office, but her reports to hr of sexual harassment fell on deaf ears. kyle had to deal with homelessness and slept at a shelter during his internship, making the point that he’s both “unpaid and homeless,” and that “you feel one side of america during working hours, and outside there’s another.” both these interns did not conveniently find a place at the internship table, and their journeys are fraught with obstacles. foucault argues that power is contested (1980), and there is a shift in the narrative when kyle becomes the named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit brought by the unpaid interns against warner music; and marisa writes letters to obama about her harassment and goes on a seventeen day hunger strike – a sharp change from “not rocking the boat,” and just getting on with things. shore and wright (1966) argue that concepts such as “family” and “society” are treated as ideological and political concepts, but “policy” is still treated as though it were politically and ideologically neutral. indeed, a shift in policy making is needed – but for this to occur, the internship process needs to be democratized, and people need to be paid for their work. the documentary makes clear that if internships are only accessible to people who are able to support themselves because they are from wealthy families “what happens is that you only have well-off white people making the policies.” you end up with a small group of people who are increasingly disconnected from society, creating policy, and reproducing power relations (foucault 1980), which will contribute to even greater social and geographical divides across the globe. as anthropologists, we should not be afraid to “plunge into the vexed issues of modern societies” (eriksen 2006), and tackle issues of human rights and unfair labor practices. the documentary shows that change will not come from the top down, and that young people need to organize themselves and fight back. the response from the un, one of the most powerful organizations in the world was: “geneva is expensive – unless you planned things well. we’d love to pay our interns but we can’t. there’s a general assembly resolution which prohibits us from paying you.” this reaction should not be surprising: power has many layers and privilege replicates and favors those already privileged. the documentary calls for internships to be opened to “100% of the population”; and that people should not be “disqualified by being born to the wrong parents.” indeed, internships should not be accessible to the privileged few – there is too much at stake. policy is key to shaping global power relations, and forcing change will mean that modern power constructs can be challenged and the world re-shaped. this film provides a powerful insight into what it means to be an intern in the 21st century. it highlights the fiercely competitive nature of internships, who has access to them, and who gets left behind. although all three protagonists were successfully awarded an internship, the reality of what that internship looked like and meant, was very different. in anthropology, film is sometimes seen as a way to convey a snapshot or a quick view of a culture. rarely is ethnographic film perceived to be a ‘gamechanger’ which influences the theoretical debates in our discipline. although this is not an “ethnographic film,” this documentary challenges that assumption, and lays bare the power structures governing access. being multi-sited, it does not present a frozen moment in time which locks the protagonists into an “ethnographic present” (fabian, 2002); but is dynamic, and has led to a global mobilization of interns, with the formation of a coalition for intern rights. the documentary lays bare the different inter-generational approaches to the work culture, and show how that is rapidly changing seen through the eyes of millennials. it is an important film for so many reasons, and everyone should see it. however, it will be especially interesting to anthropologists who want to understand the construction and replication of power, as well as how power is contested and challenged. it documents impressions, perspectives and realities of an intern culture that is in the process of defining itself. bibliography chris shore, susan wright. 1996. introduction, in chris shore, susan wright, eds., anthropology of policy: perspectives on governance and power. oxford: routledge. johannes fabian. (2002 [1983]) time and the other: how anthropology makes its object. new york: columbia university press. michel foucault. 1980. power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. toronto: harvester press. thomas hylland eriksen. 2006. engaging anthropology: the case for a public presence. oxford: berg. natalia shunmugan holds a phd in social and cultural anthropology from the university of oxford. besides working in industry, she has worked for the world health organization in geneva, focusing on regulatory policy. there she was part of the who strategy team looking to develop and implement, regulatory pathways for licensing vaccines in developing countries. she currently heads up global regulatory intelligence and policy here at ultragenyx pharmaceutical. she is also fortunate to wear her anthropology hat at the richmond museum for history and culture, where she is assisting the museum in designing an exhibit on women’s progress. that work focuses on subaltern voices, and recovering native american and africanamerican narratives, which have been obfuscated and hidden. © 2020 natalia shunmugan microsoft word cidrelius-publish.doc 1(3) anthropological knowledge production review by daniel cidrelius what is anthropology? by hylland eriksen, thomas. 2017. london: pluto press keywords: knowledge production, historical anthropological theory, anthropological concepts, anthropological fields, reconciliation of the natural and social sciences in his book what is anthropology? thomas hylland eriksen, the globally recognized educational father of anthropology, gives his perspective on the constitution of anthropology and the way in which anthropologists have explored how individuals make sense of the world. the reader could see this book as a vividly visualized introduction to the power of the anthropological craft. it expands perspectives on social lives and cultural phenomena. in its entirety, the book contains the keys to an anthropological world with potential to change the lives of the readers setting out to explore it. i will argue that eriksen’s book could be read as an introduction to anthropology with an intended readership: natural scientists and anthropologists interested in a reconciliation between the natural and social sciences. the current title can be seen as a positivistically put question indicating the possibility of giving an unequivocal answer. if, primarily, the intended readership of the book had been emerging anthropologists the title may have been put differently i.e., ‘the craft of anthropology – exploring the lives we could have led’ accentuating a contextualized perspective on anthropological knowledge production. the book consists of two parts. the first part, ‘entrances,’ consists of four chapters where the reader approaches anthropology as a subject and finds out how anthropology has turned the exotic into the familiar and the familiar into the exotic historically. after each chapter a couple of books are presented for further reading and the reader interested in the full table of references can see that most of the cited works were published several decades earlier. at first sight it appears that the table of references provides an answer to the question ‘what was anthropology?’. though, on the basis of the table of references eriksen shows that anthropology has experienced continuous change and development of theories and methods and that the older, often groundbreaking, studies can be seen as relevant even today in current debates. in the second chapter the reader is introduced to some of the key concepts of anthropology opening up for an understanding of social life in terms of personhood, society, culture, 2(3) translations of phenomena, comparisons and the importance of contextualization. eriksen states that anthropologists are aware that there are multiple ways of seeing and that perceptions are shaped by the individual’s background, tacit knowledge and interests (31). the anthropological text can be seen as a dialogue between the author and the intended readership (32). the third chapter maps the terrain of the anthropological production of knowledge, i.e., based on fieldwork and analysis. as eriksen points out (43), research is about exploring the unknown, not about confirming your own ideas. that point has come to the fore since the 1970s when the formerly colonized subjects started writing back and questioning cultural representations (ashcroft et al 2002). in the fourth chapter, closing the first part of the book, eriksen sheds light on the treasure chest of historical anthropological theories. the reader receives a guided tour through the rich theoretical development from structuralfunctionalism to postmodernism. summing up, as a result of the twists and turns of theoretical perspectives over the years, current anthropological research recognizes that the world, cultures and societies can be seen as complex. the second part of the book consists of five chapters exploring a variation of topics such as reciprocity, kinship, the relation between the natural and social sciences, systems of thoughts and social identity. the fifth chapter starts with a discussion about gift exchange which has had a central place in anthropological research at least since the publication of mauss’ the gift (1925). according to eriksen (86), mauss shows that reciprocity can be considered far more important in modern complex societies than many seem to be aware of. an objection can be raised in relation to this formulation which maintains the distinction between traditional and modern societies. that distinction can be considered problematic as it creates asymmetric relations between so called traditional/underdeveloped/primitive societies and modern/advanced/complex societies. it raises the question whether ‘we’ have ever been modern (latour 1993). rounding off the chapter with a reflection eriksen strives to reconcile natural scientists and social scientists, who despite the fact that we approach phenomena from different perspectives, both have reached the conclusion that reciprocity constitutes a fundamental aspect of human life. in the sixth chapter eriksen shows that kinship studies have been a core focus within anthropology, how the field was weakened and that kinship studies could rise to prominence again. this chapter also includes a discussion on adoption practices in relation to kinship systems that emphasize a few complicated aspects of transnational adoption. as eriksen notes (111), ‘kinning’ or creating kinship, does not come without effort. the seventh chapter discusses the strained relation between the natural and social sciences which could be found in the view on the constitution of knowledge. while biologists look for unequivocal and universal laws in the context of knowledge most anthropologists accept the fact that the world contains contradiction and complexity (117). in sum, eriksen finds reconciliation of differences in the acceptance of the value of both approaches (135). the eighth chapter gives an account of how human thoughts can be explored with the available anthropological field methods such as participant observation, interviews and a basic curiosity for other individual’s way of life (136). eriksen sheds light on lévi-strauss’ book the savage mind (1966) in which lévi-strauss develops a theory of totemism. this enigmatic phenomenon has been the subject of much anthropological theory and speculation over the years. totems can be seen as a system of thoughts. as eriksen notes (145), this mode of thought contributes to making sense of the world through its power to classify and connect discrete phenomena. in other words, explorations of how individuals make sense of the world 3(3) can show how particular ways of life differing from others may be equally meaningful and valuable, that everything could have been different and that another world is possible. the ninth chapter, concluding the book, gives an account of the field concerning social identity which has been at the forefront of much anthropological research for decades. anthropological perspectives have exerted considerable influence on other disciplines and many anthropologists have taken on the task of exploring the emergence of new identities resulting from globalization (152). in conclusion, i have argued that eriksen’s book may be read as an introduction to anthropology with an intended readership composed of natural scientists and anthropologists who would like to see a reconciliation between the natural and social sciences. it remains to be seen if such a reconciliation can be realized. alternatively, readers may find an interest in transcending the boundary between identifications like natural scientist and social scientist, positioning themselves, in a nutshell, as knowledge producers. cited works: ashcroft, bill, garreth griffiths and helen tiffin. 2002 [1989]. the empire writes back. london: routledge latour, bruno. 1993. we have never been modern. usa: harvard university press lévi-strauss, claude. 1966. the savage mind. usa: the university of chicago press mauss, marcel. 1997 [1925]. gåvan. lund: argos förlag daniel cidrelius holds a master’s degree in social anthropology from stockholm university. he has explored tourism’s role in the transnational adoptions of sri lankan children and marginalized voices in the adoption discourse. his research interests include sri lanka, transnational adoption practices and travel writing. currently he is working on an article exploring representations of the veddas. © 2020 daniel cidrelius microsoft word foster_final.docx 1 moving the study of mobility and migration to new and better places arnauld, charlotte m.; beekman, christopher; pereira, grégory, 2021, mobility and migration in ancient mesoamerican cities, louisville: university press of colorado, 392 pp., isbn 978-1-64642-072-8 keywords: mesoamerica, population movement, archaeology, maya, urbanization mobility and migration in ancient mesoamerican cities should be considered a seminal work for the topic of mobility and migration studies in mesoamerica. this collection of research examines population movement in relation to the processes of urbanization and deurbanization using different methodological approaches. the main goal of the volume is to rethink the longstanding separation between sedentism and mobility. this reconsideration propels the field of mesoamerican studies forward as a whole because it allows researchers to see how the people and societies within mesoamerica changed throughout time and space and how they interacted with each other in ways not previously acknowledged. the chapters include a variety of regions and time periods, and the body of the volume is divided into three sections. each section deals primarily with either bioanthropological (part 1), archaeological (part 2), or ethnographic methods (part 3). each chapter in the book, however, goes beyond using a single methodological approach, often combining at least two different methods to arrive at the final conclusions. the introduction by charlotte arnauld, christopher beekman, and grégory pereira provides an overview of previous research on population movements, including methods and influential theories and concepts. the introduction also briefly details what each chapter will cover and gives the first definitions for “mobility” and “migration.” the editors define “mobility” as encompassing “the broad range of habitual physical movements that facilitate (or complicate) social and cultural practices” (3) and “migration” as “a form of movement that takes place under unusual circumstances” (3). 2 in chapter 1, carolyn freiwald details her work in the belize river valley using isotopic analyses to study migration patterns among the maya. her samples come from barton ramie, belize and date to the late and terminal classic period. the barton ramie samples reflect trends from the belize valley and elsewhere in the maya area. in chapter 2, julie hoggarth, carolyn freiwald, and jaime awe sample individuals from baking pot, belize. isotopic values reveal data on population movements but include archaeological data in the form of burial and settlement patterns and material culture to strengthen their study. chapter 3, by andrea cucina, thelma sierra sosa, and vera tiesler, describes population movements and economic changes at the coastal site of xcambo, mexico. through bioarchaeological and archaeological evidence, the team explains that xcambo experienced population growth at the beginning of the late classic, which in turn, caused extremely active economic interactions in the form of salt trade. in chapter 4, meggan bullock studies mobility and migration at the urban site of cholula, mexico during the postclassic period through the health and biostatistics of a sample of 309 skeletons. in part 2 of the volume, elizabeth graham and linda howie study the scale, direction, and causes of population mobility in chapter 5. the authors use both archaeological and stable isotope analyses from lamanai, belize and marco gonzales, belize. in chapter 6, nancy gonlin and kristin landau examine the ways in which mobility is seen in the archaeological record at copan, honduras, specifically within the copan valley and the urban site of san lucas. the authors introduce four definitions of certain types of migration: local, circular, chain, and career. in chapter 7, by nicholas dunning, michael smyth, eric weaver, and ortegón zapata examines settlement patterns in the puuc region, yucatan, mexico. archaeological evidence such as changes in monumental and residential architecture suggest that the patterns of population movement and resource control changed as a result of the end of elite control within the urban areas. in chapter 8, m. charlotte arnauld, eva lemonnier, dominique michelet, and mélanie forné investigate ancient maya mobility in lowland sites during the terminal classic. specifically, the authors sought a better understanding of transformations during the terminal classic by studying different types of mobility and how they can be identified in the archaeological record. part 3 begins with sarah clayton investigating migration at the site of chicoloapan, mexico. clayton uses archaeological data covering the arrival of nonlocal populations at the site, resulting from the decentralization of power due to the breakdown of the teotihuacan state. 3 chapter 10, by grégory pereira, marion forest, elsa jadot, and véronique darras, explores the migration of populations to an ecologically and socially different environment. using archaeological indicators, the authors investigate four site-formation processes: urban fabrique, waste discard, obsidian waste, and burials. in chapter 11, prudence rice investigates lowland maya population movements of the itzas of central petén, guatemala. rice uses ethnohistorical and archaeological data to validate the lowland maya migrations mentioned in the chilam balam books. chapter 12, by christopher beekman, examines one-way migrations that made certain enclaves in west-central mexico easier to study through archaeological and historical data. finally, chapter 13, the discussion by dominique michelet in part 4 of the volume, provides a summary of the chapters and addresses some inconsistencies throughout the book. while definitions are given for “mobility” and “migration” in the introduction, each of the chapters provides a slightly modified version of one or both of the definitions. at first, the presence of so many definitions might be seen as problematic or a hindrance to the general understanding of the concept as a whole. however, the varying definitions can also be seen as a way to highlight the complexity of the concept. additionally, the book underscores how integral the study of migration and mobility is to understanding an ancient culture in general. each chapter discusses a slightly different aspect of ancient mesoamerican society from other within the same section, from burial position and orientation, to architecture, ceramics, and even the environment and ecology. the various authors successfully linked mobility and migration with many different aspects of ancient activities, such as subsistence structures, political strategies, settlement planning, burial rituals, and economic activities. by the end of the volume, the reader understands that the questions of “how” and “why” populations and people moved in ancient times can be integral in discussions of modern migrations. finally, the entire volume is easy to understand, without any unnecessary jargon or confusing concepts. while the book might be inappropriate for younger or introductory scholars without a basic background of mesoamerica, archaeology, or bioarchaeology, any chapter within this volume is an acceptable reading for an upper-level college or graduate course. additionally, professional mesoamerican scholars can benefit from reading this book as it informs on many aspects of past mesoamerican culture besides just population movements. the extensive reference list at the end of the volume is a valuable tool for students and professionals alike, encompassing over 70 pages. 4 mobility and migration in ancient mesoamerican cities is an exceptional addition to the existing published work on mobility and migration studies. each chapter in the book adds something new for the reader, both on the topic of mobility and migration studies and on mesoamerican culture in general. the recent and current work by the authors provides compelling evidence for researchers to rethink the dichotomy of sedentism versus mobility. the fundamental value of this book lies in its ability to compel the reader to critically analyze the different, but still similar definitions being presented and come to their own conclusion of how and why the ancient mesoamerican people moved around the landscape. this critical analyzation will ensure that the lessons of the past will be available for current and future discussions on mobility and migration. cheryl foster is currently a phd candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university. she participated in archaeological projects in belize, the bahamas, and italy. her dissertation research focuses on human-environment interactions in paynes creek national park in southern belize, specifically on the relationship between sea-level rise and cultural activities at salt works sites. © 2021 cheryl foster microsoft word shalabi-publish.doc crafting an engaged urban anthropology review by samir shalabi the routledge handbook of anthropology and the city. london & new york: routledge by: low, seta. ed. 2019. there has been a growing recognition within anthropology over the past two decades about the need to more seriously engage with topics and issues that are of more direct relevance to the everyday realities of the general public. by producing knowledge that is useful for solving real-world social problems and making research more accessible to non-academic audiences, anthropology, according to these appeals, can play a greater role in influencing matters of societal concern. in parallel, as more and more regions around the world are witnessing accelerating rates of urban growth, we have also seen a garnering of scholarly interest to link anthropology with challenges related to city life. reflecting these intersecting trends, the authors of the routledge handbook of anthropology and the city pursue what editor setha low describes in the book’s introductory chapter as an “engaged urban anthropology.” that is, an anthropological practice that strives to create useful knowledge of broad public appeal by grappling with pressing urban issues of the day combined with a political commitment to a value system of social justice. through rich ethnographic case studies from around the world, the volume offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary urban problems and provides creative solutions for grappling with them. although urban anthropology has for long engaged with and sought to remedy urban social problems like the lack of housing, poverty, racial segregation, homelessness and forced displacement, the book reflects a new generation of anthropological research on the city that deals with topics that tangibly mark the present urban condition, including neoliberalism, globalization, ecological crises and intensified socioeconomic and racial disparities. reflecting this contemporary locus, the anthology’s 33 ethnographically informed chapters are divided into eight thematic sections that include precarity, displacement and mobility, security and insecurity, environment and sustainability, citizenship, rights and social justice, built environment and spatial governance, financialization and privatization, and heritage preservation and cultural expression. all chapters echo what low describes as a need for urban anthropologists “to be more outspoken about their social values and judgments, more pointed in their claims and more militant in their ethnographic practice” (p. 4). in part one, four chapters explore the issue of precarity, broadly understood as a state of uncertainty, marginality, vulnerability, exclusion and poverty arising from neoliberal economic policies and forms of governance that render people’s lives invisible to society’s social and political institutions. the texts are especially concerned with how people respond to and resist different forms of urban exclusion. a good example is the contribution by abdoumaliq simone that looks at the different ways in which youth living under conditions of intensified uncertainty in hyderabad and jakarta navigate public space and act on the city. reacting to their exclusion from political normalcy and capital accumulation, simone shows with ethnographic depth and theoretical precision how young people employ multiple modalities of practice to counteract their marginality. an effect of living in precarity is not seldom that people become compelled to move away from the places where they live. part two of the book is dedicated to the intersecting dynamics of displacement and mobility where the chapters deal with topics such as connectivity over urban boundaries in post-apartheid cape town, the intersection of affect and race among andean peruvian and puerto rican migrants in the us, and the relationship between automobility and civic culture in beirut. particularly interesting is the chapter by claudio sopranzetti who investigates the role of motorcycle taxi drivers embroiled in political protests in bangkok as mediators of circulation in the reproduction of city life. challenging traditional urban ethnography’s focus on bounded locales and fixed spatial scales, he demonstrates how urban circulation cuts across these scales and whose operators – the motorcycle drivers – play a central role in allowing (or preventing) the flow of people, commodities and capital. his ethnography shows how these drivers were able to disrupt urban circulation during the protests and challenge the power of the state, indicating the importance of mobility and circulation for the (dis)functioning of cities. from precarity and displacement and mobility the anthology goes on in part three to explore security and insecurity, topics that have attracted growing interest in the social sciences in general and urban anthropology in particular in recent years. two of the chapters deal with security and insecurity from the perspective of technology and infrastructure. while one of them, penned by carolina frossard and rivke jaffe, examines technological security devices in jamaica as “boundary objects” that both connect and blur relations between the state and the private sector in their efforts to create safe urban environments, the other chapter, by mark maguire and réka pétercsák, explores how an airport on the british isles is perceived, conceived and lived by its security personnel, showing how counterterrorist policing practices are dependent on tacit knowledge and situational awareness rather than technological fixes to achieve policing objectives. the two remaining chapters in this section, by thomas hylland eriksen and anouk de koning respectively, conceptualize (in)security in terms of senses of belonging, focusing on the everyday struggles of immigrant communities in towns in the netherlands and norway. with the rise of the anthropocene and concerns around the world about environmental degradation and its effects, urban anthropology is particularly equipped to study how the urbanizing world are affecting and being affected by these forces. the authors in part four concentrate on the double-sidedness of urban sustainability. that is, how it on one side can create positive change while at the same time running the risk of enhancing social and environmental inequalities by excluding some from the benefits of sustainable urban solutions. melissa checker’s contribution, perhaps the most illuminating, investigates how sustainability initiatives in poor neighborhoods in new york city coincided with high-end real estate redevelopments which led to low-income communities and people of color being displaced from their homes. she argues that this type of “environmental gentrification” demonstrates how grassroots and state efforts for sustainability can produce contradictory outcomes and that sustainability can in fact act as a “legitimizing discourse that promised a more eco-friendly lifestyle and a more resilient future, but produced an uneven urban landscape” (p. 210). these topics raise important questions about social justice and urban citizenship and how local communities can claim their right to the city, which is the focus of part five. through ethnographies from north and south america and asia we learn about how american citizenship is racialized and manifested in urban environments, how the lefebvrian notion of the “right to the city” is explored in connection to housing movements in santiago, how a local community organization in salvador struggles to achieve participation in the politics of urban development in their neighborhood, and how residents under threat of displacement in ho chi minh city define their own notions of social justice by using capitalist understandings of the market, which challenged what the researcher described as his own preconceived marxist conceptualizations. the explorations into the right to the city smoothly transition the reader into the next two parts of the book, which examines the topics of built environment and spatial governance, and financialization and privatization, respectively. in the first one, the authors examine how the built environment can function as a driver of change, a site for the creation (or destruction) of symbolic meaning, and a mechanism for the powerful to order and control people’s lives through the purposeful partitioning of space to the benefit of certain groups in favor of others. the long-standing urban anthropological interest in the sociality of money is expressed in the next part of the book where processes of financialization and privatization are studied in relation to urban neoliberal (re)development and its variegated impacts on everyday life. the volume’s eight and final section takes up the pertinent questions of heritage preservation and the rise of new cultural expressions in cities, which actively challenge the profit-driven urban logic of elites, financial institutions and greedy corporations. the anthology thus closes in a rather positive vein where the reader gets to learn about how ordinary people defy and resist the privatization, commodification and ‘redevelopment’ of cities with the not uncommon result of forced population resettlements and displacements. the chapter by aseel sawalha is a pertinent example in which the author explores how the rise of the art scene in east beirut has influenced its urban landscape and how residents experience the city. through the development of art galleries and cafés, sawalha reveals that women, as key agents of change, drove the increased public interest not only in art but also in the preservation of historic buildings in a derelict neighborhood, which, importantly, did not result in the displacement of local residents, as perhaps would be expected by mainstream gentrification theory. these mostly middle-and upper-class women also managed to increase the general presence of women in public spaces since most of the gallery owners, staff and customers of arts and crafts turned out to be women. this over 500-page brick of a book provides deeply insightful and accessible reading to academic and non-academic publics alike. although editor setha low manages the not so easy task of bringing together rich ethnographies from regions around the world, the volume is still heavy on research centered on north america and europe. with the exception of asia, which indeed is well represented, ethnographies from the middle east and africa are sparse. non-western scholars are also under-represented. nevertheless, the book’s central aim is achieved; to push for a more politically engaged urban anthropology that seeks to be useful to the communities with which anthropologists work. all in all, the anthology is an invaluable resource for anyone concerned with the challenges faced by the cities of today and the future. samir shalabi is a phd student in social anthropology at stockholm university. his doctoral research examines neighborhood place attachment, social status, and embodied practices of masculinity among rooftop pigeon flyers in alexandria, egypt. © 2019 samir shalabi microsoft word ojani #2 final.docx 1 fallout, security, and alternative planetary futures masco, joseph. 2021. the future of fallout, and other episodes in radioactive world-making. durham, nc: duke university press, pp. 440, isbn 978-1-4780-1114-9. keywords: danger, fallout, nuclear warfare, security, united states the future of fallout, and other episodes in radioactive world-making is a bold attempt to unravel a set of mechanisms that make contemporary crises seem inevitable and unremarkable. its focus is nuclear warfare and environmental devastation in the u.s., and in particular a security culture and violent technopolitical order that impede alternatives to current ideologies of permanent war. by skillfully bringing into view historical moments when other avenues were momentarily open but quickly foreclosed, joseph masco gestures towards different understandings of (postnational) security and encourages us to imagine another planetary future. written for a broad academic audience, the book is a 440-page-long tour de force, convincingly argued through a combination of ethnographic descriptions, conversations, media analyses, historical accounts and extensive visual material, together comprising 17 chapters of varying length, the majority of which are distributed between four parts. following a prologue that summarizes the book’s main arguments, the first chapter, “the age of fallout,” outlines a critical framework departing from radioactive fallout’s connection to conceptions of an earth system totality. an illustrative example is the first u.s. hydrogen bomb experiment in 1952, which produced a fallout cloud that laid bare hitherto imperceptible interactions between earth, ocean and atmosphere. along with later experiments, these detonations were “planetary-scale environmental events” (31). while the term terraformation is often associated with outer space, masco suggests that nuclear nationalism and petrochemical capitalism, through their various cumulative and recursive effects, have already conducted a 2 terraforming project here on earth. however, the author also identifies a lag between the material fact of fallout and collective recognitions of fallout’s long-lasting implications. this lag is “a major psychosocial achievement of the industrial age” (33), extricating the consequences of fallout from the realm of politics. against this backdrop, part i, “dreaming deserts and death machines,” foregrounds an amalgamation of nuclear nationalism and settler colonial visions of empty space. over four chapters, and with reference to pueblo voices and a tour in a former nuclear testing site, masco elicits the psychosocial spaces of insecurity that have emerged as a consequence of u.s. militarism, focusing on new forms of toxicity, dispossession and collective endangerment, including how infrastructural, imaginary and mass mediated mechanisms have given way to new grounds of power and modes of self-fashioning. for instance, the third chapter, “states of insecurity,” demonstrates how nuevomexicano participation in the u.s. plutonium economy, while allowing access to middle-class life, has simultaneously subjected northern new mexico to angloamerican and u.s. governmental interests. in accounting for this process, masco points to a link between security and practices of national sacrifice, whereby the nuclear standoff of the cold war worked to rule out the possibility for alternative definitions of security whilst also blocking attention to internal settler colonial relations. the second part, “bunkers and psyches,” attends to the infrastructures that have helped to reproduce a militarized nuclear society, along with frontier mentalities and assumptions about american exceptionalism. the bunker has been particularly effective in this regard, yielding fantasies about armored spaces, invulnerable bodies and an understanding of military technoscience as the only means to guarantee a collective future. the seventh chapter, “life underground,” provides illustrative examples of the ways in which the underground bunker has been transformed “into a site of both global power and social dreaming” (137); a place where the future is held hostage and reimagined. thus, as an answer to the question of how nuclear fear has gradually “remade american society as permanently insecure, even as the united states has become the most powerful military and economic state on earth” (137), masco suggests that u.s. military spending never aimed to end violence but to prepare citizens to endure it, thereby spurring ever-more calls for security and the concomitant militarization of national life. 3 “celluloid nightmares,” which is the title of part iii, investigates how films have helped to instill apocalyptic images of the end. these shape understandings of collective danger and become the grounds for interpreting other crises, such as global warming. central are the countless rehearsals of absolute forms of danger in american popular culture, and how these engender indisputable countersubversive sentiments. accordingly, in the twelfth chapter, “catastrophe’s apocalypse,” masco draws a connection between guillermo del toro’s 2013 blockbuster pacific rim and president ronald reagan’s fantasy about cold war antagonisms as surmountable through the arrival of new forms of extraterrestrial threat. these fantasies naturalize assumptions about threat as constituting the basis for community and belonging. in doing so, they also shift focus away from actual, ongoing forms of destruction. while “americans focused on the immediacy of nuclear war in the twentieth century,” these occlusions downplayed “other incremental but existential dangers” (263) caused by the rapid growth of consumer society. the last part, “after counterrevolution,” analyzes retired intelligence professionals’ repositioning of cold war confrontations in relation to the war on terror, as well as the role of big data surveillance in reordering the global security space. how the ensuing political deadlock becomes sustained is exemplified in the seventeenth chapter, “the crisis in crisis,” where the author points to the way narratives about crisis and existential danger have turned into a counterrevolutionary force: “instead of the crisis/utopia that empowered the high modernist culture of the mid-twentieth century,” the u.s. is now entrapped in “a crisis/paralysis circuit” (342) that has increasingly curtailed the political horizon. against narratives about permanent crisis, the section offers an understanding of crisis as an effect of political, financial, technological and militaristic processes—an infrastructural achievement that, in so being, might also be redirected. in this connection, masco suggests that we begin to articulate alternative futures and, in this way, help galvanize the necessary collective action for generating them. in unfolding these arguments, the book occasionally draws on short ethnographic accounts and conversations, for instance with pueblo members raising their concern about environmental justice, or a cold warrior turned guide in a former nuclear test site in nevada. there is also an interesting episode on the author’s personal experience of a burglarized apartment in chicago, 4 which develops into a discussion on counterterror and domestic surveillance. still, most of the future of fallout, and other episodes in radioactive world-making oscillates between descriptions of large-scale developments and critical analyses of terms such as danger, crisis and apocalypse. as with all forms of writing, there is a price to pay: there is not much to find here for readers seeking the nitty-gritty of ethnographic encounters. but, to be fair, this is obviously not masco’s objective. in tackling issues around large-scale disasters, atomic revolution and u.s. national security, the book is instead a timely contribution to nascent discussions on the planetary. it productively analyzes some of the ways in which certain imaginaries have taken shape so as to draw out alternative possibilities. chakad ojani received his phd in social anthropology from the university of manchester. his doctoral research was an ethnographic study of fog capture and atmospheric attunements in coastal peru. chakad is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the jagiellonian university in krakow, where he is undertaking a project on swedish outer space infrastructures and imaginaries. © chakad ojani 2021 microsoft word escalante final.docx 1 practicing life and death in the caribbean passages and afterworlds: anthropological perspectives on death in the caribbean, edited by maarit forde and yanique hume, 2018. durham: duke university press, isbn: 978-1-47800014-3 passages and afterworlds is a hugely important volume to the study of life and death in the circum-caribbean. while the title and subtitle of the volume indicate a focus on death, the authors within the volume think as much about the living, how the living interact with the dead, and how the dead interact with the living. importantly, the authors in this volume helpfully expand what is meant, or, indeed, could be meant, by “caribbean.” this volume brings together groups from the caribbean that are rarely placed in the same collection, which provides an innovative approach to caribbean studies: a region-wide perspective that goes beyond the dominant narrative characterization of it as the “black atlantic.” the authors seemingly know this as paul christopher johnson notes in his essay: there are certain communities, namely, cuban santería and brazilian candomblé, that have received the abundance of attention in caribbean anthropology. he calls them “the stars” (34), and as a result of their stardom, the overwhelming abundance of information on the caribbean focuses on these groups and their adjacent communities. however, this volume ambitiously sets out to think about life, death, and the dead in under-considered contexts, such as jamaica, suriname, trinidad and tobago. the volume consists of nine chapters, an introduction, and an afterward. the chapters are divided into two sections. the first section, “relations,” considers how the living interact and live with the dead, and, conversely, how the dead do the same. essays here draw attention to garifuna practices of making the dead present (johnson), the porous boundary between the living and the dead in amerindian communities (mentore), the role of morality in the formation of ancestors in 2 ndyuka maroon communities in suriname (van wetering and van velzen), how funerary practices, such as burial, create and extend kinship ties (hume), and, lastly, an examination of haitian practices for finding the cause of death beyond biomedicine (richman). the essays in section two, “transformations,” look instead at how rituals of and for the dead have changed over time and in relationship to wider sociopolitical events. here, for example, the authors consider how the 2010 earthquake changed haiti’s relationship with gede, the lwa of death (cosentino), how legislation and juridical pronouncements affect one’s relationship with the dead (forde and mcneal, respectively), and a personal reflection on death with the samaaka maroons (price). the volume ends with an afterward by aisha khan gathers together themes from the chapters and explores “truth” as a conceptual framework in anthropological research. as mentioned above, the authors in this volume do not attend to “the stars” of the caribbean. in considering the dark and vast space between the stars, the volume steps out of the starlight, as it were, and enters into a treacherous territory of potential and pitfall. both forde and khan’s respective introduction and afterward do a wonderful job of providing a nuanced summary to an innovative and much-needed collection. at the same time, this innovation comes at a cost. the rich literature that makes up the history and theory of the introduction and the afterward cannot equally engage with all the necessary literature. the expected literature, from frazer to herskovits, from palmié to matory, is present. however, the literature required to understand hinduism in the caribbean, for example, is noticeably missing from these essays. this means that the chapters within are placed in a decidedly black atlantic cover while simultaneously eschewing that description. this only goes to prove the importance of the chapters gathered together here. the opportunity exists, then, to think about the caribbean outside the black atlantic framework— or, at least, not only within such a setting. that is to say, how might we consider the caribbean as the afro-asian pacific, too? or, as the indigenous atlantic? in her introduction, forde ends with a caveat of sorts, suggesting that language is inherently limited in its ability to capture something of the rituals contained within the text. she argues that a move to consider poetry and visual art would prove to be a powerful ally as we attempt to write about experiences and things that are excessively beyond the linguistic. here some authors stand out for their engagement with art, such as cosentino. however, the text lacks any real engagement with these orientations. indeed, it is only cosentino’s chapter that broaches this subject and 3 approach. potential, then, exists to consider the rites of caribbean peoples through photo essays, sustained engagements with ritual objects, and poetry. there exists another opportunity for an examination of practices of people left out of this volume. while the volume sets out to forge new ground, one wonders about the dead in other parts of the caribbean. noticeably missing from the volume is work on the spanish-speaking caribbean, departmentalized caribbean islands, or non-sovereign states, like puerto rico. how might these other places and communities help to fill out the caribbean? the volume comes out of a wenner-gren-funded workshop held in barbados in 2011. the essays in this volume point to this in two different ways. at times, it is explicitly stated by the authors who say their essay offers “brief thoughts” or say as much in the notes at the end of their chapter. here, the essays usually suffer from a lack of foundation or through-line. that is to say, the essays are gathered around a central theme and a loosely structured argument. at other times, this is more stylistic of the edited volume. meaning, the individual authors of the volume seemingly write independently of each other, without making reference to the other chapters, or how another author’s essay might be helpful for context, reference, or comparison. as such, the authors, perhaps unintentionally, perform the caribbean: the resonance and dissonance of the entangled practices. passages and afterworlds is a timely edited collection of essays that shines light onto lesser-known practices in the caribbean. it will prove to be a useful addition to anthropology, religious studies, and caribbean studies courses as it sheds light on all of these simultaneously and individually. by reorienting our attention to other communities and practices within the caribbean, this volume reiterates a centrally important point: the caribbean has never been one thing. it is the site of constant movement and, often violent, combination. keith e. mcneal’s chapter illustrates this well. he opens his chapter by thinking about the confluence of practices at a funeral in trinidad: “here we have a deceased christian indo-trinidadian whose hybrid funeral is conducted at a political party constituency office, presbyterian church, and neotraditional hindu cremation site” (200). not only is it a blurring of boundaries between politics and religion, but also between religious communities and practices once thought disparate. likewise, the volume performs this: communities thought to be disparate are gathered here and boundaries begin to blur. 4 alejandro escalante is a phd candidate at the university of north carolina at chapel hill. his dissertation project centers around the assemblages of gender, race, and religion in la fiesta de santiago apóstol, which is annually held in loíza, puerto rico. © 2021 alejandro escalante microsoft word final_anthropology book forum-year in review.doc 1 looking back: 2019 year in review in our first ever letter from the editors we wish to return briefly to what we have published during the past year and to look ahead to what is to come. as a journal that exclusively publishes book reviews, we have the privilege of staying abreast of the newest publications in the field. in taking stock of those topics that attracted the most attention from reviewers, as well as situating these trends within current academic discussions in the us and beyond, we review some of the major themes that emerged this year. this review will further highlight a disciplinary divide that we hope we can begin to address in the coming year through engagement in a common discussion – more on this below. before turning to the reviews published in 2019, let us shortly lay out the aims of the anthropology book forum, and the reason why we think this journal contributes to anthropological scholarship and research. the aim of the forum at large is to facilitate a smooth and quick venue for book reviews written for a wide audience. the flexibility offered by the journal as to which titles are available for review and the rapid editorial process is meant to allow titles to be reviewed while still new – as a tool for researchers to navigate the most recently published work and to offer participants a chance to comment on, critique and debate developments in our field(s). it is also, we hope, a way to reach a more general reading audience outside of the disciplinary boundaries of anthropology. the past year this year we have seen considerable attention to public anthropology, activist anthropology, disciplinary ethics and the politics and practices of reaching broader publics. in addition, 2019 has been a year with continuous attention to migration, borders, and conflict. it is therefore not surprising that we’ve received several reviews on the topic of migration and borders – this is in line with a larger trend in the discipline of sociocultural anthropology with much work being done on the topic. a consequence of migration and immigration is, of course, questions 2 of identity and belonging, another topic that has been brought up in more than one of our reviews. these questions of belonging and identity are continuously important and deserving of attention, especially in a time when many countries around the world are experiencing an upswing of right-wing political parties and immigration restrictive policies (us, sweden, denmark, the uk, and india for example) – how do people ‘become’ in such an environment? as the field of medical anthropology continues to grow, we are beginning to see comprehensive overviews, such as the routledge handbook of medical anthropology. in addition, there has been attention to new audio-visual methodologies, such as in robert lemelson’s and annie tucker’s afflictions: steps toward a visual psychological anthropology. the interest in heritage studies has maintained a steady momentum throughout 2019, and there are multiple interesting titles on the horizon. during the past year we have published three reviews on the topic of heritage, including world heritage on the ground: ethnographic perspectives by christoph brumann and david berliner and cuban cultural heritage: a rebel past for a revolutionary nation by pablo alonso gonzález. further, this year has also seen much academic interest on the topic of infrastructure, such as in the promise of infrastructure edited by nikhil anand, akhil gupta, and hannah appel, as well as the anthropology of development, urban anthropology, and the anthropology of time. we’ve also seen some new developments in archaeology, such as andrew reinhard’s archaeogaming as well as interdisciplinary approaches, such as manzanilla’s (eds.) multiethnicity and migration at teopancazco: investigations of a teotihuacan neighborhood center. we’ve only published three reviews of archaeology titles this year however, and we’d like to say a few words about the field’s representation in the journal. outreach and call for reviewers as a point of departure, let’s begin with anthropology book forum’s focus and scope: anthropology book forum publishes reviews of both books and films of relevance and interest to a general anthropological audience, including sociocultural, linguistic, 3 biological and linguistic anthropology as well as archaeology and closely cognate disciplines. in this statement we find the term “sociocultural” as well as “archaeology,” and we wish to hold onto the pair for a little while. when browsing the most recently published works, it is evident that most of the literature published yearly under the broad category of ‘anthropology’ are the ones we mostly offer our reviewers. however, even though, by number, the titles in either archaeology or social anthropology are fairly equal, we mostly receive reviews of sociocultural titles and are seeing less engagement from archaeologists. and hence the question, why are archaeological titles not attracting reviewers? or perhaps alternately, why aren’t archaeologists and archaeology students interested in publishing reviews in the journal? possibly we, the editorial team, have not managed to reach the archaeological scholarly community as effective as the sociocultural one. when writing to individual scholars, however, we find that this ‘trend’ has prevailed, with sociocultural anthropologists taking more interest in publishing reviews with us than archaeologists. this is in no way an attempt to criticize; on the contrary, we ask archaeologists reading this to have a look at our great variety of titles for review, to engage with debates that cross both fields, and to assist us in publishing reviews on work important for the field of archaeology. in addition, we hope to bring insights from both fields into common discussions that cut across the four fields of anthropology. the editorial team is well aware of the ongoing debate about the lack of engagement between archaeology and sociocultural anthropology even though there is much to be learnt from one another and despite the four-field structure of anthropology departments in the united states. the idea behind starting this journal in the first place was to create a forum for dialogue, and what could be more important than assisting and facilitating a forum of common knowledge production and communication across fields and disciplinary boundaries! as discussions continue about the value of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary conversations and collaborations, we hope that these segregatory trends will not stem the flow of discourse and limit this journal to the socio-cultural field alone. that said, we will be pursuing archaeologists this year with the ultimate aim of publishing more reviews of archaeological titles in 2020. 4 the year to come in the year to come, we are hoping to grow the journal in several ways in order to publish more, offer new formats for book reviews and engage a wider audience. we will experiment a bit with our format in 2020, opening up the journal to allow for other styles and forms of reviews. we will also offer interested reviewers not only the titles listed on our website for review, but also the option to find titles of their own liking (relevant to anthropology). this, we hope, will expand the overall diversity of book reviews we publish. beginning in january 2020, we offer the possibility to review books in two new ways, in review article format or as a video review: review articles: review 2-3 titles at once and keep them in a dialogue throughout the review. this format of review will be a bit longer than our original type, asking reviewers to hold a length of 1750-2000 words. the purpose of review articles is to allow for a more in-depth discussion, comparison, and debate of a particular theme or idea and trace its development within the discipline. video-review: reviewing one title, but instead of submitting the review in writing the reviewer will record a video of themselves reading the review out loud (a transcript will still be required). finally, before we go, we wish to thank our readers and contributors for their engagement and to also extend an invitation to those not yet familiar with the journal to use it as a resource as well as a platform for engagement. it is with great excitement and anticipation that we look forward to the coming year and to a more dynamic, inclusive and expanded anthropology book forum. best wishes from your editors, rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp 5 be sure to check out our new facebook page for news and updates: https://www.facebook.com/anthropology-book-forum-117305059654437/ books available for review: http://journals.sfu.ca/abf/index.php/abf/objectsforreview book reviews: http://www.anthropology-news.org/?post_type=book-review © 2019 rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp 1 kick dust at their heels and see if they cough: witches in ghana review by d. s. farrer witchcraft, witches, and violence in ghana by mensah adinkrah berghahn, 2015 mensah adinkrah starts with a complaint that scholarly attention to witchcraft in ghana has focused almost exclusively on witchcraft-related violence and witch’s camps in northern ghana. he claims: “this ignores the major problem, and the very different forms of witchcraft violence that occur in the southern part of ghana,” adding that, “[m]ost of this book focuses on the witchcraft ideology of the akan, but considers witchcraft beliefs and related violence throughout ghana” (x). the author follows his assertion with ten chapters, few of which return specifically to the problem of how northern and southern witchcraft violence differ. instead, witchcraft here is treated as a monolithic bloc, with the emphasis on akan “traditional beliefs,” and the occasional nod towards the islamic north and other tribal divisions. aside from the initial authorial promise not followed through, the rationale for research oft-provided in this text—that major problems have been ignored, omitted, or never previously studied—begs the question of when, why, how, and for whom research is conducted. the author asserts the noble cause of “helping to eradicate witchcraft violence in ghana and elsewhere” (xi), but to my mind this may be read as a conflation of ideas, where calls to eradicate witchcraft violence are actually calls to eradicate witchcraft per se. for the most part the book is written in an omniscient journalistic style, appearing lucid, and matter of fact, albeit in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink narrative collusion with the reader. the book's raw focus to articulate a social problem comes at the expense of a more thorough treatment of the extant theoretical literature (e. e. evans-pritchard, jeanne favret-saada, and paul stoller to name a few). despite announcing surveys of the anthropological literature in the “introduction: witchcraft violence in comparative perspective” the author seems unaware of the meaning of evans-pritchard's famous distinction between sorcerer and witch, to blithely collapse 2 african experience (yes, all of it) into the medieval european witch craze. numb to anthropological theory, the book also fails to outline the methods employed in a fashion that would satisfy the criminologist or sociologist. the research claims authority on the basis of anthropology, ethnography, sociology, and criminology, yet the rigorous demands of these discourses to engage current theoretical arguments or to provide methodological details are unmet, leaving the reader tantalizing glimpses as to exactly how, where, and when, the research was conducted. merely citing another academic review is a cop-out and not the same as conducting a review of the massive literature and making an original contribution to the field. nevertheless, in the study of witchcraft an indigenous perspective is welcomed, including, “the author’s own seven years of experience in an all-boys boarding secondary school in ghana” (110). chapter 1, “ghana: the research setting” provides a summary overview of history, politics, population, literacy, education, economy, communications, health, common diseases and substance abuse, mental illness, and the comparatively low status of women, children, the elderly, and the disabled in ghana. sections on the north-south developmental divide and contemporary ghanaian ethos reveal a modern obsession with material advantage as a reflection of spiritual potency, or lack thereof. sub-sections on “traditional religion” and “religion” blur the two subjects to provide a sense of overwhelming christian spiritual dominance as a means to convey benefit or avoid misfortune via the intercession of spirit ancestors. by this point i sensed that a focus on the contradictory and violent role of christian clergy and pastors in witchcraft violence is a missed opportunity, and could, perhaps should have been the central theme of this book. after listing atrocities the narrative switches to banality. the author states: “contemporary anthropological literature and numerous media reports indicate that belief in witchcraft phenomena exists in many societies, although these beliefs remain more entrenched in some places than in others” (14). what are “many”? what has belief got to do with practice? the classic theme in the anthropological witchcraft literature for generations, the issue of misplaced cognition, faulty logic, is evident here on every other page, but the author makes no attempt to address this fundamental debate. the book is not a contribution to anthropological inquiry, but mostly a tour of depredation. outdated statistics compete with bizarre sentence formation. citing a source in a section on mental illness and pointing out the lack of facilities and provision for treatment, the author says, for example, “concurrently, several people with psychiatric and neurological disorders such as schizophrenia, manic depression, neurosis, epilepsy, and other severe and common mental disorders do not receive any medical care” (29). 3 from an anthropological perspective, chapter 2, is the best chapter in the book. “witchcraft beliefs in ghana,” provides an outline of the scope of witchcraft, socially, in terms of “believers” from all walks of life; indicates the victims of witchcraft violence, primarily the elderly, the disabled, women and children, and the mentally ill; and introduces the perpetrators of violence, anti-witchcraft fetish priests, witch doctors, spiritual healers, clergy, and christian pastors, illustrating, albeit unacknowledged, one of evans-pritchard’s key distinctions between sorcery and witchcraft (the latter passed down, inherited, perhaps from an elder family member spitting it into the mouth of the new witch, or passed through contaminated food), as opposed to sorcery, which is learned (and for evans-pritchard, the domain of the nobility). as is to be expected the categories smear into one another: witch doctors are witches, and witches are located in guilds like sorcerers. some details on chicken divination are provided. i can't help but regret that evans-pritchard’s foundational discourse on african religion, the unabridged version of witchcraft, oracles and magic among the azande, was not consulted. nevertheless, this chapter provides a keen insider view, and a useful starting point for contemporary research. chapter 3, introduces the core theme of the book, “socialization into witchcraft beliefs.” radio shows, television, newspapers, magazines, children's books, and the internet are discussed as instruments of socialization. no attempt is made to draw out the key themes in folk tales, thrown in as an aside to the construction of social identity. continuing the socialization theme chapter 4, “witchcraft themes in popular ghanaian music,” ventures into ethnomusicology/content analysis, to examine eight songs concerning witchcraft beliefs. interesting snippets stand out from repetitive analysis. the author reiterates: “the perceived relatively greater social stability and prosperity of the western world is linked to the beneficent activities of european or american witches, whereas persistent warfare, famine, and poverty in africa are attributed to the maleficent, harmful, or diabolical witchcraft of african peoples” (137). what needs to be explained given “this era of heightened retraditionalization of the society” (157) is why is everyone so paranoid about bewitchment, specifically from members of their own family? what drives a culture of familial distrust, envy, and resentment? the author begs the question ad nauseum, trotting out further redundant "data” for the socialized "belief" in witchcraft, albeit leading up to a more interesting criminological analysis of power, gender, and social control in chapter 9, “gendered victimization: patriarchy, misogyny, and gynophobia,” where it is opined that although wizards (males) are considered far more powerful in terms of black and white magic than are witches (females), women are greatly overrepresented among those undergoing exorcism rituals in christian prayer camps and christian spiritual churches (270), for reasons of patriarchy, misogyny, and women’s changing roles under difficult conditions, persecution the author says may be explained via 4 the “backlash hypothesis” (271). that music is an agent of socialization, as are proverbs, is considered in chapter 5, “witchcraft imagery in akan proverbs.” thirty-four proverbs are provided, adding depth, although the analysis suffers from some repetition. chapter 6, “witchcraft trials in ghanaian courts,” describes four trials, two for defamation of character resulting from witchcraft accusations, successfully defended; and two vigilantism cases ending in the murder of accused witches, where some perpetrators received the death penalty, and others life imprisonment. recorded witch's confessions claimed members of the coven transformed into a lizard, cat, goat, vulture, owl, elephant, parrot, and centipede. "nonbelievers in witchcraft saw the case as yet another example of inanity" (202). this raises an implicit question of the relation of religion, african or otherwise, to principles of consistency, logic, and insanity. chapter 7, “witch killings” briefly outlines forty gruesome homicides made public in media reports from 19802012, showing that older, lower income women are the most liable to be murdered for witchcraft. chapter 8, “nonlethal treatment of alleged witches” details thirty-eight disturbing cases where victims suffered life-threatening injuries, physical and verbal abuse, and psychological torment, where refusal to submit to an ordeal is tantamount to an admission of guilt. ghanaian refuges, we are told, collectively accommodate as many as eight thousand suspected witches, where suspected witches must submit to a dewitching or exorcism regimen (242), spending years if not the rest of their lives in such camps. finally, the conclusion, “curbing witchcraft-related violence in ghana,” suggests further interventions are necessary in the health professions, criminal justice system, and the educational system alongside improvements in mental health palliative care and changes in media and representation of a numerically increasing generation of post-menopausal women facing poverty and hardship in their final years. my favourite takeaway from the book is the notion that although witches appear upright they actually walk upside down, therefore, to detect a witch simply kick sand at their heels and see if they rub their eyes (93). i shall be kicking dust around the heels of my ghanaian relatives this christmas, where the book will surely be of interest and make a worthy addition to the shelf. douglas farrer @schizmogenesis is visiting professor in performance at the university of plymouth, and associate professor of anthropology at the university of guam. dr. farrer has conducted extensive field research in singapore, malaysia, and guam. his publications include war magic: religion, sorcery, and performance (2016); martial arts as embodied knowledge: asian traditions in a transnational world (2011); and shadows of the prophet: martial arts and sufi mysticism (2009). 5 © 2017 douglas farrer microsoft word senécal-lirette, v. publish.doc the unpaid family leave in the us: the benefits of offering more (?) review by véronique senécal-lirette zero weeks director: ky dickens video project, 2017 key words: paid leave; maternity leave; paternity leave; workers rights; family planning ky dickens is the director and the producer of the documentary zero weeks which aims to inform and raise awareness about paid family leave in the united states. zero weeks presents speeches by activists, economists, policymakers, researchers, a doctor, small and large business owners, in addition to personal stories of people who have been personally affected by the topic. in the united states, parents and families are protected under a federal law: the family and medical leave act (fmla). under this law, employees are protected with up to twelve weeks of unpaid family leave for some medical and family reasons1. however, these twelve weeks are far from guaranteed and are subject to some conditions: the company must have at least 50 employees, and the employee needs to have been working more than 25 hours a week for over a year. it should be noted that, according to the documentary, the united states is the only country in the world with papua new guinea 1 � for more information about the fmla: https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla (consulted on november 4th, 2019) that do not offer a paid leave law, and the only one among developed countries not offering it. zero weeks shed light on this delay of the united states compared to the rest of the world. the states of california, new jersey, and rhode island addressed this issue on their own in 2017, and have passed paid leave laws showing that the costs amount to less than a cup of coffee per week for each person within the state. dickens herself has experienced the shortcomings of the law. like most americans, she naturally felt entitled to have twelve weeks leave after giving birth; however, since her place of employment had less than 50 employees, she was not. even if she had been employed more than ten years, her employer could have demanded she return to work within days after giving birth. she says that a lot of mothers has to, and the situation is similar for fathers or same-gender partners. dickens had to return to work after only six weeks –needless to say, she was not ready at all. her wife, meanwhile, had to return to work two days after the birth of their child. dickens was shocked by their experience, did some research and realized that many other people had been in a similar situation and that she and her spouse had actually been among the lucky ones. it is hard to imagine that one out of four us women returns to work within two weeks after giving birth; in fact, only 15% of american employees have access to paid leave, and only 5% of low wage workers. most people live from paycheck to paycheck. some believe they are part of the middleclass, while they are one incident away from going bankrupt. nearly half of americans say they could not find $2000 even by asking for support from relatives, and one third have no savings at all. taking these facts into account, even if the employee succeeds in obtaining a leave, he/she will not be paid. so what will he/she do to continue paying rent, bills, school fees? the reality is that thousands of americans cannot afford to go without a salary. the documentary is very clear: the reality is that, in the united states, people don’t think about paid family leave until they need it. then reality strikes. the truth is, one day or another almost everyone will need to take care either of a newborn, a sick relative, an elderly parent, or of themselves after an accident or an illness. the documentary exposes personal stories of several people affected by this reality. there is a father that had leukemia and was fired along with his wife, who worked at the same place, to make sure she would not take days off. there is a woman diagnosed with stage four breast cancer while being a mother of a two-year-old kid. her doctor suggests she go on disability leave for the duration of her treatment – but she cannot afford it financially. another woman works five days a week while visiting and taking care of her ill mother every morning. yet another woman lost her twins, and her husband only had six days off from work to be with her to mourn and prepare the funerals. then, this couple had another baby and the father had to return home responding to e-mails only 6 hours after childbirth. a 20-year-old mother had four weeks leave but had to return to work due to lack of money. another woman gave birth after 27 weeks of pregnancy and only had four weeks of unpaid leave to recover from her c-section before going back to work, while her very premature son was fighting for his life in intensive care. her husband did not have any days off. the people presented come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and are from different ethnic groups. in zero weeks we learn that even though most people (even among politicians) agree that family leave is necessary, no one moves because no one knows who will pay for it. the argument that it will hurt the economy comes back a lot. however, states that apply such policies of paid family leave see benefits for both citizens and businesses. the myth that it will hurt small businesses, that people will take advantage (abuse) is tenacious but many employers have gone ahead and are telling the benefits. yes, it has costs, but they integrate them into the structure of their business. the documentary presents a few strategies to be able to give families paid leave and the benefits that companies noticed doing so – like a more positive business climate and keeping their employees. employees mentioned that this meant a lot and pointed out that they probably would have resigned without this policy. the documentary indeed shows some people who decided to leave their jobs because of the little family leave time they had. their productivity, their loyalty and their desire to continue with the company were no longer there. it shows that while it costs something for the company to voluntarily provide paid family leave, it is evident that doing nothing also comes at a serious cost (just think about the cost of replacing an employee, among others). the documentary points out that paid family leave could be funded through a small payroll deduction from employees, and work like an insurance program. it clearly details the benefits of having an fmla. for example: fewer infant deaths, more women in the workforce, less absenteeism, less postpartum depression, longer breastfeeding periods for mothers (leading to a better bond of attachment), and parents that will be able to go to their child’s appointments, etc. zero weeks also presents the situation of fathers, the prejudices that persist when they want to benefit from paternity leave, and how little they get. the documentary also addresses the reasons why women often remain at the bottom of the ladder in the organization of a business. this production is full of shocking and dramatic statistics that make aberrant and incomprehensible that the usa could have a delay of this kind in its legislation compared to the rest of the world. some americans were invited to the documentary to talk about the usual arguments provided by those who are against the paid family leave, but it would have been fairer to also present interviews with those who are really opposed to it, in order to present a more balanced view, a counterpoint, and more accurately discuss this complex situation. to say that the united states is the only country in the world with papua new guinea not to offer paid family leave is one thing, but it must be put into perspective. in most developing or undeveloped countries people are not employed by public, private or governmental enterprises. so even though their country offers this policy, it only applies to a small minority of people since most of them work in the informal work market. the majority must be resourceful just to get by (for example selling fruits and vegetables, hand-made clothes). the documentary shows the social, economic, medical, marital and global advantages of paid family leave in the united states and provides many facts, statistics, maps and graphics that make it easier to understand the situation. zero weeks is relevant and essential to anyone interested in sociopolitical issues of this kind, and i recommend to watch this tumbling documentary which is a solid base to understand the dynamics couples have to face when deciding to have a baby in the united states today. zero weeks offers a good first contact with this financial situation for those inclined to understand, and possibly, act to change the current legislative and political situation surrounding paid family leave in the us. véronique senécal-lirette has a master's degree in social work from the université du québec en outaouais, with her primary field research taking place in senegal. she has worked as a counselor for people who have experienced violence, addiction and mental health issues. her research interests include women's rights, mental health, traditions and the arts. © 2019 véronique senécal-lirette microsoft word sreenath final.doc 1 on the thirst for citizenship nikhil anand, 2017, hydraulic city: water and the infrastructures of citizenship in mumbai, duke university press, pp. 312 isbn: 978-0-8223-6269-2 reading through a work that has already become a signpost in the anthropology of infrastructure, i was reminded of pa ranjith’s recent tamil blockbuster kaala, a film that, like nikhil anand’s monograph hydraulic city, is set in the settlements of mumbai. in a brief scene, two brothers are faced with a water shortage in their community and decide to address the issue in divergent ways. lenin, the quintessential civic activist, painstakingly collects signatures to petition local municipal authorities. selva, the grittier local leader, assembles a coterie and digs into the ground, puncturing an underground pipe and drawing water. it is a depiction of two purportedly divergent political avenues in the postcolony—in partha chatterjee’s famous theorization, the derivative performance of liberal rights in ‘civil society’ and a more partial and contingent politics of direct action, patronage, and moral claims that constitutes ‘political society.’ hydraulic city interrogates this neat separation, examining how both petitioning for water and rerouting its flow may be equally contingent, partial, and reversible political acts when mediated by mumbai’s water infrastructure, a socio-natural network that distributes 3.4 billion liters over three thousand miles of pipe. it focuses on how mumbai’s marginalized inhabitants forge a ‘hydraulic citizenship’ through a plurality of liberal and illiberal relations: “the iterative, discreet, and incremental ways in which [they] establish their lives in the city by attending to the fickle flow of water through municipal pipes” (p. 6). the multiple articulations of hydraulic citizenship, anand argues, is both made possible and circumscribed by the leakiness of the city’s water infrastructures. while remaining resolutely public, these systems bring forth forms of belonging and contestation that exceed both the linear time of liberal polities and purely human intentionalities. 2 chapter 1, titled “scare cities,” traces the construction of water ‘scarcity’ as a discourse and a social fact, focusing on how it structures rural-urban relations as well as forms of nativist politics. anand elaborates on how the specter of an overpopulated, thirsty city is conjured to govern populations in ways that privilege concerns of the urban over the rural and of mumbai’s established residents over its migrant settlers. examining colonial legacies of fiscal austerity, dam engineers whose jurisdiction prioritizes a distant city over adjacent agricultural communities, reports that overstate urban per-capita demand while understating consumption disparities within urban populations, and silences over underground sources of urban potable water, the chapter argues that the construction of mumbai’s water as a scarce resource reinforces the centralization of state control and excludes particular urban and peri-urban communities from liberal state care. chapter 2, titled “settlement,” narrates a brief history of the settlement of jogeshwari, which began as an informal community and was regularized over the course of many decades through a range of legal, extralegal, and protest actions. it underscores how mumbai’s inhabitants draw upon both state recognition and ties of patronage and kin to constitute plural political subjectivities. here, anand argues that such a plurality of relations both allows them to access municipal water as well as mobilize their locations within water infrastructures to perform forms of urban belonging that bring their habitations both official and tacit recognition. showing how inhabitants deploy illiberal relations of patronage, clientship, and friendship in concert with rights discourses, the chapter theorizes how the expansion of liberal rule need not foreclose the multiple sovereignties that inflect postcolonial urban politics. chapter 3, titled “time pé (on time)” is a granular account of the rhythms that mark water distribution and collection in the city, focusing on the multiple temporal scales produced by the sputtering flow of water directed through pipes, pumps, valves, tanks, and taps. whereas most of mumbai’s inhabitants have shared water connections, settlers do not have the extensive sociotechnical apparatus, such as storage tanks and pumps, of wealthier, propertied inhabitants. instead, the former settlers depend on a more capricious network of community, kin, and municipal workers to draw sufficient water ‘on time.' anand focuses on the conjuncture of two 3 kinds of infrastructural labor—that of municipal chaviwallas who calibrate water schedules by turning municipal valves on and off and that of inhabitants who perform ‘water time’ by being present to collect water. not only does such a double movement normalize certain gendered roles and spaces, but also allows forms of mediated personhood and agency that are irreducible to human design. chapter 4, titled “social work,” concerns itself with asha, one of the community organizations in jogeshwari, and the forms of social arbitration that asha workers engage in. it focuses on asha’s role in a public consultation on water reform policies, highlighting how certain political subjectivities come into tension as settlers, officials, and various mediators find their relationships de-stabilized within certain moments and enactments of hydraulic citizenship. spurred by a world bank financed reform plan, asha workers, along with other settler organizations and ngos, interrogate municipal councilors, officials, and their own leadership, with mixed, sometimes caustic, consequences for how they access urban services. their experiences reveal how public entitlements are not realized simply through rights discourses or as brokerage, but through the reiteration of claims and relations within an inherently violent, unstable, yet open system. chapter 5, titled “leaks,” works through the ways in which leaks within mumbai’s water infrastructure are symptoms of a network that escapes present human regimes yet draws in material and historical accretions to bear on human lifeworlds. for instance, the painstaking indexing made by hydrological engineers around supply and demand remains no more than approximate calculations, leading them on a perpetual chase to anticipate, locate, and mend leakage along the city’s vast network. such persistent leakage makes certain infrastructural visions, such as 24/7 water supply, improbable, pushing water engineers to promote numerical fictions to appear legitimate to local, national, and international auditors, even as they watch city streets flood and sink unexpectedly. ironically, this makes the technical work of engineers irreconcilably political. without reliable metrics to anchor their work, they quickly come to depend on the councilors’ abilities to issue contracts and promotions as well as to placate restless publics. 4 chapter 6, titled “disconnection,” focuses on the ways in which the muslim community of premnagar experience water as an index of socio-political abjection as they get disconnected from municipal water lines. by letting water lines leak, rust, and eventually run dry, city engineers actively create infrastructural contexts through which they can apprehend minority communities as troublesome outsiders who are incapable of hydraulic citizenship. this forces the residents of premnagar to look for alternative sources of water as they draw from wells adjacent to sewage lines, make unauthorized connections that circumvent the need for government documents, and improvise pumps to navigate less than ideal topographies. here, local plumbers become just as significant as municipal engineers, helping create moral communities that carve out limited autonomy for those suffering from the exclusions of majoritarian politics and a prejudiced municipal bureaucracy. hydraulic city is a thoughtful ethnography of how hopes, desires, and distributions of life are mediated by and accrete in the everyday infrastructures that surround us--systems that are perpetually falling apart and, much like our own lives, relations, and imaginaries, require constant upkeep and maintenance. such a focus is beautifully reflected in the book’s form. each chapter is bookended by impressionistic ‘interludes’ that both focus on and perform the fickle, unruly affects of water. just as floods, sedimentations, rivers, and rains interrupt and shape water’s infrastructural channeling, these interludes cut and mingle with their adjacent chapters, imbuing anand’s ethnography with a rich multivocality appropriate for an account of infrastructural re-enchantment. as we confront our uncertain planetary conditions, this important work charts how we may cultivate social and political possibilities within more-than-human systems that are shared, tenuous, and differentiated. cited works: chatterjee, partha. 2004. the politics of the governed: reflections on popular politics in most of the world. new york: columbia university press. ranjith, pa. 2018. kaala. chennai: wunderbar films. dvd. shreyas sreenath is an assistant professor in anthropology at bowdoin college. his research investigates how sanitation work mobilizes caste in contemporary bangalore, a city renowned as india’s it hub. the study explores how indian modernity marshals historic caste relations to obscure the problem of urban material overproduction. 5 © 2020 shreyas sreenath microsoft word galli final final .docx 1 the power of epistemological principles deborah reed-danahay, 2020, bourdieu and social space: mobilities, trajectories, emplacements, new york: berghahn books, 170 pp., isbn 978-1-78920-353-0 keywords: social space; mobility; migration; trajectory; habitus the problem that american anthropologist deborah reed-danahay sets out to solve in bourdieu and social space (2020) is, as the title suggests, what pierre bourdieu really meant and did with the notion of social space. reed-danahay’s knowledge of bourdieu’s life and work is well known (reed-danahay 2002; 2004; 2005). in the present study, however, this knowledge is deepened by new readings of selected works to better understand and apply not only a central concept but the whole of bourdieu’s general theory of the economy of practices. reed-danahay accomplishes this via what has been called the “mother category” (wacquant 2018:11) in bourdieu’s social topology—social space—a concept that bourdieu, according to the author, was less explicit in defining compared with habitus and field. the chosen modus operandi here is therefore new readings in order to closely examine how bourdieu handled the question of spatiality throughout his production by constantly observing the relationship between spatial, temporal and social dimensions of social reality. deborah reed-danahay’s aim is twofold: to provide a ”comprehensive overview of bourdieu’s theory of social space across the span of his career” (2) and to make a contribution to the ongoing research on mobility and migration, where emplacement is said to be an emerging focus. reed-danahay thus argues “for an ethnographic approach to mobility that is informed by the concept of social space” (2) and that better can explain the voluntary or forced social and 2 geographical movements of individuals and groups from original to new settings and realities through physical and social space. paths and passages that bourdieu himself more technically depicted in terms of trajectories. hence the book’s subtitle: mobilities, trajectories, emplacements. reed-danahay primarily uses bourdieu’s own theoretical tools in her investigation. the approach is well known from the author’s previous work on bourdieu and from other researchers’ studies of bourdieu (including bourdieu’s own self-reflexive analyses). the primary reason for this being the forceful “world-making” that bourdieu devoted himself to via his systemic concepts, and which might be best understood through exactly the critically affirmative approach to evaluate the opportunities and limitations in bourdieu's research program, that reeddanahay applies. the book consists of five chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. the first chapter contains the nowadays almost ritualistic element in the “field of bourdieusian studies” where authors seems forced to repeatedly explain their basic understanding of bourdieu’s “theoretical framework.” then follows three chapters consisting of new readings of some of bourdieu’s studies in béarn, kabylia and algeria; the french literary field of flaubert’s 19th century; the space of lifestyles and distinctions in france of the 1970s; the incipient neoliberal effects on the french housing market in the shift between the 1970s and 1980s; as well as bourdieu’s investigations from the late 1980s and onwards on the state, the national social space and the “field of power.” reed-danahay then devotes chapter 5 to an application of the insights from the foregoing pages onto a completely different empirical object—the european union—outlining a tentative analysis of the union as a social space within which internally and externally generated mobility and migration, creates life situations where individuals and groups arrive in new social and physical spaces in search of more or less durable recognitions and emplacements. if bourdieu’s subjectivist moment was strongly present in reed-danahay’s previous study of habitus and emotions (reed-danahay 2005), this time it is more of bourdieu’s objectivist moment that meets the reader. this is logical and follows from the focus on social space. but when the author here also uses habitus to talk about the embodied structures of individuals and 3 groups, it sometimes becomes a bit too objectivist and almost formalistic when the author more than fifteen times explains habitus to be a “position in social space,” and that habitus “occupies a place in physical space and a position in social space” (22), when the general understanding is that the “theory of habitus rests, after all, upon a view of childhood inculcation that shapes the worldviews and dispositions of habitus” (97). this kind of objectivist formalism is unfortunate because it causes doubt in the advanced bourdieu reader who soon may be irritated over other peculiarities that are at best unfortunate mistakes, but which could be signs of deeper misunderstandings. as when reed-danahay rightly points out that bourdieu appreciated erving goffman’s work and considered the interactionist perspective indeed to be an important form of social explanation, but that it at the same time could not replace the analytical and explanatory power of the deeper and underlying structure (vis insita) that in fact both informs and structures interaction observed on the surface of social life. here bourdieu, to understand how this underlying structure is constituted, developed his theory of the historical differentiation and distribution of different forms of capital in advanced capitalist societies. however, when reeddanahay conscientiously explains how bourdieu understands and defines capital, an unfortunate error occurs twice in the transmission of a quote in which bourdieu’s central explanatory term "immanent" becomes the similarly spelled but completely differently signifying "imminent" (30; 67). deborah reed-danahay undoubtedly belongs to the not too many who really have the training to rightly decipher pierre bourdieu’s multilayered work. therefore, instead of devoting so many words and pages referring to countless other researchers who have done something that may possibly remind or converge with bourdieu’s work, one would wish that reed-danahay had devoted more interest in the underlying epistemological principles that from the beginning to the end informed bourdieu’s research program (wacquant 2018). i am thinking of principles like that of the primacy of relations; the epistemological break with preconstructions; the construction of the object; of radical historicization; and the three spaces (and not only two) of bourdieu’s social topology where the symbolic space arguably forms the most important dimension for understanding bourdieu and how different types of arbitrary power relations, with the help of symbols, classifications and representation can be turned into legitimate dominance and a “natural” social order. with a more focused use of these principles the theoretical application on 4 the european union in chapter 5 would have looked quite different. a policy preconstruction like that other “social space” in the hands of eu-politicians and eurocrats, would for example never have been put on par with bourdieu’s scientific notion bearing no deeper resemblance with the former term except for the name. and so would the attempt to construct the eu as a “supranational social space” (a scholarly preconstruction) when the union so clearly first forms an international social space between twenty-seven externally and internally differentiated states, territories, and populations. some basic questions for constructing the object would from the outset have had to be asked, like: what is it that is at stake in the eu; what is the field specific capital that in the eu functions both as the valued property admitting for entry into the union, and as the active form of power that structures the underlying field of forces that constitutes hierarchies and polarities in the eu, and which also structures the field of struggles where interaction in the form of, say, classification struggles on issues such as citizenship, mobility, migration and various groups’ political recognition constantly constitute the political agenda. deborah reed-danahay is an excellent reader and mediator of bourdieu’s studies and publications. for readers who want one more book that will help them get an even deeper understanding of the relationship between pierre bourdieu’s social trajectory and his scientific work, this is an absolute masterpiece. however, for those who feel ready with this type of study and who are looking for more concrete guidance to the scientific craft itself, that is, the application of all or selected parts of bourdieu’s extensive research program, this book is unfortunately not it, because when it comes to the creative theoretical application of parts of bourdieu's research program onto a self-formulated problem and empirical material, bourdieu and social space is not sufficiently convincing. works cited reed-danahay, deborah. 2002. remembering pierre bourdieu 1930-2002. anthropological quarterly, 75 (2) 375-380. 5 reed-danahay, deborah. 2004. tristes paysans: bourdieu’s early ethnography in béarn and kabylia. anthropological quarterly 77 (1) 87–106. reed-danahay, deborah. 2005. locating bourdieu. bloomington: indiana university press. wacquant, loïc. 2018. four transversal principles for putting bourdieu to work. anthropological theory, 18 (1) 3-17. raoul galli holds a ph.d. in social anthropology from stockholm university where he teaches at the department of social anthropology and edits its educational booklet key concepts in social anthropology. raoul galli also holds a position as research coordinator in the swedish government offices’ delegation for migration studies. guided in periods by bourdieu-expert donald broady and anthropologists johan lindquist, christina garsten, annika rabo, and ulf hannerz – galli in 2012 published his thesis and “bourdieusian ethnography” the field of brands: production of recognition in the stockholm advertising world (swedish title: varumärkenas fält. produktion av erkännande i stockholms reklamvärld). © 2020 raoul galli microsoft word jeon final.doc 1 the failed potentials of masdar city: renegotiating the present and future through climate change technologies in the united arab emirates gökçe günel. 2019. spaceship in the desert: energy, climate change, and urban design in abu dhabi, duke university press, pp. 272 isbn: 978-1-4780-0091-4 keywords: urban design, climate change, science and technology, infrastructures, energy what happens when “a technocratic dictatorship,” “an expensive toy,” and “spaceship in the desert” entangle together under moments of irony and contradiction to confront issues of climate change and energy scarcity, oscillating between the future and the present? in 2006, the government of abu dhabi aimed to create the world’s first zero-carbon city that promised an ambitious plan to promote clean and renewable energy to counter the environmental challenges of the anthropocene. marketed as “the city of the future and the role model for the world,” masdar city was created by the government of united arab emirates (uae) as an experiment to implement green technologies and infrastructures as a preparation for a more sustainable post-oil future. throughout gökçe günel’s (2019) six chapters of spaceship in the desert: energy, climate change, and urban design in abu dhabi, she sheds light on the often complex politics of space that are interrogated by contradictory beliefs of environmental management that made an ambitious project like masdar city a failed, ambiguous experiment. günel, an anthropologist and assistant professor at rice university, establishes how this “spaceship in the desert” that situates itself in “a perpetual future” and constructs the present as “a vacated category” produces both “space and time” through what she calls “technical adjustments.” in the “introduction: the soul of carbon dioxide,” günel provides the book’s outline and her methodology. it is also in this chapter that she expands on the notion of “technical adjustment,” and her plans to focus on a different ‘technical adjustment” in every chapter to 2 evoke new ethical and moral realities of contextualizing networked ideas and policies that make masdar city possible through tensions and frictions. chapter one, “inhabiting the spaceship,” familiarizes the readers with masdar by drawing on utopian/dystopian and “frontier” imageries and language to illustrate the city as self-experimental, self-sufficient, and high-tech. however, the promises and potential of the masdar city ultimately depends on embodiment, as it is through the individual body of those who visit or live in the city and is through the movement and interaction of this body, that the city is made as a “dwelling” (heidegger 1971). chapter two, “beautiful buildings and research contracts” delves into how urban design that included attractive buildings, and research contracts contributed to the transition of abu dhabi into a knowledge-based semiocapitalism (berardi 2009) that depends on collaborations with reputable educational and research institutes such as the united states’ massachusetts institute of technology to negotiate geopolitics and cross-national boundaries. these collaborations allow for the uae to project itself as innovative, whilst also allowing outside countries to initiate their own research and design goals with funding from the uae. the masdar institute of science and technology, which merged with two other universities in abu dhabi to become khalifa university, was integral to the knowledge production that would transform the uae into a country that would prioritize clean and renewable energy. there were plans for a new “energy currency” that günel expands on in the third chapter, “ergos: a new energy currency.” this new “currency” named ergos is part of masdar city’s efforts to form new subjectivities and reshape everyday lives through innovative technologies. ergos would issue “a balance of energy credits as a means of defining and regulating an allocated energy budget” (günel 2019: 33) to reduce energy consumption. despite such ambitions, the development of this new “currency” reflected tensions between individual freedom and choice, and the pressing need for a collective, appropriate awareness and responsiveness to climate change. chapter four titled, “an expensive toy,” reveals the shortcomings of another technology, a driverless personal rapid transit that ran on electricity, or prt. günel explains that this apparatus was designed to cover the entire city with plans to revamp social and transportation practices. however, its short length (approximately 800 meters) and its inability to create new levels of comfort and convenience made the prt less than appealing to citizens, who questioned what this innovative technology could offer that existing “green energy” practices such as by 3 bicycle or on foot, could not. both the prt and ergos failed to take into account that in case of techno-futurism, it is important and often necessary to create new social practices rather than infringing on current ones— especially as it is through these technologies that the bilateral relationship between the “human” and the environment is being built, maintained, and rebuilt in the anthropocene. it is in the fifth chapter, “subsurface workings” that we see the final example of a “technical adjustment” through a discussion of policymaking issues regarding the controversial carbon capture and storage (ccs). this was a “controversial climate change mitigation technology” (günel 2019: 157) that placed carbon dioxide waste into the ground. reminiscent of what diane vaughan (1996) calls “structural secrecy,” and of science and technology studies discussions of “objectivity paradigms,” (kuhn 1962) “boundary work,” (gieryn 1983) or “crisis of expertise,” (eyal 2019) günel investigates how risks, uncertainty, and trust integrate into the discourse of ccs technology as the risks in this technology were justified by expert environmental engineers and professionals in their masdar proposal to the united nations framework convention on climate change due to their claims of “knowing” how to manage them. the desires to mitigate climate change through a new technology whilst maintaining normalcy ultimately created a complexity in which moral judgements became skewed. this chapter also enlightens readers on the disagreements between the government, businesses, stakeholders that emerge from policymaking efforts, as the oil industry remains vital on a global scale when it comes to climate change policies. the epilogue titled ‘the potential futures of abu dhabi’s masdar” ends on a somewhat somber note, as günel (2019) writes: “the plans for masdar city in particular and the green economy in general shifted, becoming more ambiguous about their expectations for the future” (182). this ambiguity is a further reflection of the people who lived and interacted with masdar as a utopian space of possibility and yet felt troubled by its dystopian qualities— in other words, as a primary example of what a new, eco-friendly, and high-tech city as an experiment both succeeded and failed to do. as an anthropologist interested in science, technology, knowledge, and society, this book was both compelling and thought-provoking in its recognition that although the technologies of masdar city might not have been successful solutions to the climate crisis per se, they are still important contributions to the continuing discussion of the relationship between climate change 4 and capitalism. it was comprehensive in its methodological and theoretical framework, and engage readers through a concise and structured argument prevalent throughout its six chapters. günel encourages us as academics and as persons to rethink, renegotiate, and recreate our imaginations of the future through climate change technologies that do not preserve the status quo, but rather, alter it in the present. hai ri (sophia) jeon is currently an anthropology graduate student at columbia university. her interests lie in science and technology studies, with her next research project focusing on smart city technological infrastructures in south korea and the united states. her previous contributions have been in the dialectics of surveillance and anonymity present in south korean hashtag feminist movements, and on the renegotiations of gender prevalent through a unique south korean linguistic marker of “aegyo.” © 2020 hai ri jeon cited berardi, franco. 2009. the soul at work: from alienation to autonomy. boston: mit press. eyal, gil. 2019. the crisis of expertise. john wiley & sons. gieryn, thomas. 1983. “boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in professional interests of scientists.” american sociological review 48:781–95. heidegger, martin. 1971. “building, dwelling, thinking.” in poetry, language, thought, 154. kuhn, thomas. 1962. the structure of scientific revolutions. chicago: university of chicago press. v a u g h microsoft word birch review.docx 1 an evolved perspective on fairness justin jennings, 2021, finding fairness: from pleistocene foragers to contemporary capitalists, gainesville: university of florida press, 321 pp., isbn: 9780813066745 (hardback) keywords: anthropological archaeology; biological and cultural evolution; social institutions; equality and inequality what is fairness? how did our perception of what is fair develop? how does a sense of what is fair (and what is not) define not only human behavior but also the overarching trajectory of human societal complexity? jennings’ “finding fairness” is a sprawling, and yet tightly focused, exploration of the concept of fairness in human societies. it establishes the evolutionary basis for innate human expectations of equity and catalogues the development of the organizational strategies that humans have devised in order to promote in-group fairness and equality. it also explores how those very institutions served to facilitate inequality and the emergence of stratified political-economic systems. one of the great strengths of this book is its clear organization. it is an ambitious review of human biological and cultural evolution, moving seamlessly from our hominin ancestors to the occupy movement. there was ample opportunity for jennings to go off-course, but his structure helps the author and the reader stay focused on the core thesis about fairness. the meat of the book is divided up into seven chapters that explore the evolution of the cognitive and institutional apparatuses that define and promote fairness. four well-chosen case studies from around the globe are deployed in each chapter to illustrate key points of conversion and divergence. while one could critique this organization as promoting neoevolutionary or stepwise stages of human societal 2 development, the overall impression is one of organizational necessity as opposed to an overly categorical approach. jennings argues that humanity’s unique expectations for equity evolved among our pleistocene ancestors’ need to act cooperatively. his (oft-cited in the book) foundations for what we perceive as right and wrong include: “(1) familial hierarchy; (2) fierce egalitarianism; (3) widespread, frequent collaboration; (4) within-group trust and allegiance; and (5) task-based leadership.” he argues that these tendencies first emerged among australopithecines where a more human sense of collaboration, trust, and affiliation was needed to survive the challenges of life on the open savannah. the development of our social brains was facilitated by an extended childhood including learning, play and socialization among archaic homo populations of increasing size. the resulting behavioral flexibility allowed our ancestors to overcome shifting social and environmental circumstances at the end of the pleistocene and set the stage for the cultural developments that would take place over the next 10,000-plus years. while jennings’ core thesis is about fairness, this book is also about social institutions. one of his most salient theoretical contributions concerns how institutions—families; leaders; the state; courts; markets—were developed to solve objective problems or needs—subsistence; conflict resolution; governance; long-distance trade. as human societies moved through various transitions—sedentism; larger villages; urbanism; imperial and capitalist expansion—the previous institutions were a) no longer able to solve the collective action problems arising from new circumstances and b) the basis for the creation of new institutional forms. “people manipulated, rather than eliminated traditional social practices to meet the demands of new circumstances” (p. 96-97). the discussion of “settling down” illustrates the similar challenges and solutions humans faced when they began forming larger social aggregates whether in place, like the natufians, or through periodic aggregations where social ties were affirmed and renewed. jennings notes that collective action problems were often solved by corporate decision-making and that leadership and status in these societies tends to be task-based and focused on those traits that provide group-wide benefits. many of the cultural features and transitions discussed are well-trod ground in anthropological archaeology, but the persistent focus on fairness casts these institutions in a new light. for example, rather than painting the neolithic or urban revolutions as abrupt shifts, jennings argued that the commitment to fairness forged int the pleistocene endured, shaping how groups 3 responded to scalar stress and the organizational challenges posed by settlement aggregation. he positions kin-based families as the basal social unit in human societies and sees the emergence of sodalities composed of people with shared interests engendered by common descent, religious beliefs, professions, or other interests as an effort to regain the inter-group sense of trust and equality inherent in those basal units. integrative mechanisms—feasts, funerals, and ceremonies— were created to reinforce group-based identities. but, the same events were also vehicles for the accumulation of power. certain sodalities emerged that held a greater share of wealth, power, or influence. in some cases, the metaphor of the household or family gave the emergence and control of rulers a gloss that resembled the familial hierarchy baked into our pleistocene-forged brains. when the encroachment and overreach of the state started to feel unfair, markets emerged as the new leveler. as local institutions eroded in the modern era, people turned to the market as the best means to ensure fairness across poorly-consolidated groups. but, as jennings highlights through his cases of cultural encounters with early (england, japan) and late (madagascar, amazonia brazil) capitalism, private enterprise is a beast bred to tear apart the fabric of local institutions. the challenges of maintaining in-group equality in the face of increasing cosmopolitanism and the blending of ethnic and other contemporary identities is a fascinating element of his discussion. if fairness is engendered by proximity, family, and identity, the dynamism, delocalization, and diversity of the current era poses a challenge to those evolved mechanisms for ensuring fairness. there are two weak points: while jennings does an excellent job of including pastoralists and nomadic societies among his case studies, there is still the feeling that a range of not-village and not-city social configurations are absent from the book (though i am in favor of the clear avoidance of the chiefdom concept). another persistent omission is gender. the emphasis on the naturalness of familial hierarchy and the king-as-head of household framework employed in chapters on states and empires lends the book an androcentric bias. attention to issues of gender equity and the gendered stratification of labor and decision-making power would have been a welcome addition and helped counteract the patriarchal tendencies inherent in mainstream archaeological discourse on emergent complexity. jennings’ points about the fragmentation of maximal social units (nation-states, empires) exposing the weakness of local institutions can be summed up as “the bigger they come, the harder they fall,” with extensive societal fragmentation the result. a similar conclusion was reached by another recent meta-synthesis on the concept of “good government” and how societal collapse can 4 be better understood as moral collapse (blanton et al. 2020)—the failure of leaders to maintain fairness. jennings notes in his conclusions that this species-level introspection is driven by observations about the contemporary distrust of the nation-state and what feels like global backsliding in terms of post-wwii transnational social contracts. a stagnation of global action has led to the weakening of global identity. radical cosmopolitanism is hard to sustain. the solution may thus be in creating institutional infrastructure that supports the creation and maintenance of the same community-based sodalities at the “local” level (virtual or otherwise) that allowed people to solve collective action problems in those early village societies. finding fairness means confronting the complexity of the present using derived insights about how people have overcome the challenges in our shared past. this is the silver lining of the volume, and as discussed in another recent work (boivin and crowther 2021) may just help us deliver on archaeology’s promise of looking back to find creative solutions in an uncertain future. references: blanton, richard e., gary m. feinman, stephen a. kowalewski, and lane f. fargher. “moral collapse and state failure: a view from the past.” frontiers in political science 2 (sept 2020): 568704, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2020.568704. boivin, nicole, and alison crowther. “mobilizing the past to shape a better anthropocene.” nature ecology and evolution 5 (2021): 273–284. jennifer birch is associate professor in the department of anthropology at the university of georgia and editor of the society for american archaeology press. her research interests include the development of organizational complexity and diversity, particularly among the indigenous societies of eastern north america, multi-scalar research design, and the occupational histories of communities and regions. © 2021 jennifer birch microsoft word groupp_ethnographies of power review.docx 1 energy anthropology tristan loloum, simone abram, and nathalie ortar, eds. 2021. ethnographies of power: a political anthropology of energy. easa series 42. new york, n.y: berghahn books, pp. 212, isbn 978-1-78920-979 open access: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/loloumethnographies keywords: anthropology of energy, infrastructure, power, political anthropology while anthropologists have long taken an interest in the relationship between energy and society, over the past decade the interconnected events stemming from anthropogenic climate change and the widespread development of alternative energies have inspired a more recent resurgence of anthropological attention to energy. ethnographies of power is part of this wider renewal, and each of the core chapters in the volume focuses on contemporary entanglements of energy and political power within the matrices of energy production and consumption. its overall aim is to reinvigorate a political anthropology of energy, starting from the premise that contemporary forms of governance and political organization are critically imbricated in, and shaped by, power over and through energy. the volume’s editors outline the conceptual foundation for their approach in their concise introduction, positioning the collection of case studies within the framework of the foucauldian-inspired energopower and energopolitics. following boyer’s (2014; 2011) proposed conceptualization, these concepts are extensions of foucault’s notions of biopower, the governance over life and populations, and biopolitics, the processes through which the administration of life becomes an object of state governing strategies. the most provocative chapter in the volume immediately follows the introduction. kaur (chapter 1) takes issue with boyer’s conceptualization of energopower and energopolitics that provide the framework for the volume. in boyer’s formulation, kaur notes that, ‘energy and related infrastructures become imbricated in subtle, smooth and what become rational forms of capillary state power’ (pg. 26). yet, such an approach occludes the fact that in the global south, modern governmentality is similarly entangled with more direct and authoritarian forms of government inherited from previous colonial regimes. this has resulted in multiple, overlapping and different configurations of power and authority, and the smooth functioning of state-run energy regimes discussed by boyer mask and deflect the violence enacted on others on the margins of biopolitical 2 (and energopolitical) regimes. as such, kaur suggests that energopower and energopolitics need to be qualified for the darker underside of energy production, particularly in the ‘southern spectrums.’ in discussing the development of, and struggles against, a nuclear power plant in the south indian state of tamil nadu, kaur brings attention to what she calls ‘nuclear necropower’ as opposed to biopower to reverse such optics, bringing attention to the exclusions and violence that also accompany modern energy regimes. the biopolitical project of producing electricity through nuclear power for metropolitan hubs in southern india comes with significant risks for those living in and around nuclear power stations. namely, the fishing and farming communities around the kudankulam nuclear power plant have been reduced to ‘bare life’ (agamben 1998), sacrificed in the pursuit of producing electricity for others. in this vein, violence and destruction are not archaic aspects of contemporary governance, but exist alongside and in the service of modern biopolitical and energy projects. hebdon (chapter 2) focuses on the 2019 indigenous-led protests over the elimination of fossil fuel price subsidies that forced the ecuadorian government to negotiate with, and eventually concede to the demands of, indigenous political leaders. the plan, backed by bretton woods institutions, was designed to bolster renewable energy consumption by cutting government support of gas and oil with the hopes of compelling the use of alternative energies. its failure, hebdon argues, was rooted in the particular ways the government thought about energy. rather than attend to the broader social, economic and political implications of an imposed transition to renewables, the government’s thinking of energy as a source of money (or rather, a governmental cost) instead of in terms of its use-values ultimately led to the reinstatement of the subsidies. beyond reaffirming that the energy transition is a far messier project than a matter of policy and technological fixes (e.g., burke and stephens 2018), hebdon raises an important observation that what energy is and means in different contexts requires careful attention. lord and rest (chapter 3) focus on the work of the nepalese state and development organizations to extend governance over territory through efforts to secure hydro-energy resources. attempts to enact and claim hydropower futures in nepal have been more recently concerned with questions of security, and the authors posit that the discursive production of energy futures serves as a method for enacting a coherence that the nepalese state appears to lack. moreover, more recent models of hydropower development have worked to implement a new set of relations between the state and its citizens through the popularization of the shareholder model, wherein nepalese citizens are summoned as shareholders to purchase equity in hydropower companies. shareholding proposes a right to ownership of (national) natural resources for citizens, while also presenting investment as a civic duty and thus shaping new modes of citizenship. state territorializing efforts and the expansion of state power are now justified based on protecting shareholder-citizens’ investments. moreover, their chapter emphasizes that ways in which energopolitical regimes rely on both elite politics as well as the hopes and aspirations of the less powerful to produce energy resources and infrastructures. lis (chapter 4) reflects on the politics of carbon dioxide reduction efforts in post-eu accession poland. in the last decade, various infrastructural projects have been proposed to curb 3 emissions, including carbon capture, storage facilities and efforts to develop electric vehicles. yet, climate change policy in poland has become highly nationalized, making it difficult to appreciate the global impacts of national energy consumption. lis highlights the ways in which energy transitions have become part of wider political projects and visions of state building, sovereignty and modernization. such context helps explain some of the paradoxes of poland’s energy politics, and sheds light on the ways in which specific political meanings of energy inform energy choices. it additionally offers an example of the appropriation of energy transition discourses for alternative political pursuits. moolenaar (chapter 5) explores the sites of natural gas extraction in groningen, netherlands, and the experiences of those who live in an extraction zone marked by seismic events caused by drilling. long denied by the industry, the relationship between drilling and seismicity was officially recognized in 2012 following a major earthquake that resulted in damage to residents’ homes and other structures. moolenaar recounts the technopolitical measures that were adopted by governmental agencies in response, and some of the unanticipated changes that resulted from new forms of intervention into the lives of those living near the gas fields. namely, moolenaar posits that new political subjectivities have emerged in response to these interventions, foregrounding experiences of economic and political marginality and the comparison of the area with other ‘resource colonies’ or sacrifice zones. in the final chapter, ortar asks why people in france are increasingly opting to use firewood for heating despite the fact that changes in routines, particularly involving energy choices, are costly. these decisions have largely been made in the absence of direct state policy to encourage the use of wood, and raises questions as to the relationship between consumers and governmental power in determining different forms of energy use. the study responds to major questions within energy studies and policy circles that focus on how entrenched patterns of energy consumption can be altered, particularly in france, where it appears more than ever locked into nuclear energy as a primary source of electricity. in exploring the motivations and daily practices involved in using wood in the region of lyon, ortar posits that wood heating has developed into a parallel economy of self-supply, involving specific social networks and particular forms of knowledge. this raises further questions as to the role of informal economies in today’s energy landscapes, and how they may affect current and ongoing efforts to transition to renewable energies. coleman provides a few closing thoughts in the afterword, reemphasizing kaur’s (chapter 1) exhortation to move beyond the conceptual framework of ‘energopolitics’ modeled after foucault’s analysis of power and governance to account for the dominate forms of energy production and consumption that not only augment life, but similarly rely on violence and death as integral to their processes. at the same time, the case studies included here all take a national and state-centric view of energy, approaching the energy-power-governance nexus as (somewhat unproblematically) stemming from state-level politics. this perspective is explicitly forwarded in the introduction in the observation that the chapters all ‘focus primarily on secondary state effects rather than those directly employed by states, yet for all that, they are studies of state power’ (2). yet, in approaching questions of energy using the analytical toolkit of political anthropology, this 4 view tends to overlook the ways in which state optics have long occluded attention to the non-state actors and groups who also take part in governing (e.g., li 2005), and raises important questions as to how we might better take into account the multiple spheres of overlapping and indeterminate authorities involved in energy production and consumption hinted at by ortner and kaur in their respective contributions. overall, the case studies here firmly demonstrate that the production and consumption of energy is critically entangled with localized politics, cultural values, and specific forms of knowledge. far from being imposed from afar as rational biopolitical projects, an understanding of contemporary energy regimes requires attention to the places where these regimes are enacted, experienced and contested. while the rationalities and discourses through which state agencies organize flows of energy are significant forces in contemporary energy landscapes, the case studies included here also point to the role of practices of meaning-making, non-state actors and divergent projects – not all of which are bent on capital accumulation. finally, the volume raises important questions as to what new economic disciplines are being cultivated in the name of energy security or climatological necessity and those regions and peoples who are sacrificed in the pursuit of ‘clean’ energy production. usefully, all the chapters are available through berghahn’s open access collection, and the discussions here would be useful to those interested in the study of energy and society, infrastructure, speculation and the state. cited: agamben, giorgio. 1998. sovereign power and bare life. homo sacer 1. stanford, calif: stanford university press. boyer, dominic. 2011. “energopolitics and the anthropology of energy.” anthropology news 52 (5): 5–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1556-3502.2011.52505.x. ———. 2014. “energopower: an introduction.” anthropological quarterly 87 (2): 309–33. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2014.0020. burke, matthew j., and jennie c. stephens. 2018. “political power and renewable energy futures: a critical review.” energy research & social science 35 (january): 78–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.10.018. li, tania murray. 2005. “beyond ‘the state’ and failed schemes.” american anthropologist 107 (3): 383–94. emilia groupp is a phd candidate in the department of anthropology at stanford university. her dissertation research focuses on large-scale solar energy production, transnational energy infrastructures and emergent energy geographies. her research is funded by the social science research council and the american institute for maghrib studies. she is also a research fellow at the organization for identity and cultural development, and co-editor of the anthropology book forum. 5 © emilia groupp 2021 microsoft word warner_255-777-1-sm.doc 1 depauperate or not? examining marginality in island environments reviewer: jacob warner an archaeology of abundance: reevaluating the marginality of california’s islands. edited by: kristina m. gill, mikael fauvelle, and jon m. erlandson. university press of florida, 2019. keywords: archaeology, historical ecology, islands, california, environment 2 are the islands off the coast of california “marginal” environments? how could seemingly “depauperate” places have sustained human settlements for thousands of years? in an archaeology of abundance: reevaluating the marginality of california’s islands, edited by kristina m. gill, mikael fauvelle, and jon m. erlandson, archaeologists and other scholars argue that our understanding of the resource bases of the california islands is biased by years of euroamerican impacts. by integrating archaeological and ethnohistoric data with paleoecological reconstructions, the authors reexamine life on these islands before european contact and subsequent environmental degradation. as an edited volume compiled from a society for american archaeology conference session, the assembled authors assume that the reader knows archaeological history and theory. spanning ten chapters, an archaeology of abundance addresses a wide range of subject matter related to the islands. historical ecological changes, paleogeography, resource availability, and human mobility surface as critical themes. chapter 1 jumps directly into discussing the history and peoples of the california islands with almost no introduction, and someone with limited knowledge of these complex societies could require more background and contextual information. in the subsequent two chapters, the native people of the islands feel distant, both through the reality of the subject (temporal and cultural distance between late pleistocene/early holocene native americans and modern populations) and through the goals of the volume (a focus on island resources and the discourse around marginality). a review of current knowledge on california indigenous coastal societies would alleviate disassociation. despite the lack of background discussion, the authors of the first three chapters do an excellent job of describing the evidence for the longevity and intensity of human occupation on these islands, as well as the changes in ecology, geography, and climate that accompanied both the pleistocene-holocene transition and later european colonization. this background information sets the tone of the following chapters. modern archeological techniques are rapidly increasing our understanding of how humans and plants interacted in the past. a key point illustrated in chapter 4 is that, while there is as of yet no evidence of plant domestication on the california islands, there is extensive ethnohistoric and paleoecological evidence for human management of various plant communities. previous researchers comparing island and mainland plant communities saw the former as less rich. still, 3 analysis suggests a high degree of plant biodiversity, especially when considering that comparing with mainland california means comparing with one of the most biodiverse plant assemblages in the world. geophytes, particularly the corms of certain species, stand out as a resource undervalued in previous research that in reality, had a crucial role in island subsistence and economy. in chapter 5, the authors continue to critique the idea that the california islands were deficient by examining the potential use of seaweed, seagrasses, and other marine plants. the chapter discusses not only the biology, ecology, and nutritional value of these plants around the north pacific basin, but also evidence of their use by various cultures. many marine plants do not preserve well in the archaeological record, but new perspectives and techniques are generating a growing body of evidence for their use. identification of “vitreous slag” as evidence for carbonized seaweed, rare well-preserved examples in desiccated or inundated environments, and seaweed-associated mollusks as indirect evidence all stand out as ways to track the use of ocean flora in archaeological contexts. chapter 6 switches the focus towards minerals found on the islands. while previous researchers suggested that the islands had little in the way of tool making minerals, or other important inorganic resources (such as asphaltum/tar used to seal boats and containers), recent work resurveying many of the islands has found considerable mineral resources. outside of utilitarian artifacts, the authors point out the importance of toshaawt, or naturally occurring iron concretions that are used in various rituals. toshaawt are found on the island of san nicolas, the remote location of which compared to the other islands could have imbued them with extra significance, adding another dimension to the idea of geographic marginality posited earlier in the volume. chapter 7 extends the discussion of the previous three chapters by analyzing the systems of trade between the islands and with the mainland. this analysis is based around shell, lithic, plant, and bone resources, reemphasizing their use not only as utilitarian goods but as elements of political and religious economies. discussion delves into the importance of value-added goods in economic exchange, highlighting items like baskets as a way to convert raw materials into economic agents. the researchers also highlight the importance of shell as a worked material, 4 particularly olivella (callianax biplicata) bead currency, around which entire systems of production and exchange were based. in chapter 8, the authors discuss the population densities of both island and mainland coastal communities, as previous research has claimed that the limited resource bases of the islands could not sustain populations comparable to those of the mainland. using mission era (ad 1697–1769) and historic period population data alongside radiocarbon dates as proxies for fluctuations in settlement density, the authors find that the alta california channel islands indeed had lower population densities than the adjacent mainland (though higher than other areas of north america at the time), but that this pattern is reversed for isla cedros and adjacent baja california. radiocarbon results suggest that the population fluctuated much more in the islands than the adjacent coast, likely reflecting shifts in resource availability (including freshwater). as the authors note, lower population densities did not mean lower quality of life or richness of social interaction, as islanders participated in the complex religious and economic networks previously highlighted. chapter 9 turns to the questions of whether and why native americans introduced certain species of plants and animals. the authors combine archaeological, paleontological, genomic, and geochemical data to discuss the timing of the arrival of a variety of animal and plant species to the islands, and then tie them to cultural and economic roles in indigenous coastal societies. particularly interesting are the potential human introduction of skunks to the islands related to ethnographically reported skunk dances, and the possible introduction of cacti and elephant trees to gulf of california islands in relation to placental rituals. both examples highlight that subsistence or economic factors were not the only drivers of indigenous transformations of island ecosystems. chapter 10 is a critique of previous perspectives on islands and coastal environments as marginal and maritime adaptations as later advances in human history. reexamining the various chapters of the book, the authors suggest that if not complete utopias, islands like those off the coast of california were more productive environments than previously thought. they provide comparisons with other parts of the pacific basin, east asia, the mediterranean, and the caribbean. key themes are the temporal depth of human occupation on islands, the impact of changing sea levels on-site preservation and settlement patterning, island ecosystems as 5 variously productive, and the impacts of human-introduced animals and plants on island ecosystems. the authors conclude the volume by inviting readers to reconsider islands as marginal environments by default, a reasonable request that is well supported by the assembled research. this book is an essential resource for scholars of island and coastal archaeology, or those interested in deeper perspectives on coastal environments and historical ecology. while it would be appropriate in a classroom setting focusing on the archaeology of the california islands or advanced discussions of broader topics such as human-environment interactions, its lack of background information limits its use in introductory settings. jacob warner is a phd candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university. his dissertation research focuses on paleoclimate reconstruction, climate change, and human-environment interactions in coastal peru. he is particularly interested in geoarchaeology, sclerochronology, and invertebrate zooarchaeology. © 2020 jacob warner microsoft word review traveling with sugar .doc 1 the global rise of diabetes seen from belize amy moran-thomas. traveling with sugar: chronicles of a global epidemic. university of california press, 2019, 384 pp. isbn: 9780520297548 amy moran-thomas’ traveling with sugar is a journey into the daily work of care for, and of, people living with diabetes in the context of the increase in this condition globally. the book is based on ethnographic research conducted in belize, mainly amongst garifuna people in the southern district of stann creek, which has the highest rates of diabetes in the country. inspired by sidney mintz’s work, the book describes the histories of both individual lives and of global racial capitalism, providing ‘an ethnographic version of world systems theory that stitches together glimpses of global processes and infrastructures with their living consequences for people’ (17). moran-thomas achieves this by constantly moving between the present and the past, and by shifting from ethnographic insights to global fluxes of ideas, technologies, and people. this is aided by the evocative and metaphorical style of writing inspired by dr. w., a physician whom we meet in the third chapter and who uses analogies to directly and clearly tackle diabetes with patients, which also results in countering dominant representations which insinuate that they may be deserving of the condition. this makes the reading compelling, the transitions smooth and has the effect of not forcing arguments onto the reader, but rather proposing analytical lenses through which to look at the material presented. her ethnography shows how patients actively engage in ‘slow care’ and ‘maintenance’ work (24-25) on themselves and on others while being heavily constrained, not least by the scarcity of health infrastructure. this develops into a strong argument against readings of the diabetic condition as mainly an outcome of lifestyle choices and personal neglect, for which patients are to blame. at the same time, patients and carers are portrayed as knowledgeable and resourceful agents, able to act and care amidst the structural limitations they encounter. the plurality of angles through which diabetes is looked at are held together by two cross-cutting concerns: absence and normality. the book presents an anthropology of 2 absence: of missing medications, technologies, labels and categories, kin, data, limbs, and ultimately of people, as most of the informants did not survive the volume’s publication. this crude reality begs the question of what normality is and what its definition entails. measurements and thresholds are far from being fixed and operating neutrally. rather, modifications in what is defined as normal change the ways in which biology comes to be understood, acted upon, and materially created. thus, patients and carers construct their expertise between death and survival, amidst sugar levels considered incompatible with human life or readable by glucometers that were designed elsewhere, poverty-related versions of diabetes which are standard in belize yet are categorized differently in wealthy countries and a commonplace narrative that labels diabetes as an outcome of local ‘cultural foods’ when it is instead a worldwide epidemic. one of the strengths of the book is the link between histories of dispossession; of colonial scientific thought and research; of technological and therapeutic inequality; and their material effects in the present. the book shows how knowledge production, land tenure regimes, and food dependency lead to environs and people metabolizing each other. thus, it is argued that the condition is materially unevenly transmitted within specific populations who live in ‘chronic landscapes’ (39) producing diabetes. through this approach, the analysis complicates the dichotomy between communicable versus noncommunicable, which would suggest either external conditions or personal responsibility in understanding the origins of diseases. moreover, the book clearly shows the effects and extent of policy gaps. too often focused on the tropical and exotic conditions, policymakers have historically ignored the ‘slow’ and ‘boring’ diabetes, as it was considered an outcome of individual responsibility and thus not collectively approachable. the vicious causal circle of the lack of policy funding for research and the lack of data to direct funding to research has resulted in a paucity of institutional intervention and the inability to slow down the spread of the condition worldwide. the book illustrates not only belize’s position at the intersection between global policy and local infrastructures, but also how the country is interconnected with material flows of medical personnel, volunteers, medicines, technologies, and food, not least by the cross-border travels of moran-thomas’s informants and their links to the belizean diaspora. thus, the book adds a medical sociocultural perspective to the anthropological scholarship on belize that has shown how this small country is far from isolated globally. 3 the book consists of two parts, containing seven unnumbered chapters, and an epilogue. the first, shorter part contains three chapters, which introduce the scope of the book and its main themes, referencing the role of global history and that of the garifuna of belize, and elucidates research-related ethical and methodological issues. the second part is named ‘crónicas,’ a spanish word that translates into english as both ‘chronicle’ and ‘chronic.’ thus, the four chapters of this part are four crónicas, each with its own main characters and themes, yet all telling the same story from a different point of view (25). moran-thomas convincingly argues that since diabetes is a slow and repetitive condition with a multiplicity of manifestations, to understand it, a slow, multiple, and repetitive narrative is necessary. the book is also accompanied by a project website, which disappointingly is not working at present. traveling with sugar is an accomplished work that lives up to its premise: telling a global story through an intimate portrayal of people’s slow and constant care. the book is a welcome contribution to medical anthropology and will also appeal to readers more generally interested in medical inequalities and global health policy. giuseppe troccoli is a research fellow at the university of southampton. he is currently researching transnational migration and healthcare in the uk, while his previous project was focused on labor, urban life and migration in belize. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5411-2188 © 2020 giuseppe troccoli dreams of wealth: finance and dystopia on the european periphery review by tringa bytyqi fabio mattioli. 2020. dark finance: illiquidity and authoritarianism at the margins of europe. stanford university press. isbn 9781503611658 keywords: financialization; european periphery; authoritarianism; illiquidity; economy of predation. dark finance explores processes of financial expansion in north macedonia, materialized by skopje 2014, the ten-year urban growth plan centered on the capital city and nikola gruevski’s authoritarian government (the country’s prime minister from 2006 to 2016 – exiled since 2018). the book isn’t on hedge funds, credit schemes, or stock exchanges; it’s about the generative force of financialization, seen as a social process involving relationships, imaginations and aspirations alongside desperate struggles to make ends meet. in north macedonia, even if the investment in construction was considered unwise because of the 2008 global financial crisis, european financial institutions were seduced by skopje 2014. specifically, investors were attracted by the expectation that their peers would be investing too. by implementing austerity politics (53, 69), north macedonia became worthy of european loans aimed at strengthening the country’s infrastructure (71). to north macedonian oligarchs, skopje 1 2014 brought symbolic legitimacy and a means to launder money. to skopjans, it offered a place on the world map along with a new historic narrative ethnically purged of ottoman, muslim, and albanian influences (21-22). gradually, it came to embody the invincible, omnipotent gruevski government (41), the rampant inequalities and the obscure process of financial expansion (21). drawing on rich ethnographic, historical, and economic data, including an extended period of participant observation with construx (pseudonym), a middle-sized macedonian construction firm in financial trouble, mattioli examines different layers of the financial expansion and its effects. the author argues persuasively that to grasp the essence of the country’s regime, we must analyze its ability to access and manage financialization (chapter 1 and 2) alongside structures that shape people’s actions and imaginations (chapter 3-5). mattioli places skopje’s spectacular urban enlargement partly within the continuity of yugoslavia’s economic fictions (chapter 1). once a pride of the country, construction businesses came to symbolize its downfall. unable to compete with their eastern european rivals (27), north macedonian construction businesses bankrupted, which in turn created an opportunity for gruevski to seize power. between 2006 and 2015, several global companies also seized the opportunity (60) offered by the newly elected prime minister: cheap labor (52; 60) and tax breaks (60). as a result, a rentier landscape (chapter 2) emerged, where businessmen and administrators from north macedonia and the eu tried to use their geopolitical positions to capture wealth and symbolic capital (54). following the economic crisis in southern european countries (53-62), male entrepreneurs, namely italians, came to north macedonia (53-56) with hopes of earning a living and a chance to affirm their masculinity (57). these small entrepreneurs rapidly understood that only european contractors with higher social and economic connections in the eu could gain from the financial expansion (53, 65-66) – more than north macedonia’s own businesses (72). hence, gruevski encouraged the latter to transform their unequal partnerships and subordination into profit (67-71). only companies with connections to the regime (88) had access to loans from international financial organizations. constant cash-flow problems (80) resulted in an illiquidity crisis (chapter 3) and thus forced north macedonia’s businesses to rely upon in-kind payments known as kompenzacija (78), a form of barter. since 1945, in-kind exchanges were a part of international trade in socialist countries (82-83) and played an important role in domestic economies (83-86). being paid in kompenzacija resulted in things that a person had to resell to earn cash (80). unable to access capital, in the 2000s construction companies used kompenzacija: they fired or hired workers illegally; they promised them future pay; they provided them just enough money to survive (89-92). these practices evolved into forced and increasingly exploitative credit relationships (80, 96-97), whose devastating effects on male construction workers are chronicled in chapter 4. in construx, mattioli tells us, male directors were “barricading themselves in their offices” or using administrative excuses so that they didn’t have to talk about money with their employees. as the financial crises deepened, workers became suspicious of one another and slowly eroded any chance of solidarity between them while simultaneously preventing them from organizing against their employer (142-145). gender paradoxes in workplaces of the construction businesses (chapter 5) illustrate another aspect of the generative forces of financialization. the devaluation of the male construction workers – symbolized by their harsh economic situation while surrounded by wealth (chapter 3 and 4) – worked to wear away their social identities (138). for most construction workers, financial expansion engendered a crisis of masculinity. furthermore, their role of breadwinners was challenged by female colleagues who gained access to prominent jobs, namely in the offices of similar construction companies. at the same time, women often worked to ensure that construction workers received some material recompense for their work and generally supported the idea of the construction business as a male-dominated space. central to the author’s arguments is that financial expansion is undeniably empowered and limited by its cultural specificity (chapters 1-3). nonetheless, the sole aim of financial capital is to produce more capital, most of the time by destroying industrial capital (guilhot 2006). with dark finance, mattioli manages successfully to articulate the global, the local and the intimate 3 in peripheral european contexts. it is easy to agree with the author that studying the world of finance in western countries does not help us understand how financial expansion works in peripheral places. however, several of its effects analyzed in dark finance, namely the slow social death and the devaluation of the social worth of construction workers, is also observed in other western countries (pinçon and pinçon-charlot 2014; guilhot 2006), bringing attention to larger patterns observable in such processes. overall, dark finance is a riveting study aided by comprehensive ethnographic observations. this book would be useful to those interested in economic anthropology, european anthropology, the study of labor and processes of finacialization. works cited pinçon michel, and monique pinçon-charlot, 2014. la violence des riches: chronique d’une immense casse sociale, paris: la découverte. bruder, jessica, 2017. nomadland: surviving america in the twenty-first century, new york: w.w. norton & company. guilhot nicolas, 2006. finaciers, philanthropes: sociologie de wall street, paris: raisons d’agir. tringa bytyqi is a phd student in anthropology at the university of montréal, in canada. her research focuses on the social change in kosovo and the role of foreign private secondary schools in social reproduction. © 2022 tringa bytyqi microsoft word baja-review_publish thirst and hardship in baja california: the lives of those who produce the vegetables we eat review by francisco arqueros zlolniski, christian (2019) made in baja: the lives of farmworkers and growers behind mexico’s transnational agricultural boom, university of california press: oakland, ca, [256] pp. isbn 9780520300637 ¿what do we know about the fresh vegetables that we buy from the shelf in our local supermarket? where do they come from, who has produced them, and under which labor and social conditions? zlolniski’s monograph made in baja, provides answers to those questions, particularly for us consumers. his intention is to unveil the basic pillars of the production regime of export agriculture in san quintin, baja california (p. 207), which he does by relying on ‘case stories’ and ‘unfiltered voices’ (p. 19). zlolniski carried out ethnographic fieldwork for about a decade (he is not precise about the time span), mainly during the summer months, hanging around the ‘colonias’ where these workers, mainly from the triqui and mixtec ethnic groups from southern mexico, have permanently settled. interestingly, growers and government still construe them as migrant, temporary laborers who do not belong to the land in spite of a number of decades of settlement, an experience the author conceptualizes as ‘new territorialization.’ the question here is the externalization of the reproduction of labor (schools, health, infrastructures, etc.) and the reduction of labor value. a ‘migrant’ and ‘temporary’ labor force is a very cheap, desperate, and docile labor force for growers. their ‘unfiltered voices’ speak of an abusive labor regime on farms, low wages, and lack of incomes to maintain their families. to meet their needs, they must resort to temporary migration to the us, engage in informal economic activities, and access state social programs for poor families. in that regard they constitute a transnational class of laborers moving back and forth across the usmexico border. chapter three looks into how they are recruited through labor contractors to work in san quintin’s commercial agriculture: in the 1980s and 1990s in the south of mexico, when they were housed in labor camps; later, in the ‘colonias.’ chapter four focuses on the workplace regimes linked to previous cultivation in open fields and now in greenhouses, and quality standards demanded by supermarkets are shown to have a decisive role in the way the work process has been organized. chapter five deals with workers’ resistance to exploitation: everyday forms of resistance on farms and open and collective resistance as in the case of the 2015 labor strike that paralyzed the area. chapter six takes the story outside the workplace and into the local communities that these farmworkers have created. this chapter throws light on how this labor force is reproduced and how farmworkers struggle for decent living conditions such as access to water. another point is that resistance to capital is not only generated and articulated in the workplace but that the formation of class identity also relies heavily on community building in the ‘colonias’: struggles for citizenship rights are as important as struggles for labor rights. in that context, farmworkers have created new independent, social movement unions to articulate their demands. finally, the author includes a chapter (seven) on the unequal access of different growers to water and between farmers and the communities of workers, inequalities that are reinforced by government policies. farmworkers’ need for water to live is placed at the bottom end of the government’s priorities, while the need of water for export agriculture is placed at the top. in that context, the author underlines the ‘ecological violence’ of commercial farming and its predatory nature. made in baja also constitutes a journey in historical political economy in line with the anthropological perspective of wolf, mintz and roseberry, whom zlolniski acknowledges (p. 207). there is a particular focus on ‘asymmetrical and uneven economic and social processes.’ to understand the lives of farmworkers it is important to know how commercial export agriculture has developed and has created a transnational class of workers. chapters one and two focus on local growers and transnational corporations like driscoll, and how the agricultural development in the area of san quintin is the product of a change in mexican development policies. one question is, why baja? how was a desert and unpopulated land with scarce access to water and no infrastructure chosen to be developed as a center for commercial agriculture for export? the north american free trade agreement (nafta), and changes in mexican law to allow foreign capital to buy or rent communal land attracted us agrarian capital in search for cheap labor just across the border. insufficient access to water (based on wells), technology, expertise and markets had hampered attempts by mexican governments to develop the area with small farmers up to the 1970s. from then on, the priorities of agrarian mexican policy switched to high value crops like tomatoes and berries, which was achieved by local farmers establishing links with californian growers in informal ways (commission system) or informally renting their lands to them (an illegal practice if done formally). in the 1980s, some large-scale commercial agriculture (us firms like a.b.c farm) started to cultivate tomatoes in open fields. these types of farms had access to advanced technology, expertise, financing, and markets, which created a class polarization between them and local growers. small growers either became marginal due to lack of access to markets, water, or subsidized government loans; or established business arrangements with us brokers. however, the depletion of aquifers and a revolt in the labor camps at the end of the 1990s ended abc farm and its model of agricultural development. water shortages led to a 50 per cent reduction of the growing surface of fresh produce (from 10.000 to 5. 000 hectares). however, a major structural change followed as capital was not willing to leave the region, and it switched to greenhouses, more water efficient and more productive. a hectare can produce around 100 tons of tomatoes in greenhouses against 50 tons in open fields, but more than that greenhouses allow for production off-season. water scarcity was solved by constructing desalination plants. these changes pushed the level of investment very high and local growers could only compete by establishing partnerships with us capital, such as contract growing or business associations (p. 6167), although some local independent growers also appeared. on the other hand, the unfiltered voices of the workers illustrate experiences of survival, exploitation, resistance, and struggles for a better life, and zlolniski on his part manages to unveil the pillars on which this type of commercial agriculture for export rests, within the framework of neoliberal policies. the book shows the ambiguous face and the human and ecological costs of cultivating fresh produce in poor countries to export to rich countries in a globalized world when profits come first. the book is enhanced by an appendix on policy recommendations, a good exercise in applied anthropology, which gives further voice to the demands from below regarding good labor and social practices, water and living issues. however, it is not clear what contribution the book makes to anthropological theory, or whether there was any intention in that regard. there are some attempts, like the concept ‘new territorialization,’ but it seems that the intention was to fill a vacuum: the lack of ethnographic studies on the impact of export agriculture in baja california (p. 5). another question has to do with the methodology followed to carry out the research and present the material. the ethnographic data presented in chapters one to five (on growers and the labor regime on farms) come from interviews with growers and workers. participant observation, on the other hand, constitutes the base for most of chapters six and seven. there is nothing wrong with combination of different research strategies. however, participant observation usually leads to richer and thicker description. in fact, chapters six and seven, the product of the author’s hanging around in the ‘colonias,’ constitute the most compelling part of the book. the author was there. as a reader, one wonder whether the ethnography as a whole would have gained with a shorter and more condense text on farm work and growers, where the author did not hang around, and a longer and more detailed text on the lives of farmworkers in the ‘colonias,’ where he did hang around. all in all, this is an important and recommended book for anthropologists with a political economy orientation and interested in agriculture and capitalism beyond the topic of peasant studies. francisco arqueros holds a phd from maynooth university (ireland). at present he is a research associate in the laboratory of social and cultural anthropology (lasc) at the university of almería, spain. his two lines of research are industrial agriculture and the moral economy of social assistance (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7084-9147). © francisco arqueros 2020 microsoft word dumas final.docx 1 salt makes the maya: small salt kitchens in a large economic system mckillop, heather 2019 maya salt works. university press of florida, gainesville, 254 pp., isbn 978-8130-5633-3 in maya salt works, heather mckillop assembles more than a decade of archaeological research at classic period salt works along the southern coast of belize. she builds on her 2002 volume, salt: white gold of the ancient maya (university press of florida), in which she demonstrated that specialized salt production workshops around the punta ycacos lagoon provided salt to inland populations. the present work focuses on additional sites in the same lagoon system. mckillop investigates the paynes creek complex of salt works to understand the organization of salt production and its role in the larger maya economy. due to sea-level rise, most of the salt works are now submerged in the shallow waters of coastal lagoons, where mckillop and her teams have discovered and mapped more than 4,000 wooden posts, beams, and wedges from submerged buildings. combined with radiocarbon, ceramic, and other fine-grained analyses, this work provides a rare image of the physical spaces of craft production and how household labor specialization can meet a large regional demand for salt. in chapter 1, mckillop introduces the general characteristics of classic maya economics, with emphasis on the roles of gift exchange, tribute, and feasting in the establishment and maintenance of sociopolitical networks. she presents a brief overview of the economic role of salt in global ancient and modern economies then introduces the paynes creek salt works as a test case for evaluating the economics of salt in the maya world. in the second chapter, mckillop provides a detailed description of how the archaeologists discovered, mapped, and sampled the abundant preserved wooden structural features now beneath the lagoon’s water and thick layers of mangrove peat. systematic coverage of the lagoon floors by sight and feel revealed pottery and 2 patterns of preserved, in situ wooden posts that, when mapped, represent 45 individual salt works in the paynes creek complex. mckillop structures chapters 3 through 5 as a series of questions and hypotheses about characteristics of maya salt production. readers not already acquainted with the range of traditional means for harvesting salt will be especially interested in chapter 3, because it is here that mckillop describes each of the major methods that have been documented, archaeologically and ethnographically, around the world. mckillop reviews the processes of concentrating and evaporating brine as well as the ceramic artifacts associated with non-mechanized salt production, known collectively as briquetage. paynes creek briquetage spans the entire late classic period and consists of a variety of vessels used to evaporate brine over a fire. the occurrence of leached mounds of earth, ceramic funnels and strainers, and a canoe used as a strainer are evidence for the common practice of washing salt-impregnated earth to create a concentrated brine. the brine is then boiled in pots, which are supported above a fire by three clay cylinders. there is limited but intriguing evidence that brine also may have been evaporated in large, shallow ponds using solar energy. for archaeologists accustomed to terrestrial survey and identification of sites, mckillop’s methods of identifying, mapping, and recording submerged wooden posts may become increasingly useful as global sea-levels continue to rise. as described in chapter 4, her team investigated 110 sites at the paynes creek salt works, many of them precisely mapped to reveal dozens of rectangular structures arranged in linear patterns parallel to the lagoon shores. differentiating hardwood from palmetto posts and measuring post diameter revealed patterns in the construction of coastal salt kitchen and attempts to retain land against rising seas. as detailed in chapter 5, further identification of the tree species used to construct paynes creek buildings largely mirror the decisions made by modern maya. different species are chosen for different parts of the buildings, the choices reflecting a strong preference for hardwoods. palmetto palms were used for retaining walls at the edges of sites. the identity of the paynes creek salt makers and the scale of their production is discussed in chapter 6. mckillop reviews archaeological and ethnographic literature for examples of how salt-making is integrated into household production. she notes that making salt is a form of multicrafting that can involve the production of tools and other necessary equipment on a seasonal cycle. the identification of individual buildings at paynes creek, combined with the spatial patterns of 3 artifact types and densities, reveals a clear picture of specific activity areas. briquetage accounted for more than 90% of the pottery found in several buildings. mckillop carefully examines evidence for multiple contingent crafting activities associated with the household production of salt, including making pottery; salting fish and gathering food; construction; crafting wooden tools, canoes, and paddles; gathering firewood; carving calabashes; spinning cotton; and trading. this thorough analysis demonstrates that paynes creek salt makers lived at the lagoon’s edge yearround and boiled brine in salt kitchens adjacent to their houses. more than 40 radiocarbon dates from the structures demonstrates that the paynes creek salt works were established at the beginning of the classic period to meet a high demand for salt. over the next few centuries, structures had to be moved further from the lagoon’s edge to escape sea-level rise. radiocarbon dates also reveal episodic construction of additional buildings along the lagoon, which mckillop interprets as “infilling” of space by salt-makers eager to be close to the source of brine. in her previous studies of salt works, mckillop discovered that salt pots were made locally and in standardized sizes and forms by different work parties or households located at each salt works. this pattern is confirmed in the current study, suggesting that pots for boiling brine were made at home by the workers of individual salt kitchens. patterns of similar tree species used to construct the salt kitchens strengthens the picture of households working independently. one of the most important findings in this book is mckillop’s estimate that ten households of salt producers, if they worked year-round on the contingent crafts required for making salt and spent four months making the salt itself, could have provided enough salt for the needs of 24,000 people. chapter 6 illustrates the rich results of years of comprehensive documentation and thorough analysis, including radiocarbon dating, spatial analysis, pertrographic, and use-wear analysis. chapter 7 addresses the place of salt in the classic maya economy. there is evidence at paynes creek for salting fish. facilitated by canoe travel, salt-makers moved salt and salted-fish to inland markets, where they traded for pottery, cacao, ocarinas, chert, obsidian, and other goods. mckillop points out that salt production was not simply an economic transaction; it was likely integrated into a widespread ritualized exchange of goods and social obligations that underpinned the maya political structure. the final chapter of this fascinating volume reminds us that salt was integral to maya society. while it may be an archaeological invisibility, mckillop amply demonstrates that wellexecuted, long-term research renders salt, and even its place in the maya value system, quite visible 4 in architecture, pottery, and other thoroughly analyzed data. the book contains indispensable comparative material for researchers in the expanding field of salt anthropology, but it also serves as a model to which all archaeologists can aspire when martialing huge amounts of information for a comprehensive synthesis. ashley a. dumas is associate professor of anthropology at the university of west alabama, where she also manages the fort tombecbe archaeological site. she studies the relationship between salt production and the development of complex society in the southeastern united states. © 2021 ashley a. dumas the sunset of human rights and working with emotions review by francisco m. argueros of land and bread. 2019. produced by b’tselem and ehab tarabieh. the video project. “when everyone on earth dies, the last person should play this while walking into the sunset” writes a youtuber, in a very dramatic tone, about handel’s sarabanda,1 which constitutes the sole soundtrack of the documentary of land and bread, repeated over and over. i watched it in two evenings while on a solitary retreat and it put me on the verge of tears. of land and bread can be emotionally experienced as walking into the last sunset of humanitarianism with a feeling of impotence and sadness that in my case didn’t turn into outrage. if compassion is one of the emotions aroused by the documentary, then it can develop into empathy and taking action to stop the naked oppression portrayed by the documentary of palestinians in the occupied territories and west bank. perhaps that is the purpose of documenting the everyday experience of israeli occupation through the “naked eye” of the video camera. the documentary does not provide any background, contextualization, or explanation. we only learn that b’tselem (an israeli human rights organization) began its camera project in 2006 by distributing cameras to palestinian volunteers (the video makers) and that the project lasted 10 years. the documentary is neither neutral, objective as far as objectivity can go, nor inclusive. it consists of video fragments (stories, or pieces of visual story telling) pinned together and showing a palestinian perspective on the occupation and the israelis. these are represented by soldiers and the (illegal) settlers. what the documentary depicts is oppression seen by the oppressed in a land that is supposed to be or have been the land of the people today known as palestinians, which is what the israeli settlers, backed by the army, deny. the opening scene (without title) shows an israeli settler approaching a group of palestinians planting a field. he asks them to share their piece of land with him: —i’ll plant half and you [will plant] the other half … we need to eat. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpzigqcrha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpzigqcrha —why? —they ask —this land is ours. —this land is part of israel … it belongs to the jews … god gave it to us [leviticus]. —but this is my father’s land. —when the messiah arrives, you will be our slaves … we’ll treat you well if you behave… you have syria, arabia ... you have land … — the settler knows he’s being filmed but keeps going until israeli soldiers appear, though not to stop him. their role is shown in the following stories. a similar argument informs the story called “the flag.” there seems to be a gathering of settlers, a celebration filmed from a palestinian house. the settlers see a palestinian flag on the roof of that house and one of them climbs to the roof but gets stuck in barbed wires. a dialogue follows between the palestinian, owner of the house, and the settler, who wants to take down what he calls a “jordanian flag”: —take down the jordanian flag … this land is all mine … god gave [it] to the jews … it’s only the jewish people who lived in this land from the very beginning. the house is private property. israeli soldiers arrive to the roof entering through the door, not to arrest the intruder but the owner of the house: “take the flag down, or we’re going to arrest you.” in the end, they just leave the house. the harassment and discrimination that palestinians suffer in the street is part of everyday life. a soldier, captured by the lens, shouts (in the story called “carnival”), “you can’t stay here … this place is for jews! in “taking the high road” a soldier warns a palestinian: “you can’t go this way; this is only for jews.” palestinians must walk along a different section of the street, one designated only for them. “these are our orders,” says the soldier. the “we just follow orders” rings a bell, and not a nice one. stones as guns most of the stories are about children and stones. a soldier grabs a child who seemingly has thrown a stone at an army car. the child cries hard thinking he is going to be arrested. his father arrives and is detained and blindfolded. in the end both are released. then there are the night home visits. soldiers enter in the middle of the night, waking up the whole family and children who are sleeping, asking for identification, taking pictures, asking children if they throw stones, and then leaving. a father asks, “why don’t you come during daytime?” (“a bedtime story”). it is a different story when settlers throw stones. we see a whole crowd of settlers harassing a palestinian house (or maybe an apartment), hurling stones and insults of a religious, sexual and gendered nature using loudspeakers and playing loud music all night long (included in the 90 minutes version of the film). soldiers stand nearby but don’t move a finger. “they are our soldiers!” a settler says. when soldiers don’t know that they are filmed they perform nastier actions. in one of the stories, a soldier kicks a child who is on the ground pinned down by another soldier. in another story, a young palestinian hides in a store room, unarmed. soldiers find him and beat him senseless for around five minutes, real time. one of the soldiers nails him repeatedly on the side with the barrel of his gun, as if it was a spear. not even in death is there a break heartbreaking is “the old man funeral”: a water cannon pushes back a small funeral procession of a handful of men escorting a coffin. there’s not even noticeable rage as they turn back, heads down. the stories document, one after another, oppression and powerlessness without comments, without context. they are not the “whole truth,” not the “whole story,” but what we see, as if we were eyewitnesses, is something that has happened, and keeps happening in the west bank and occupied territories. but the documentary has been produced by the israeli ngo b’tselem, which is concerned with human rights violations. in the israeli society, there are people who are aware of what is going on in the west bank and are working, as the objective statement of b’tselem states, “to end this regime, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both palestinian and israeli, living between the jordan river and the mediterranean sea.”2 it seems then that one goal of the documentary is to make the world aware of what is happening, to move people and organizations to say something, to do something. publicity of oppression is one way to fight against it. the social world, however, is presented in a messy way, as it is. it must be organized through contextualization and analysis. this is not what textbooks do: they give students an ordered world, neatly structured with typologies and summaries, and without emotions involved. nothing should be taken at face value. the fact that there is no contextualization can be used as an advantage: students can make sense of what they see in an active and participatory way by working with resources provided by teachers or professors. the contextualization involves dramatic and conflictive emotions as it includes the history of the arrival of the first jewish settlers at the end of the 1800 and the reasons why jews wanted to leave eastern europe, because of pogroms and later the holocaust, and find a haven: their own national jewish state. but the land was populated by others, as it was in biblical times, and making room for the newcomers in the end meant the displacement of those living on the land: palestinians. the national identity of the latter is linked to the conflict over the land and the stubborn refusal of israel to share it (one multiethnic state), precisely what b’tselem aims at. it is, therefore, a video that can be used in history, sociology, or anthropology courses dealing with the conflict over the territory in palestine-israel, or just conflict, oppression, or powerlessness. on the other hand, the focus can be on the anthropology or sociology of emotions, or even the use of sources. on the emotional side, the most relevant skill to develop, particularly for students of anthropology but also for history 2 https://www.btselem.org https://www.btselem.org/ students, is empathy: to try and see and feel from the point of view of others, even settlers and soldiers, with the aim of learning to know oneself by learning to know the other, and the other way around. other emotions to deal with, and be aware of, could be impotence, rage, sadness, outrage, compassion. the video comes in three formats: 30, 60 and 90 minutes. i prefer the longer version as it contains stories that i find very relevant but were cut in the shorter versions. however, the longer version might be too repetitive and heavy to watch considering that is difficult to keep the interest of students, when there is not a clear story line. i showed the 60 minutes version in a two-hour anthropology class (first year humanities) and after 30 minutes students started to go missing. depending on the type of group (secondary or third level education; younger or older), it might be better to use only a few of the stories and then work with them. however, if the audience targeted is a group of activists, the 60 minutes version can go very well. potentially there are two different types of uses: for activism and for learning to work with anthropological/historical thinking concepts and with emotions associated to these concepts. how both types are linked, however, is a different question. francisco m. arqueros is an anthropologist working out of the department of geography, history, and humanities at the university of almeria, spain. © 2021 francisco m. arqueros microsoft word nicosia publish.doc a closer look at the livelihoods of children in the past review by christopher e. nicosia book review: edited by patrick beauchesne & sabrina c. agarwal (2018). children and childhood in bioarchaeology. gainesville: university press of florida. keywords: mortuary analysis, children, childhood, biocultural, bioarchaeology over the last two decades, archaeologists and bioarchaeologists have been paying increasing attention to infants and children. earlier views of children within the discipline have often portrayed them as being irrelevant to socioeconomic life in past societies. in addition to other contributing factors, such as poor skeletal preservation, adult-focused studies, and culturally-specific funerary practices influencing appearance rates in mortuary spaces, has often led towards their exclusion when investigating past cultures (e.g., halcrow and tayles 2011; lewis 2007; mays et al. 2017). however, with shifting views since the 1970’s and recent materializations of bringing nonadult-based research to forefront, it is progressively being recognized that children are active agents within their communities and that their funerary treatments can provide significant information towards biosocial contexts. they can inform a great deal about the cultures that they're a part of by extending interpretations of socio-cultural perceptions of age, gender, ideologies, and identities, and overall aid in the social reconstructions of ancient civilizations. the children and childhood in bioarchaeology volume edited by patrick beauchesne and sabrina agarwal highlights the importance of nonadult studies by bringing together a wide-range of bioarchaeological scholars who discuss biocultural, life history, and life-course approaches towards enriching children and childhood studies in antiquity that integrate socio-cultural, biological, and archaeological lines of evidence. the first part of the volume discusses the foundations of biocultural theory (i.e., the relationship between biological adaptations and cultural constructions that can affect human behavior) involving the concept of "childhood" – the life phase between birth and 2 adolescence. bioarchaeologists inglis and halcrow open the first chapter with a review that explores life history and life-course theory towards social paleopathological and cultural factors that can influence a child's life, past and current theoretical positions on the study of children in bioarchaeology and the complexities of aging due to various social and biological components. they also highlight fields, such as sociology and social anthropology that are assisting in fostering studies of infants and children in past communities. the second and third chapters concentrate on mother-infant interface and feeding practices, such as breastfeeding and weaning. in the second chapter pearson's impressive biocultural meta-analysis concentrates on the reconstruction of breastfeeding and weaning patterns in the archaeological records of 22 case studies from europe, eurasia, southwest asia, and southeast asia over the last 10,000 years to investigate the cultural plasticity of the weaning period. she discusses the biology of lactation to explore if humans have followed a fairly narrow "biological footprint" over the past 10,000 years or if culture had a greater effect on the variability of breastfeeding practices and fertility. also, she discusses the incorporation of stable isotopes towards studying weaning practices. in chapter 3, moffat and prowse compellingly advocate for expanding roles toward the study of children and infant feeding practices. they demonstrate how the investigation of feeding practices can illustrate social attitudes towards women and children, relationships with fertility and effects on populational health. the fourth and fifth chapters examine nonadult remains in the archaeological record of the peruvian north coast to explore cultural constructions of childhood and their involvements during incidents of violence. in chapter 4, klaus provides an important synthesis of the cultural construction of childhood in the lambayeque region of peru’s north coast from 1000 bc to ad 1750 by integrating bioarchaeological, funerary pattern and contextual data derived from a sample of nearly 900 subadults. his findings provide insight into cultural practices (e.g., ritual offerings or sacrifice) that shaped cultural constructions of childhood and how childhood perceptions in the lambayeque area may have changed following spanish colonization. in chapter 5, toyne offers a look into understanding episodes of violence against children of pre-hispanic peru by conducting detailed comparative reviews of three populations each exhibiting over 100 individuals (nonadults = 50–60%). overall, the author's theoretical approach presented a valuable examination on the intersections of traces of violence and biological age to explore social age (i.e., the embodiment of socially constructed norms concerning appropriate behavior and attitudes for an age group) and personhood at sites túcume, punta lobos, and kuelap. the second part of the volume focuses on life history (i.e., series of changes undergone during an individual’s lifetime) and life-course (i.e., a multi-disciplinary approach for the conceptualization and representation of age-related changes in an individual’s life) approaches for examining human history and developmental stages through the analyses of human skeletal remains. in chapter 6, gosman, raichlen, and ryan review the current state of fundamental knowledge on skeletal development to examine possible relationships with childhood behavioral development and skeletal microstructure, specifically trabecular and cortical bone. they present a convincing argument where having a more refined understanding of skeletal developmental variations can aid in identifying deviations from expected patterns of growth in the past. the piece unpacks useful strategies for researchers interested in skeletal development and refinement of lifecourse approaches towards biological and cross-cultural variability. chapter 7 by temple focuses on the transition between infancy and childhood of prehistoric foragers of the late/final jomon period in japan through a paleopathological dental examination of linear enamel hypoplasia (leh) and mortuary practices. despite a small sample size (n=32) of individuals with observable perikymata due to unavoidable taphonomic factors, the biocultural analysis illustrates that leh developed the most between the period of socially determined childhood and ecologically determined childhood and provided an important discussion of physiological stress and its effects over the life-course of a nonadult. chapter 8 by miller, agarwal, and langebaek provide a life-course study on stable isotopic food consumption of the pre-colonial muisca culture of colombia. they conduct a comparative analysis by sampling multiple bone and dental tissues in the same individuals to reflect different formation stages of diet across the life cycle. from this, they track food consumption from childhood into adulthood and connections with "gendered" food consumption. their data suggest that "gendered" maize consumption began in early childhood and persisted into adulthood. in chapter 9, gowland and newman examine the eighteenth and nineteenth-century industrial revolution in britain to see how children embodied inequalities and how these experiences early in life can shape health and well-being. this is done through the analysis of four-centimeter longitudinal bone growth, nonspecific stress indicators, leh, and the application of developmental plasticity models and epigenetics for new alternative interpretations. the chapter demonstrates the value of multiple methods and theoretical approaches. in the last chapter, wheeler, williams, and dupras study the nature of shifting egyptian ideologies and social attitudes toward children during a period of transition to christian beliefs. they explore these shifts through burial practices and health reconstructions done with multiple lines of evidence (e.g., nonspecific stress indicators, trauma, and stable isotopes) involving a nonadult skeletal sample from the egyptian kellis 2 township population located in dakhleh oasis, egypt. this cogent chapter highlights the roles mortuary archaeology can have on childhood reconstructions in bioarchaeology when combining bioarchaeological techniques with ethnohistorical contexts. the one issue in the chapter involves the comparison of stress marker relationships between nonadults to adults as it can present difficulties since nonadults exhibit higher pathological cell turnover rates that can occur during periods of growth. in sum, the editors of children and childhood in bioarchaeology deserve praise for crafting a vital multidisciplinary volume that provides essential information on the study of nonadults in past cultures. they brought together an excellent and well-rounded group of researchers from different bioarchaeological backgrounds that have contributed greatly towards the discussions of nonadult research. high quality figures, graphs, and tables throughout help in the presentation of data. the volume should be on the list of archaeologists, historians, and biological anthropologists interested in child studies. it will surely prove useful for upper-division courses as it not only demonstrates various 4 approaches towards researching children in the past but also presents temporal, cultural, and global perspectives on the human experience. references halcrow, s. e., & tayles, n. (2011). the bioarchaeological investigation of children and childhood. in social bioarchaeology (eds l. meskell, r.a. joyce, s.c. agarwal and b.a. glencross). pp. 333-360. doi:10.1002/9781444390537.ch12 lewis, m. (2007). the bioarchaeology of children: perspectives from biological and forensic anthropology (cambridge studies in biological and evolutionary anthropology). cambridge: cambridge university press. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511542473 simon mays, rebecca gowland, siân halcrow & eileen murphy. (2017). child bioarchaeology: perspectives on the past 10 years, childhood in the past, 10:1, 3856, doi: 10.1080/17585716.2017.1301066 christopher nicosia is a ph.d. student in anthropology at louisiana state university. his dissertation topic currently involves looking at peruvian subadult mortuary treatments (e.g., grave goods, body placement, body orientation, etc.) with biological components, such as biological sex and pathologies, to piece together aspects of their social identity (e.g., personhood, sex-roles, gender) and to better understand their roles in past communities. he has an interest in the topics of looking at societal aspects of social identity (e.g., personhood, adulthood, gender) and care regarding perceptions of cared individuals and paleopathological influences on mortuary treatments emphasized through funerary practices. this is an outgrowth of his interests in aspects of mortuary practices, violence, paleopathology, diet, and social landscapes. © 2020 christopher nicosia microsoft word krutikova_final.docx 1 business culture and rediscovery of difference review by anastasia krutikova andrew orta. 2019. making global mbas. the culture of business and the business of culture. oakland: university of california press, pp. 256 isbn: 9780520325401 key words: business culture, capitalism, mba, globalization, difference it seemed a generation ago that, with the triumph of capitalism, the world had come to the "end of history,"i marked by standardization of global markets and the imminent end of local specificity. today, however, the trend seems to be reversed not only have local differences not disappeared from the global space of capitalism, but they have been getting more attention from international business scholars and managers. andrew orta aptly calls this trend the "re-enchantment of the local" (7). his book making global mbas tells the story of this "reimagining of global space as a space of difference" (2) and paints a convincing portrait of the managerial subject who is best prepared to manage risks and opportunities in this new space. to this end, the author explores mba programs as one of the key places that both produce and reflect the business culture in the united states. each of the seven chapters of the book focuses on a specific aspect of mba education, ranging from its history and ethnographic accounts of students' daily experiences to detailed descriptions of the curriculum designed to prepare students to do business abroad. together they provide a comprehensive overview of the business culture in the united states and its basic assumptions about the world. the first introductory chapter includes important background information about the shift in perception of foreign space and culture that has taken place in u.s. business circles and the social sciences over the past few decades. the chapter elaborates on how the idea that "managers of the 21st-century capitalism will necessarily engage a world at once rife and rich with 2 difference" (6) has become conventional wisdom and an expected outcome of the mba training path. the second part of the chapter introduces the author's ten years of fieldwork in a dozen distinguished mba programs. chapter 2 describes the main features of mba programs and their meaning for students' professional future. the author highlights the challenges associated with the huge flow of information and the fast pace of educational and extracurricular activities that saturate the mba training. he carefully examines its most salient features, including fundamental concepts of capitalism such as market, risk or value, language patterns and common ways of presenting data in mba classes that reveal basic assumptions about business practice. the main argument of this chapter is that mba training, designed as a ritual of professional socialization, offers students much more than technical knowledge in several core disciplines, but also a set of experiences and claims about the world through which students come to embody "a theoretical representation of contemporary capitalism" (29). the historical overview in chapter 3 reviews origins of business education and its struggle for legitimacy in academic circles in the first half of the twentieth century, followed by its exponential growth after world war ii and the redefinition of the manager as an "engineer of social relations" and a "new american cultural type" (76). the chapter concludes with a section on the evolution of the international component of mba programs, which recalls the process of rediscovery of global space among business scholars throughout the twentieth century. introducing the milestones and key personalities that have shaped this field, the author demystifies business education. the chapter could, however, benefit from a more elaborate description of the links between the evolution of mba programs and the broader historical context. chapter 4 looks into the mba conception of culture. it provides a subtle comparison between anthropological and business framings of cultural difference, highlighting the similarities and connections between them. this chapter brilliantly illustrates how anthropological concepts can be borrowed and creatively accommodated by other disciplines. examining the ideas of major business theorists on cultural differences, geert hofstede and pankaj ghemawat both mandatory references in the mba international business classes the author underscores the specificity and implications of a business understanding of culture in terms of distance and resources, risk and opportunity. 3 the following chapters contain ethnographic descriptions of two signature components of mba international business curriculum. the author first examines short-term study abroad trips, which take the form of "carefully staged international experiences" (129). he turns next to the case study teaching method, describing it as a "quasi-ethnographic simulation of the world and […] manager’s engagement with its uncertainties" (24). these examples immerse the reader further into the mba education routine. along with this, by giving voice to teachers and students, the author demonstrates how business assumptions about culture and global space shape their learning experiences and professional future. the closing chapter offers author’s reflections on mba training in light of two trends that have recently marked global capitalism and that coincided with his fieldwork: the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008-9 on mba curriculum and the resurgence of populist governments and antiglobalist movements around the world. the concluding remark describes these trends as consistent with the general trend of the rescaling of global space and rediscovery of difference, emphasized throughout the book. in the subtitle of his book, andrew orta promises to introduce the reader to "the culture of business and the business of culture," and he indeed keeps this promise. through generous descriptions of the environment, rituals and experiences that mba students encounter during their training, the author paints a fascinating cultural portrait of future middle and senior managers as key players in global business. furthermore, the reader finds an insightful analysis of how these managers learn to conceptualize and cope with cultural differences in the 21st century. this is one of the few studies that explore both content and production of knowledge about culture and demystify managers whose practices and understanding of culture, difference, risk and opportunity shape the lives of many people around the world. the book will be a valuable reference to anthropologists interested in education and business culture. anastasia krutikova is a phd candidate in the laboratoire d'anthropologie sociale at the school for advanced studies in the social sciences. her dissertation research focuses on secondary school conceptions of human diversity in france and in russia. her research interests include secondary education, theory and history of anthropology. 4 © 2020 anastasia krutikova i the expression refers to fukuyama, francis. 1992. the end of history and the last man. new york: free press. microsoft word 183-573-1-rv.docx 1 with business consultants in china towards the economic anthropology of ethics review by johannes lenhard best practice: management consulting and the ethics of financialization in china. by chong, kimberly. duke university press, 2018 keywords: financialization, ethics, consulting, economic anthropology, china. what do business consultants actually do? in her book on the daily workings of one of the most powerful forces of (apparent) change in the economic world chong sets out to answer that question with a specific focus on the emerging chinese context. what chong found is remarkable: while “[consulting] is the work of moralizing and legitimating what is ‘best’ under the aegis of financialization” (p.7) and as such standardized globally, the work is by necessity locally rooted in ethical and value-systems that adhere to – in chong’s case – chinese clients. financial globalization and its shareholder value ideology are not flatly rolling over every little (ethical) bump; tensions between different regimes of value are manifold (p. 29): chinese vs western, revenue generation vs cost generation, performance vs change. chong’s analysis leads us through some of these conflicts to paint a vivid picture of the daily struggles of business consultants in china. while one might have expected an outpour of literature on the financial world after the most recent 2008 global crisis, apart from certain notable exceptions (e.g. appadurai 2015; leins 2018; souleles 2019) much of the classic anthropology of finance is not only based on pre-crisis material 2 (e.g. zaloom 2006; ho 2009; maurer 2009) but mostly focused on the west. additionally, ethics – something financial times editor and anthropologist gillian tett (2019) proclaimed recently to be one of the main new forces in the investing world – has not featured at all in the anthropological analysis of finance yet. here, chong’s analysis of the ethics of chinese business consultants comes in very elegantly. in seven substantial chapters, chong leads us from human resource and performance management to outsourcing, issues around (chinese) nationalism to corporate social responsibility. she starts at the inner workings of the consulting machine to take us slowly out to the client’s site (chapter 5 and 6) while thinking through the influence of factors such as the local chinese culture (and ethics) and the chinese state in each chapter. in this way, chong manages to unravel the impact consultants have on the economic system generally and in china specifically from the inside out. the first four chapters hence explicitly focus on the internal workings of the consultancy chong calls systeo. from an internal ‘performance management’ program (ch 1, 2) and the role of outsourced ‘cost centres’ (ch 3) to internal trainings for higher level executives on how to sell systeo’s services (ch 4), chong picks out different processes of ‘commensuration,’ of making different regimes of value overlap, that are at the heart of the consultants’ work. how is labor – and what is made to look like an appreciation of employee loyalty – turned into financial capital? how is human value translated into shareholder value? by describing the intricate tools used internally by systeo – the balanced scorecard, rating and ranking within performance management, the employee engagement team – chong gives the reader a strong flavor of how consulting is performed, narrated and trained. while she hardly ever openly criticizes these practices, chong’s tone is mostly revealing enough. her analysis of the separation (and hierarchization) of revenue generating activities (the consultants working directly with the clients) from the cost generating back office work (e.g. coordinating remote meetings) is one such example; her analysis of the disciplinary practices that are part of performance management in chapter 2 is another. it is unclear, chong argues, even for the consultants themselves, whether any of these tools actually have the desired effect. other problems are apparent: while the internal hierarchization between back and front office (which is often mirrored to the outside in the form of client advice) makes sense according to the 3 ‘shareholder value’ logic of systeo, it doesn’t necessarily adhere to local chinese principles of relationship-based business. chong’s analysis is indeed at its strongest when she uses this perspective – what does consulting look like in china and what conflicts come to the fore? – as a way of critiquing the universalizing approach systeo attempts to apply. in chapter 5, we switch sites and finally arrive at the client’s office where much of the consulting work is performed. here again, chong elegantly shows how different values – increasing efficiency / busy-ness or higher suzhi (“human quality,” p. 146) – clash in the process depending on the client context. systeo might understand its operations as a straightforward project of modernization in china but neither do some of its clients – chong was able to do fieldwork at a chinese state owned company with systeo for instance – nor some of its employees that give in to the common practice of napping after lunch for instance. in chapters 6 and 7 we are taken even more into the thicket of specificity of consulting in china: how does being good for the nation and being good business consultants go together? “performing globality” (symbolized by the arrival of a coffee rather than tea culture) while staying “red” and “local” (is gift giving allowed as part of the business world?) is a constant struggle (p. 171). three small question marks remain for me concerning the concept of ethics, the role of gender and a stronger focus on practices beyond systeo’ internal working. firstly, while ethics is a concept applied in many different ways throughout chong’s analysis, i am hard pressed to find a direct explication of what is meant by it beyond the value conflict chong describes. given the disciplinary push towards ethics (laidlaw 2002) but the lack of application in economic anthropology so far (hence also the research center’s focus i am coordinating: the max planck cambridge center for the study of ethics, the economy and social change), i would have liked to see more thought on this. secondly, i am sensing an untapped potential in chong’s unique research position as a female academic to look more strongly at the role that gender plays in the context of consulting. does it make a difference not only whether you are a chinese consultant but also whether you are a female chinese consultant? how does it influence your (ethical) position in the work world? lastly, i am slightly disappointed that it takes until chapter 5 before we enter the client-focused work of systeo (which from my own experience of working in consulting is really the core of the work). i admit that the question of access is a tricky one, but similar to stein’s 4 (2017) study and ho’s (2009) comparable analysis of the banking industry we are learning a lot about the consulting culture, what they are taught and how they are supposed to think rather than about the actual influence they have. perhaps, however, this is no coincidence and the work the consultants do is indeed – as chong alludes – without measurable and efficient results and improvements. despite my desire for these add-ons, chong’s contribution is highly valuable for the advancement of a more inclusive anthropology of finance generally and an economic anthropology concerned with the issue of ethics specifically. it is in fact one of the first studies available that tries to make this link and is hence a very important step towards paving the road for the field of the economic anthropology of ethics. references appadurai, arjun. 2015. banking on words: the failure of language in the age of derivative finance. chicago: university of chicago press. ho, karen zouwen. 2009. liquidated: an ethnography of wall street. durham: duke university press. laidlaw, james. 2002. “for an anthropology of ethics and freedom.” journal of the royal anthropological institute 8: 311–32. leins, stefan. 2018. stories of capitalism: inside the role of financial analysts. chicago: chicago university press. maurer, bill. 2009. mutual life, limited islamic banking, alternative currencies, lateral reason. princeton and oxford: princeton university press. souleles, daniel. 2019. songs of profit, songs of loss: private equity, wealth, and inequality. lincoln and london: university of nebraska press. stein, felix. 2017. work, sleep, repeat: the abstract labour of german management consultants. london: bloomsbury academic. tett, gillian. 2019. “ethical investing has reached a tipping point.” financial times, 2019. accessible: https://www.ft.com/content/7d64d1d8-91a6-11e9-b7ea-60e35ef678d2, accessed: 21/06/2019. zaloom, caitlin. 2006. out of the pits: traders and technology from chicago to london. chicago: 5 university of chicago press. dr. johannes lenhard is the centre coordinator of the max planck cambridge centre for the study of ethics, the economy and social change (max cam). while his doctoral research was focused on the home making practices of people sleeping rough on the streets of paris, he is currently working on a new project on the ethics of venture capital investors in berlin, london and san francisco. find his twitter at @jflenhard. © 2019 dr. johannes lenhard microsoft word kovalyova going public.doc 1 can the digital revolutionize academic scholarship? review by natalia kovalyova going public: a guide for social scientists by: arlene stein and jessie daniels university of chicago press, 2017 a decade ago, samuel kernel shook the field of political science by reporting on structural changes in presidential politics. he showed that in order to advance their legislative agenda, american presidents had started rallying public support. he called this new powerful tool of presidential communication going public. now, a similar development appears to be rocking the academic world, pushing the boundaries of what accepted scholarship is, as young scholars take to online fora instead of academic journals to make their research public. yet, this enthusiasm for public scholarship is not universally embraced in academia and a decision to “go public” with one’s scholarship comes with a price. to examine the consequences of such a decision, arlene stein and jessie daniels in their new book going public: a guide for social scientists, outline the existing digital options for communicating research, weigh their pros and cons, and issue a number of warnings about a perceived schism between the new and the traditional models of scholarship. the authors keep within the realm of their home discipline of sociology, but the arguments they advance ring true for other disciplines as well. scholars are socialized to speak and write in a particular way, they posit, mostly to an audience of their fellow academics. as a result, the people who need to hear about research results most urgently remain outside the traditional routes of scholarly communication. moreover, when research is communicated by the middle man, aka reporters, a lot gets “lost in translation.” therefore, cutting out the middle man and entering the public debate directly via new communication channels, such as social media, seems like a viable remedy. 2 after remediating the problem of unskillful interpretation and, effectively, calling for the elimination of the division of labor between researchers and popularizers (including reporters), the authors proceed with a suggestion for scholars to “unlearn” the academic article as a single form of scholarly communication and to develop their voice as story-tellers (chapter one). they describe multiple venues where research stories could be told for public consumption – from newspaper op-eds to digital magazines to facebook (chapter two). unfortunately, what makes for a good story and what narrative strategies work best for tales supported by research falls outside the scope of the book. instead, the authors’ recommendations remain mostly prohibitive, warning scholars about what not to do (“do not write whodunit,” “do not load the book with footnotes, tables, charts,” etc.) (chapter three). in chapter four, the authors focus on the capacity of digital technology to expand one’s networks and to shape ideas through conversation, a capacity that can undermine the reign of what they call a legacy model of scholarship especially because it is coupled with a “foundational concern with the world beyond the academy” (94). the very existence of a digital model, the authors believe, demonstrates that scholarship is “undergoing a profound change” (96). yet, in their treatment, the major change is evident in a peer review process, allegedly a “deeply flawed” element of the legacy model (95), and is accompanied by the increased speed of surveying the extant literature on the topic and the increased speed of writing. regrettably, the authors elaborate neither on the causes of the “brokenness” of the legacy model nor on the validity of the digital solution, simply stating that digital scholarship undergoes “rigorous peer reviews” (94). in chapter five, stein and daniels argue that “going public” introduces a different model of being an academic, with a different type of audience to address. here, the authors offer words of caution to nontenured academics. disseminating one’s research to a wider audience and achieving tenure by publishing it in academic journals do not fit under one tent. taking one route excludes, as far as they could tell, the other; hence their advice is to know one’s institution and its tenure requirements before stepping into the shoes of a public scholar. further on, they address a dark facet of “going public,” namely, abusive comments and hate mail and suggest growing thicker skin as a remedy to the situation (chapter six). finally, chapter seven turns to the issue of measuring research impact. flawed as the existing measures are, a flurry of research tracking sites threatens to substitute attention (that is, views, likes, downloads, and other indicators of visibility) for citations as a measure of worth, which, again, 3 will not sit well with one’s tenure committee. for a book about the ongoing changes in academic scholarship, “going public” is surprisingly ambivalent in regards to its own goal of writing to its intended audience of untenured assistant professors and advanced graduate students crafting their academic identities. if the authors aim to inspire these young scholars to “go public,” their advice is too generic and growing obsolete by the hour, given today’s rapid technological advances. if they want to prevent the faint-hearted from “going public,” they offer little to those who are passionate about solving real-world problems but still adhere to the legacy model. moreover, several serious omissions in the description of the current academic landscape prevent this book from advancing our understanding of how knowledge is produced and disseminated in the digital age. first of all, digital formats can hardly drive change in academia by themselves. a host of grant-making institutions, federal agencies, think-tanks, and other powerful decision-makers shift the direction of research, prioritizing certain fields and projects. another heavy-weight gatekeeper (or kingmaker, if you will) not accounted for in the book is the publishing industry whose paywalls, subscription fees, and open access requirements intricately regulate the flow of information, and whose views about what will sell shape the public understanding of what scholars care to study. second, as described by the authors, “going public” resembles a new mode of disseminating research rather than a new model of doing it. none of the examples of public scholarship mentioned in the book suggest new innovations in methodology or analytical techniques, nor do they shake the epistemic foundations of academic research. thus, a proposition of a new, digital model of scholarship remains unsubstantiated, much like the claim that social media allows for “a new arrangement of colleagues” (109) and nurtures productive collaborations. without the illustrations of successful, say, twitteror facebook-based collaboration, these statements about technical affordances read as unrealized promises. third, in a climate of growing tensions around what counts as scholarship, it is vital to hear from all stake-holders. sadly, the book does not give voice either to those who follow a legacy model or to tenure committees with their alleged arguments against public scholarship. in the absence of data about current tenure requirements at various institutions, the incompatibility of the two models remains an 4 academic “urban legend” while in reality, digital scholarship may be well on its way to being normalized as an acceptable form of academic work. fourth, the book’s initial vision of an eager public craving the latest research news is shattered by the consequent accounts of hostility that scholars endure on social media platforms. unfortunately, a heightened chance of encountering incivility is not the only negative aspect of digital communication. fragmentation of the public into filter bubbles effectively undermines the promise of broad dissemination of information, research-based or otherwise. finally, stein and daniels’ recommendations to deploy narrative in public scholarship reveal a poor estimate of the public’s discursive repertoire. yet, even if story-telling is indeed a discursive package that works wonders, educating the public about research and teaching it to interpret research results makes for a viable alternative solution that would undermine the middle man that stein and daniels picture on the opening pages. natalia kovalyova (ph.d., ut austin) studies the relationships between discourse and power in a variety of contexts from presidential communication to academic writing. her most recent research focuses on the role of the media in producing, maintaining, mending, or challenging social cohesion. she is a member of the national communication association, rhetoric society of america, american political science association, and the international society for political psychology. © 2018 natalia kovalyova anthropology’s many pasts: frustrations, engagements, and commitments review by nicholas barron regna darnell and frederic w. gleach, eds. 2017. historicizing theories, identities, and nations. lincoln: university of nebraska press, 300 pgs., isbn: 978-1-49620268-0 historicizing theories, identities, and nations marks the 11th volume in the histories of anthropology annual series. once again, editors regna darnell and frederick w. gleach have curated a stimulating array of essays that enrich scholarly inquiries into the discipline’s many pasts. synthesizing subjects that have appeared in previous iterations of the series, the 11 th volume brings together 13 chapters under the banner of theories, identities, and nations and the scholarly understanding of these subjects’ respective histories. in addition to these guiding terms, multiple robust and overlapping themes can be traced throughout the volume including anthropology’s underappreciated interactions with other disciplines and the formulation, circulation, and modification of anthropological ideas and debates in relation to the varied geopolitical developments of the 20th century. the bulk of the volume’s chapters sit within a subset of the history of anthropology that one might call “boas studies.” while the parameters are by no means without variation, works that fall within the bounds of this cottage industry have several generic features. the historical actors centered within these works are often euro-american scholars with allegiance to “the father of cultural anthropology,” franz boas. relatedly, one finds close analytical attention to the development of pluralistic conceptions of culture, cultural relativism, and the critique of biological conceptions of race. though this might seem rather restrictive, the authors of these chapters find new and productive angles on the paradoxically maligned and exalted boasian paradigm and its founding figures. the volume begins with darnell’s own chapter, which provides a close re-reading and comparison of the 1911 and 1938 editions of boas’s mind of primitive man. while the chapter emphasizes continuity in boas’s thinking as well as his commitment to scientific empiricism, darnell’s treatment of the sections of the book dealing with race illustrate how boas sharpened his position on race overtime and in relation to seismic shifts in national and international politics. as the target of his intellectual and political venom shifted from the american eugenics’ movement of the 1910s to the nazism of the 1930s, boas expanded his critique of race beyond american society to include his european homeland. through an exploration of boas’s correspondence with the noted pragmatist john dewey, michael harkin underscores a palpable, though not entirely harmonious, relationship between the two thinkers. drawn together by common progressive and reformist impulses, boas and dewey ultimately parted ways when it came to the united states’ entry into world war i, a development that boas opposed and dewey supported. working in a similar time frame, david dinwoodie turns to an even more under-investigated dimension of boas’s intellectual associations—a newer generation of irreverent, cosmopolitan, social commentators, namely randolph bourne. dinwoodie argues that bourne’s transnationalism and critique of traditional intellectuals and experts came to influence the more pointed political commentaries found in boas’s anthropology and modern life. additional twists on the boas studies tradition can be found in chapters dealing with boas’s students as well as his student’s students. frank salamone offers an analysis of ruth benedict’s conception of social synergy and its relation to abraham maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs. meanwhile, james nyce and evelyn bowers explore a. irving hallowell’s evolutionary theory in relation to his friendship with the philosopher grace a. de laguna. in a more speculative vein, harkin’s second contribution to the volume poses the question: what would boas have thought of 9/11? working against the reductive characterization of boas as an abject relativist, harkin suggests that boas’s commitment to liberal cosmopolitanism would have placed him at odds with “religious fundamentalism of any stripe” (41, 52). chapters from robert ulin and andrew p. lyons help move the volume beyond the boasian purview while still underscoring the discipline’s complex relationship with other theoretical developments of the first half of the 20 th century. ulin considers the impact of the linguistic turn on anthropology by focusing on the equation of communicative practice with agency, and lyons traces edward westermarck’s influence on bronislaw malinowski through a discussion of the many variants in relativist thinking. the volume’s remaining passages take readers to less trodden territory where the history of anthropology stretches beyond boas, the united states, and western europe. it is in these chapters that the discipline’s complex relationship with the shifting geopolitical dynamics of the 20th century become most evident. particularly, notable is a series of illuminating chapters from nguyen phuong ngoc, nguyen van huy, and bradley camp davis dealing with anthropology’s underexplored history in vietnam during the latter half of the 20 th century. olga glinski’s treatment of pre-wwi ethnographic inquiries in eastern europe critically catalogues and contextualizes the work of scholars who became caught up in populist movements that saw in the peasantry the grist of novel national identities. read alongside lyon’s contribution, this chapter also helps recontextualize malinowski whose contributions are typically viewed through the british functionalist tradition with little reference to the political and intellectual debates that permeated the austro-hungarian empire. thomas mcilwraith’s eulogy for arthur nole, a tahltan elder and ethnographic interlocutor, brings the volume to a close. despite being tonally different from the rest of the volume, mcilwraith’s chapter is perhaps the clearest treatment of the overlapping themes of theory, identity, and nation as readers learn how nole’s perspectives on tahltan culture, history, and resource development and management formed in relation to private property regimes in canada. for practicing anthropologists who follow the history of the discipline closely, the book is certainly a relevant read. however, this volume and its boasian passages have a particular resonance in the wake of recent discussions about the current state of the discipline and its ability to persist in the face of a slew of existential threats including anthropogenic climate disaster, authoritarianism, structural racism, and neoliberalism just to name a few (e.g., clarke et al., 2020). as such conversations tend to entail historical reflection, these recent conversations mark the latest episode in the discipline’s longstanding reflective gaze. while reflexivity can and has led to principled, empirical inquiries into anthropology’s past, it can also lead to the perpetual recentering of the same small cohort of disciplinary ancestors. moreover, within such recursive storytelling, there is the potential for intellectual forebearers to be reduced to caricatures in parables of liberal perfectibility. in such instances, boas, for example, is presented as an unwavering devotee to cultural relativism, promoter of anthropology as the science of humanity par excellence, and single-minded critic of biological racism. though not inaccurate, this depiction ignores boas’s own frustrations with the limits of the relativist critique, his engagements with non-anthropological thinkers, and his commitment to the shifting politics of his own present—commitments which certainly included, but were by no means confined to, upending scientific racism. though delineated in a minor key, these frustrations, engagements, and commitments echo throughout historicizing theories, identities, and nations. thus, while this volume most certainly takes us back to boas, it does so, i believe, in a critical and productive manner that enhances anthropology’s enduring inclination to interrogate its own past—not to bask in self-congratulation, but to better conceptualize the problems of the present. works cited clarke, kamari, deborah thomas, lucia cantero, ryan jobson, chris loperena, jonathan rosa, savannah shange, and zoe todd. 2020. “the case for letting anthropology burn? race, racism and its reckoning in american anthropology.” webinar, wenner-gren foundation, september 23. http://blog.wennergren.org/2020/08/webinar-the-case-for-letting-anthropology-burn-race-racism-and-its-reckoning-in-american-anthropology/ http://blog.wennergren.org/2020/08/webinar-the-case-for-letting-anthropology-burn-race-racism-and-its-reckoning-in-american-anthropology/ nicholas barron received his phd in anthropology from the university of new mexico. focusing on north america, his research explores the intersecting histories of applied anthropology and indigenous politics. his writings have appeared in history and anthropology, histories of anthropology annual, and history of human sciences. currently, he teaches anthropology at mission college while also serving as a managing editor for the history of anthropology review and the book review editor for anthropology and humanism. © 2021 nicholas barron microsoft word 175-527-1-rv.docx 1 two heads are better than one: a brief demonstration of the value of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeological inquiry at teopancazco review by andrew lythe, université de montréal multiethnicity and migration at teopancazco: investigations of a teotihuacan neighborhood center edited by linda r. manzanilla university press of florida, 2017 key words: interdisciplinary research, paleodiet, migration, pathologies, isotopes multiethnicity and migration at teopancazco provides its readers with a glimpse into the socioeconomic fabric of classic period (ce 200–550) teopancazco, a residential compound situated in the southeast corner of teotihuacan, mexico. the authors achieve this by revealing the life histories of teopancazco’s residents through an interdisciplinary approach. drawing on the disciplines of osteology, biogeochemistry, genetics and archaeology, the authors were able to robustly support their interpretation of teopancazco as a multiethnic and multicultural district, with a corporate economic structure administered by an intermediate elite (chapter one). chapter two outlines common mortuary practices in teopancazco, as well as the paleopathology of the ailments those interred there endured. the majority of the population were situated in nonelite burials, and these individuals suffered from numerous pathologies, such as enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia and scurvy. in addition, these individuals were accompanied with few grave goods and were arranged according to cardinal orientations that conform with other nonelite burials at teotihuacan. by contrast, those that were located in elite burial contexts displayed negligible pathological indicators. chapters three and four provide the reader with an outline of the paleodietary patterns exhibited at teopancazco. approximately half of the twenty-seven individuals sampled displayed dietary isotopic values indicative of diets that consisted of almost 100% maize consumption, while the 2 remaining half revealed a more mixed dietary protein signature (106–109). the authors interpret these findings as evidence of the widespread consumption of maize (a c4 crop) and maize fed animals (116–118). those individuals whose isotopic values deviated from the c4 protein line were interpreted as potential members of the intermediate elite, who enjoyed a more varied diet that included a significant intake of marine protein (chapter four). chapters five through seven offer an overview of how ethnic diversity and migratory patterns changed over time at teopancazco. ancient mitochondrial dna (mtdna) haplogroups sourced from twenty-nine individuals interred in classic period graves revealed nei’s genetic diversity index readings of 0.6404 (170–174). this value is greater than some modern mexican populations, with the states of mexico, hidalgo and oaxaca yielding diversity index readings of 0.5152, 0.5037 and 0.5190 respectively (171). teopancazco subsequently experienced a high degree of demographic flux (172). these findings were consolidated by the migratory isotopic data (chapter five; chapter six). an oxygen isotope analysis revealed nineteen of the forty-four sampled individuals to be of non-local origin, yielding values corresponding to low, middle and high altitudes (134). a corresponding strontium isotope analysis of twenty-seven individuals identified fifteen migrants and verified most of the oxygen isotope data (chapter six). chapter eight reveals that children were generally overrepresented at teopancazco grave sites, constituting 27% of the formal burials (176). this indicates that high infant mortality rates occurred at teopancazco, which correlates well with data sourced from elsewhere at teotihuacan. the sex of these individuals was determined using polymerase chain reaction (pcr) amplifications, which indicated that the ratio of males to females was 1:1. this value contrasts markedly with the ratio of adult males to females, with males disproportionately overrepresented in teopancazco burials. in chapter nine, the authors attempted to identify ethnic markers using facial reconstructions. broadly speaking, the authors define ethnicity as “cultural differences that arise from social interactions and contribute to processes of cultural identity” (187). moreover, the authors state that individuals belonging to a given ethnic group may exhibit shared physical features (187). judging by their analyses, the authors concluded that five distinct ethnic groups were interred at teopancazco. in addition, deliberate cultural modifications were visible in some individuals, who exhibited evidence of in vivo cranial or enamel deformations. when one combines the migratory data with individual mortuary contexts, activity and pathology markers and paleodietary evidence, a clear picture of the socioeconomic structure of teopancazco begins to emerge. most of those dependent on maize and maize fed animals as dietary staples were found to have migrated from costal and lowland regions (204–207). furthermore, these individuals were likely to have worked fibers with their teeth and to have suffered from pathologies caused by nutritional stress, such as porotic hyperostosis, scurvy or enamel hypoplasia (204–207). by contrast, the five individuals that exhibited evidence of marine protein consumption tended to be local or from the central highlands of mexico, with fewer labor activity markers and negligible pathological indicators (204–207). of these individuals, one juvenile male and one juvenile female were buried together in an elite mortuary context (81). 3 the authors’ interdisciplinary approach reveals a clear picture of teopancazco’s corporate socioeconomic structure, with poorly nourished low altitude migrant and local laborers working as garment makers to serve the interests of a local and highland intermediate elite (chapter one; chapter ten). however, this interpretation would quickly become opaque without the clarity that an interdisciplinary inquiry provides. whether intentional or not, the authors of multiethnicity and migration at teopancazco make a strong case in favor of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeological inquiry. unlike the practitioners of ethnolinguistics and ethnography, archaeologists must interpret their databases without observing the societies that created it. a silent set of recovered materials is all archaeologists have to work with. archaeology’s interpretive models are thus extremely vulnerable to forays into the realms of conjecture, especially if these interpretations are supported by weak methodological frameworks. in order to interpret the archaeological record to the highest degree of contextual integrity, archaeologists sometimes deem it necessary to draw upon methods and theories from other disciplines. these interdisciplinary approaches arguably enable archaeologists to avoid the pitfalls associated with interpreting their mute databases according to a single line of inquiry. i would recommend multiethnicity and migration at teopancazco to those with an interest in mesoamerican archaeology, as it offers unique insight into the lifeways of teopancazco’s residents. more generally, biological scientists with an interest in archaeology would also find this book to be an engaging read. in the era of the specialist, the interdisciplinary perspective adopted by the authors of multiethnicity and migration at teopancazco provides readers with a refreshing reminder of the importance and utility of collaborative research projects. andrew lythe is a phd student at the university of montreal, specializing in stable isotopic analyses of human and faunal remains to elucidate patterns of diet and migration in prehistory. he is currently working on discerning patterns of animal management at ganj dareh, iran, which contains the remains of the oldest known domesticated animals in the world. © 2019 andrew lythe microsoft word mathur review.docx 1 sarah trainer, alexandra brewis, amber wutich, 2020. extreme weight loss: life before and after bariatric surgery. new york: nyu press, 213pp., isbn 978-1-47985-726-5 keywords: social norms, obesity, body-positivity, bariatric surgery, global health the past few decades have witnessed a global rise in the prevalence of obesity. the blame for these trends is often pinned on unhealthy lifestyle practices, namely sedentary living and a high-fat and high-sugar diet. there has been a parallel rise of the body-positivity movement, which aims to drive societal acceptance of diverse body types. the coeval nature of these two facts compels raising a couple of questions: are unhealthy behavioral decisions increasingly making people fat, and is the world now kinder towards fatness? the issue is rather complex, but upon reading extreme weight loss: life before and after bariatric surgery, it could be argued that the answer is no. while the world seems to be getting fatter because of “macro-obesogenic policies” (p. 66), weightmonitoring behaviors have become pervasive everyday practices spawned by medical advice, social norms, and the global weight loss industry giving rise to a cultural pre-occupation with weight loss. what we see are more and more people embarking on weight reduction journeys, which come to be associated with individualized notions of personal growth and self-actualization. globally, most societies harbor strong anti-fat attitudes, including the ones which were earlier considered to be fat-positive, although such body ideals do not map onto most bodies in these regions. body size is becoming an axis of social stratification in itself with fatness getting crystallized with other forms of inequalities. the group situated at the farthest end of the body types spectrum the ones considered morbidly obese are yet to benefit from any positive consequences of the bodypositivity movement. these individuals cannot accept their bodies as they are, and have to make drastic modifications to be accepted as normal in their social contexts. one such measure, the bariatric surgery a procedure that assists in rapid weight loss by making anatomical changes to the digestive system is examined at length in the book. through evidence in the form of illness narratives, the authors forcefully argue the case for re-casting the lay view of bariatric surgery. instead of considering it as an easy way of losing weight, it should be recognized as a path that requires a consistent and long-term investment of money, emotional, and physical labor both before and after the procedure. 2 the surgery however, is just another struggle in the long series of struggles that fat people face. instead of curing fatness, it sometimes gives rise to an entirely new set of problems. research in anthropology has explored fatness, but individuals at the farthest end of the spectrum remain under-studied. the authors skillfully illustrate how fatness is not only a scientifically abstract category but is situated in a rubric of social norms regarding success and failure. often, the need to align with these norms supersedes the motivation to be healthy. the project has been methodologically designed as an ethnographic exploration of a surgical-weight loss program in the western usa. fieldwork was collaboratively conducted by the authors over 36 months in the medical facilities of a large healthcare provider. the collection of techniques used includes participant observation in the bariatric clinic, interviews, and conversations with healthcare providers, and participants of the surgical weight-loss program. a two-wave survey among the patients helped in yielding quantitative information to triangulate the findings. instead of studying third-world countries, which has been the mainstay of anthropology, the authors lay their focus on the usa. they consider the country to be the “ground zero” (p. 20) of the obesity epidemic, and largely responsible for exporting thin-promoting body norms, as well as the fat-acceptance movement out to the rest of the world. the text is best understood in the context of a globalizing world, where the similarity of experiences is only compounded by the monolithic practices of biomedicine. the authors have offered an analysis based on the categories of gender, race, and socio-economic class, although the extent of comparative analysis is limited by the nature of the case-study design. theoretically, the study is an exploration of social norms prevalent in present-day usa, using the lens of weight and body types. the authors have drawn these insights based on the patient's selfreporting of their experiences of being obese. the patients are also candidates for bariatric surgery. studying these patients is useful because these are individuals who after having lived with obesity, undergo a complex procedure that subjects their bodies to a rapid transformation, and makes them undergo a range of experiences related to body weight in a very short period. these are patients who have experienced it all — what it means to be fat, what it means to undergo a drastic physical transformation, and what it means to (somewhat) adhere to social norms by being thin. the text of the book runs 213 pages and has been divided into 4 chapters. in each chapter the authors discuss a substantive theme related to weight that emerged out of the ethnographic data. in chapter 1, the everyday life experiences of bariatric surgery candidates prior to the surgery are documented, including the struggles that ensue while living with very large bodies. using evidence from medical 3 practice the authors demonstrate how excess weight comes to be understood as a disease in itself — pathologizing fat bodies. medicalized narratives of the body come to subsume patients’ understandings of self, leading them to the weight-loss clinic. in chapter 2, it is shown how social, as well as the medical pathologization of fatness, makes fat bodies susceptible to facing stigma, and systematic discrimination ranging from a lack of clothing options to a lack of access to career opportunities. excess weight signals a lack of self-control and responsibility, laziness, risk, and low morality. being repeatedly subjected to negative social feedback while suffering from multiple physical issues, weight loss surgery comes to appear to the patients as a necessary measure. chapter 3 documents experiences of weight loss post-surgery. resulting from a fundamental modification in their gastric anatomy, the patients work hard to incorporate changes in their daily lives, such as aspects related to eating and working. nevertheless, weight loss is associated with success and higher social worth. chapter 4 documents the patients’ continued struggle with their bodies even after the surgery. the surgery leads to iatrogenic consequences such as severe gastric intolerances, nutritional deficiencies, and loose skin; and compels a life-long hyper-awareness regarding eating. certain patients do not achieve the promised success because they do not lose as much weight as expected, or regain lost weight. the authors problematize the surgery’s claim as the cure for fatness since the strive for normalcy for fat individuals seems to be a long shot. the book is a valuable addition to the rich body of writing on the complex status of body weight in human societies. the study features as a part of the authors sarah trainer’s, alexandra brewis’ and amber wutich’s sustained research engagement with the themes of social inequality, obesity, and stigma in the context of global public health. medical practitioners, public health experts, and scholarly as well as lay readers, who are interested in the themes of social norms would find this book a useful read. the text would also be a helpful addition to medical anthropology reading lists at both undergraduate and graduate levels. jaya mathur is a phd candidate at jawaharlal nehru university. broadly, her research interests lie at the intersection of medical anthropology and science and technology studies. for her graduate project, she explores practices of chronic pain management across biomedicine and alternative systems of medicine in the indian context. © 2022 jaya mathur sounds of counter/revolution review by jessica winegar. malmström, maria frederika. 2019. the streets are talking to me: affective fragments in sisi’s egypt. oakland, california: university of california press. one of my most powerful memories of being in egypt during the 2011 uprisings is of hearing street battles outside my apartment building, sticking my head out the window, and feeling and hearing what i could have sworn was a bullet fly past my head. until reading the streets are talking to me by maria malmström, it was difficult to understand this moment, and more importantly its embodied memory, other than through the lens of fear. in its focus on affect, embodiment, and materialities, maria malmström’s book offers a relatively unique perspective on the uprisings and their aftermath—much different than the recent spate of articles which try to take stock of the decade since the so-called arab spring by trying to ascertain “what went wrong” in terms of formal politics. this focus allows her to show how dramatic political transformations are created and managed through a complex relationship between the senses, the body, and the material world. her focus is egypt, where millions of people forced the overthrow of president hosni mubarak only to, just a couple years later, embrace the rise of a new military strongman: abd al-fattah al-sisi. malmström shows the critical role played by affect and materialities in this transition and its aftermath. through a sensitive methodology of affect and keen attention to how it becomes both embodied and embedded in materialities, she is able to grasp how people are able to build intimacy during moments of political transition. but she also provides unique insight into how other cleavages get built precisely through the senses and materialities. the book excels in its aim to show “how materialities and affect have contributed to an exaggerated sense of displacement, uncertainty, and tension in egypt, as well as to a collective and individual loss of hope for an imagined new national home” (p. 6). this is a brave and unconventional book that opens pathways for understanding political dramas that shape personal senses of belonging. malmström primarily engages the literatures on affect and new materialisms, along with theories of gender/sexuality and nationhood, to explore various aspects of the uprising and its aftermath. these are gathered under the theme of “fragments,” as the title of the book indicates. the author adopts this approach due to the fact that security threats in egypt prevented researchers from doing more “structured kind[s] of inquiry” (p. 4). in a mode that we might consider as allied with the new methodological and theoretical approach of “patchwork ethnography,”1 malmström examines “fragments of events and attempts to understand the sensory experiences that are bound together in them” (p. 4). in chapter 1, she explores the fragments of events that caused injury to the bodies of protestors, revealing how the injured body produces emotional responses that track with the rhythm of political life in egypt. she focuses on the story of an interlocutor who was one of the many egyptians who lost an eye as a result of birdshot from state security to argue that “bodily memories of trauma” are still present and can be activated and deactivated, acting in a way like an “embodied archive” (p. 34). future researchers could further explore what might cause such activation—for example a particular smell, sound, or sight while moving through urban space. chapter 2 mainly focuses on violent events in the 2011 uprisings as connected to passionate love, but also shame, grief, fear, and rage. we encounter how desire (even sexual) between revolutionaries ebbs and flows with violent events, how people make sense of the violence done to bodies, and how love for each other and love for a homeland can suddenly disappear due to events and feel like the ultimate loss. chapters 3 through 5 present a compelling account of the vibrational intensities caused by sounds and silences in the intense summer of 2013, marked as it was by mass protests to overthrow then-president muhammad morsy, curfews that emptied the streets, and then the state’s massacre of the opposing protestors in rabaa and nahda squares. these chapters powerfully show how public intimacies are created through sensory engagement with events, and how the project of re-establishing regime power after 2011 was also an affective one that mobilized fear (e.g., through the smell of teargas and the sound of military jets) as well as love (e.g., through sensory apprehensions of sisi as a sexy, handsome and benevolent ruler). chapter 4 in particular is a poetic reading of the rabaa massacre through the things forcibly left behind and images of them. the weakest aspect of the book is not necessarily the fault of the author. that is, affect itself can be hard to ascertain, particularly for an anthropologist trying to locate it somewhere in a particular person or in a social phenomenon. putting such non-discursive senses and energies into the discourse of a text, or the structure of analysis, is an additional challenge. malmström’s creative writing style and clear sensitivity as an ethnographer help to address these challenges, as does her insistence on studying the “forces of affect through their effects” (p. 9), but at times one is left wondering if her interlocutors really felt the affect she attributes to them. also, the analysis is often in separate sections from the ethnography, which can allow the ethnography to breathe on its own but also occasionally makes for a disjointed text and reproduce distinctions between analysis and ethnography that might be productive to challenge. this book will appeal to anthropologists working on affective materiality, as well as to those seeking to bring such a lens onto dramatic political transformation. the book is written in an engaging style, rich with affect. the book contains fascinating ethnographic anecdotes, felt reflections on events and exchanges by the author, long stretches of elicited testimony from interlocutors, and compelling photographs that highlight different materialities. thus, it might interest those seeking to explore less formal modes of ethnographic writing and presentation. malmström also frequently reflects on the relationship between the researcher and interlocutors, and advocates “collaborative research as a tool” (p. 11). these reflections on and attempts to reshape fieldwork could be interesting to students of anthropology as well as those looking to shift their methodologies. the main takeaway from this book is that the egyptian revolution (and perhaps all dramatic uprisings) live on in embodied memories and sensory affects. therefore, the book actually gives lie to its title: perhaps egypt is not sisi’s after all. jessica winegar is the author of creative reckonings: the politics of art and culture in contemporary egypt (stanford, 2006), and co-author, with lara deeb, of anthropology’s politics: discipline and region through the lens of the middle east (stanford, 2015). © 2021 jessica winegar 1 � https://www.patchworkethnography.com/ microsoft word roy final.docx 1 how global is obesity? eds. eileen p. anderson-fye and alexandra brewis, 2017, fat planet: obesity, culture, and symbolic body capital, santa fe: school for advanced research press, albuquerque: university of new mexico press, 272 pp., isbn 978-0-82635-800-4 keywords: gender studies, body image, obesity, fat stigma, body capital the central puzzle that fat planet resolves to address is why people would adopt the new body norms of thinness as popularized by the media with growing enthusiasm. this project came to fruition through a school of advanced research (sar) seminar (march 2014) organized by the editors. it yields a conversation between the various authors who work between a range of techniques and paradigms. the key theme is fat stigma, addressed through the lens of symbolic body capital. the authors come together from a range of disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry to explore the changing global cultural norms on bigger bodies and the ways that they play out locally. while the number of people clinically categorized as ‘obese’ rises, there is a simultaneous expansion of fat stigma. the question which binds the chapters together is this obesity paradox; most authors take this as their point of departure and build their arguments from here. the book, throughout its eight chapters, is critical of the standardized boundaries between overweight and obese based on the body mass index (bmi). it begins with an introduction by brewis, where she sets the tone for the perspectives on fat stigma and obesity offered from diverse social and regional contexts. following the introduction, hruschka uses rich household-level data from 63 countries in chapter 1. he analyzes data from lowand middle-income countries and reviews data from high-income countries. he contends that the resource constraint model, which demonstrates a positive relationship between economic resources and body size, fits the poor majority, but does not explain women with high economic resources. the author uses socioeconomic 2 factors like income and wealth, as well as education after adjusting bmi to sex and population differences. this work proves to be a useful resource for authors of later chapters. edmonds and mears outline the weaknesses of the market metaphor of attractiveness deployed by economists in chapter 2. while building on pierre bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, the authors also contend that attractiveness is an inherited feature which may disrupt existing social hierarchies, citing, among others, ethnographic work in brazil – the world’s largest market for cosmetic procedures. the authors move beyond the personal advantage perspective, which posits that body capital is an individual possession, to examine how benefits from the valuation and circulation of bodily capital are distributed unequally in social systems. they discuss how health converges and diverges with moral and social expectations, without elaborating on it. this chapter introduces various avenues of theory, laying the groundwork for the chapters to follow. it examines the various ways in which body capital may be embodied, exchanged, marketed, and used in consumer capitalism. in chapter 3, anderson-fye, mcclure, floriano, bharati, chen, and james investigate the meaning of obesity and stigma among young adults in jamaica, belize, and nepal. the purposive sample comprised young adults ages eighteen to thirty. the authors find aesthetics and power to be important factors in defining body norms despite local variations in prevailing body ideals. in chapter 4, casper explores the intersection of two public health crises in the united states – obesity and maternal mortality. she depicts how they happen both inside and adjacent to pregnant women’s bodies – both articulated in the language of epidemics. the body of the pregnant woman is the battleground for the war against either. in chapter 5, mcclure discusses the paradox of african american female bodies being bracketed from the global trends in obesity because of the positive social meaning of fat in their bodies. this othering happens at the level of academic as well as non-academic discourse. she attempts to answer the question, “how does it feel to be an exception?” she does so by drawing from various sources, including ethnographic data from a ten-month study of body and identity among african american adolescent girls. she thus contends that a profound account of obesity stigma and social body capital among african american females should investigate this question of “exception.” hence, this work consolidates the place of the ‘not normative’ as relevant to ‘mainstream’ consideration. 3 taylor looks at language, a significant aspect of the discourse on fat in chapter 6. she extends theory on language to derive conclusions about the intersection of gender, power, discourse, and the body in the material world. she does so by referring to her study of adolescents at a us high school regarding how they participated in constructing the gendered identities of each other through conversation about body image. their language of gossip, clothing, and muscle tone created a web of hierarchy where everyone was situated according to their perceived body image. chapter 8, also on young women, is the result of a longitudinal study by trainer in dubai between 2009 and 2011. it suggests that the global and the local intersect to produce perceptions of beauty. socioeconomic status, marital status, and dietary quality turned out to be poor predictors of weight among these women. finally, becker takes us to fiji in chapter 7 where she conducted cohort studies and found a shift from preference for corpulent bodies to comparatively slender ones like in the united states between 1995 and 1998. she detects transnational migration, urbanization, assimilation to western ideals and images as being concomitant to this change. all the essays in this compilation are critical of the normative view of obesity as a personal failure. however, the data and findings in this volume are largely restricted to youth, often female students, and their body image ideals. at the same time, the book identifies a gap in anthropological literature insofar as it focuses on the anglophone world to derive understanding of fat. the authors claim to address this gap through explorations of larger trends as our planet grows fatter. the puzzle they had set out to solve is attuned to most major continents – north america, south america, asia, and africa with little attention to europe, and hardly any to australia. it distributes the focus on the sociality of fat bodies all over the world using qualitative as well as quantitative approaches. it is also critical of the fat studies scholarship which opposes the medical science proclamation that the “obesity pandemic” will doom us and blurs the boundaries between fat as a biological fact and a sociological fact. this book will be generally useful to sociologists and cultural anthropologists, and particularly to medical anthropologists interested in understanding obesity – a phenomenon which seems to be growing in all corners of the world. meghna roy is a junior research fellow in sociology at centre for the study of social systems, jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi. her interest lies at the intersection of gender and health. she is investigating truth-making practices in reproductive science for her mphil dissertation. 4 © 2021 meghna roy rethinking subjects of theory through situated matters of eating review by elin linder annemarie mol, 2021, eating in theory, durham: duke university press, 195 pp., isbn 978-1-47801-292-4 key words: theory, human exceptionalism, lessons, situatedness, multiplicity the recent book by the philosopher and anthropologist annemarie mol takes the form of an inspirational exercise of sorts. she uses exemplified stories on eating to challenge predominant philosophical ideas of the existence of one particular human, namely that of the thinking one, as standing above the surrounding by which it is sustained. by demonstrating that all human beings have a body through which they are fundamentally entangled with their surroundings (33), such as through eating, mol provides suggestions for addressing the corporeal, let alone diversified, character of what it means to be human when engaging human theory. this is an argument positioned against theoretical canons upholding, on the one hand, the action of thinking as more fundamental to life than that of eating, which is of secondary purpose according to such philosophies, and on the other, the thinking subject as more advanced in its human being—also knowing, doing, and relating—than that of the eating subject. counteracting such theoretical orientations, and especially those of twentieth century humanism, where the thinking human is theorized as having a free will and being set apart from all other organisms, mol critically invites for theories concerned with human being, knowing, doing, and relating, to take seriously the dynamic vitality of humans to eat— to be fed by and to feed others, both human and non-human in kind. considering the issue at hand of how grand explanatory models, which commonly comes from a particular male and westernized perspective, and which rarely acknowledges the situated position of that perspective in making philosophical claims about humankind, the writing seeks to shake up theory with a capital t. moll does this vividly and curiously, let alone critically, although somewhat shallowly, by thinking through situated matters of eating. she does so discursively and ethnographically through exemplifying particular narratives concerning language and practice. her aim is to twist and turn humanist perspectives by which the supposedly thinking subject of a particularly enhanced human “goes into hiding” (25). finally, moll's mission is to advance contextually embedded understandings of humans; whether engaged in activities of thinking, eating, or other, whether taking place here and now or then and there, and whether approached ethnographically or philosophically. through all these dimensions, the inspirational exercise presented by mol rather provocatively challenges any disbodied and distangled loci of existence inherent in theory. moreover, and by means of contemplating how certain seminal philosophical works, such as for instance by descartes and ardent, are devoid of corporeal and situated dynamics, the book quite forcefully provides a case for the diversified toolbox of situated descriptions for theory that the author calls for. given the above, the book arguably provides more inspirational exercise for philosophical subjects of theory, than for anthropological theories of subjects. however, in its nonhuman emphasis, it nevertheless also supplies food-for-thought for anthropological thinking. moreover, while the book is a rather easy read, at times also an intriguing one, for those used to contextual probing of situated matters generally, those concerned with standpoint theory, corporeality, food, and nonhuman perspectives particularly, it is rather confirmatory of such thinking than deepening thereof. hence, insofar as readers seek novel insights, the book arguably serves a more enticeful piece of work for those either fairly new to, or largely unfamiliar with, context–critical awareness, than it does for those already accustomed to such perspectives. the main reason for this is that whereas the writing for the former audience provides critical points of consideration to the subject matters at hand, it leaves for the latter much left to be regarded. that said, and to be fair to the purpose of the book, considering that the pursuit is to provide lessons for [t]heory, and to do so by diversely engaging notions of the human subject, not as someone set apart from the surrounding of her existence, but as particular someones enmeshed within it, the writing makes an excellent job of contextualizing the need for situated accounts when theorizing human being, knowing, doing, and relating. stylistically speaking, the work appears rather talkative, and it may for given readers come across as too brief in character for substantiating the lessons claimed. however, considering that the book seeks not to provide any theoretical conclusions (4-5), nor any advanced theoretical contemplations, but to make use of matters of eating in providing space for (re)thinking theory in other senses then commonly done by twentieth century humanism, its conversational tone in some respects epitomize its own purpose. moreover, the book takes on a rather example–argument kind of reasoning, and while this serves each argument quite well, more often than not, the writing does not provide enough detail for readers to make their own situated understandings of the ethnographic realities of each example. lastly, the book features two parallel stories, of which the secondary storyline speaks to the mission to probe the significance of language in situations, and the main text to the pursuit of advancing lessons for theory through ethnographic-laden encounters. though this makes the book shorter page-wise, it also makes it thinner argument-wise, wherefore it might have served the overall purpose of the book better to incorporate the secondary text into the main one. if nothing else, it would have made for a more cohesive read. by way of wrapping up, the work is from beginning to end straightforwardly not about eating per se, but about using practices of eating in critically situating humans—their being, doing, knowing, and relating—to the conditional and interdependent circumstances of their existence. hence, rather than providing theoretical accounts of eating, as the title of the book may give a sense of, and misleadingly so, eating provides a set of lessons for how theory may better account for how humans become not only relationally to their thinking, but also to that of their eating. and so, in detailing much of her critical reflection on a certain valued practice of thinking over those of eating, mol eloquently brings into the limelight the vitality of abandoning grand theories aimed at explaining all human beings, and especially those not situated in their own theorization. elin linder is a phd student in the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. she is keen to explore human and beyond human interrelatedness and has a particular interest in sensuously unfolding the socio-material workings, value landscapes, and situated practices and knowledges through which particular human and more-than-human assemblages materialize in time and space. linder’s master’s thesis deals with matters of everyday food practices and her doctoral research project examines the interplay between people, material matters, discourses, and practices as it unfolds in the world of olivicoltura in the region of apulia, the heel of italy. © 2021 elin linder microsoft word kottai_final.docx 1 on the cusp of ‘modernity’: ayurveda’s tryst with ‘development’ in nepal mary cameron, 2019, three fruits: nepali ayurvedic doctors on health, nature, and social change. rowman & littlefield, pp. 264 isbn 978-1-4985-9423-3 keywords: ayurveda, biopolitics, conservation, ethnomedicine, south asia. let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. -hippocrates there is a growing interest in medical anthropology in how indigenous and local healing systems increasingly become (or remain?) ‘alternative’ in the face of mainstreaming, global and ‘modern’ medicine in a globalizing world. ayurveda is one among several such indigenous healing systems in south asia which is undergoing a transformation under the institutional and ontological power of modern medicine. in her three fruits mary cameron intimately investigates ayurveda’s unique intersections in nepal with expert detail. three fruits or trifala is an ayurvedic medicine that is a popular and meaningful health symbol of nepal. the title highlights how ayurveda fosters humannature interdependency and contributes to “nepali people’s attentive engagement with the plant world” (15). it is an erudite and meticulous narrative that draws on cameron’s fieldwork conducted in rural and urban areas of the himalayan country well known for its pluralistic healing systems. three fruits complements the work done in fields such as biopolitics, medical anthropology, biodiversity conservation and development studies. cameron’s work draws from feminist theory, practice theory, medical anthropology and modernism. it unpacks the larger sociopolitical systems that affect ayurvedic ideas and praxis in a country at the cusp of development coupled with an emphasis on modern medicine. 2 in the introductory chapter, cameron looks at ayurveda in nepal as not just a medical knowledge “but as an ongoing social, cultural and political engagement” (5) where biomedical hegemony, professionalization and state intervention over the control of natural resources seem to play a vital role in shaping its life course. a fecund source of knowledge about the praxis of ayurvedic philosophy (such as panchamahabhutha and tridosha theory), three fruits covers a lot of ground on the healing landscape of nepal. the book consisting of six lengthy chapters, and adopts a semibiographic approach focusing principally on eight formally trained ayurvedic doctors wherein contemporary ayurveda is “narrated through the subject lives and agency of its doctors” (4). the first chapter offers an overview of nepal’s socio-politico-economic landscape, followed by the institutional and anthropological history of ayurveda. ayurveda enjoyed royal patronage under nepal’s dynasties to meet their health care needs and the first ayurvedic apothecary was established over 350 years ago. with the start of formal ayurveda education in 1929, formal physicians joined the family lineage trained physicians (baidhya and kabiraj) in nepal’s ayurvedic discourse. anthropological studies have almost always focused on shamanism practiced among ethnic groups of the country. how is the following sentence related to the previous one? cameron deepens, extends, and contextualizes contemporary inegalitarian professional study of ayurveda in nepal that reflects the social hierarchies based on caste, gender and ethnicity. even though nepal was never a colony, modernism is relevant to nepal due to influence of western ideology and foreign power that ushered in bikas (economic development) in the mid-twentieth century. cameron supplies intimate and subtle accounts of technobureaucracy of ayurveda concerning its glocal sociopolitical context and global biodiversity conservation. from the vice chancellor’s meeting room to the worldviews of taxi drivers, cameron foregrounds rising tensions between medical modernization represented by mainstream biomedicine characterized by a “conservative model of the body that doesn’t fundamentally change” (33) and ayurveda which offers a radically “different model of nature, the human, and reality” (34). the second chapter emerges from cameron’s extensive interaction with dr narendranath tiwari, a staunch environmentalist and ayurvedic physician who specialized in dravyaguna (medicinal plant pharmacology). he described plants as gifts of god, which develops therapeutic properties 3 due to particular chemicals generated due to stress physiology. tiwari and cameron delve into a range of issues such as urbanization that threatens medicinal plant biodiversity in nepal, the expansive view of nature in ayurveda –person-as-worldfocusing on symbiotic relationship with nature and natural immunity (prakriti). ayurveda recognizes inherently imperfect imbalance and “works towards a balanced life in terms of a proportionality of gunas (qualities) and tridoshas (humors) suitable to the individual” (71). adopting a person-centered approach, food and routine become vital in contrast to the diseased approach in biomedicine. ayurveda sees ultimate health as utopian and tries to decrease illness and improve health as life is viewed as inherently imperfect. the third chapter titled, “dr rishi ram koirala, healer” turns to a doctor who specialized in kayachikitsa (internal medicine). cameron foregrounds the intricate puzzle of negotiation between doctors and patients who bore the brunt of maoist acts of violence and trauma. what follows is a discussion about pure ayurveda and how some practices transform it into a plural medicine by appropriating allopathic prescriptions. dr koirala’s translations of ayurvedic concepts provide a window to take in how ayurveda lends itself to be explained in terms of hegemonic biomedicine. dr. koirala introduces the fourth element, senses, in addition to mind, body and soul as a foundational ayurvedic principle in defining health. the chapter is replete with the ayurvedic way of understanding health that stands in opposition to biomedicine which “misses the love,” as claimed by dr. koirala (101). in the fourth chapter, cameron locates ayurveda in the milieu of bikas (development) feeding into biomedical hegemony. tracing ayurveda in nepal both diachronically and synchronically, it takes us through significant events and legislative trajectories that have transformed ayurveda. as highly person-centric, ayurveda cannot be transferred to public health modelling steered by biomedicine and thus gets relegated to the margins as ‘unscientific’ as science becomes “too narrowly limited to only western forms” (141). revolving around everyday narratives and practices of ayurveda that are constructed by official discourses of the state, informal practitioners, biomedical specialists and political figures including the prime minister, cameron presents a complicated and conflicted landscape of traditional ayurveda at the cusp of disenfranchisement, delegitimization and extinction in nepal. it is interesting as cameron unravels the paradox of health bureaucracy where rhetorics of integrative and plural medicine take a one-sided approach 4 prioritizing biomedicine while ayurveda enjoys the privileged status as a national system of medicine in nepal. like the other chapters which weave together the experiential worlds of ayurvedic doctors, the fifth chapter turns to ayurvedic surgeon dr lokendra man singh who fought a big battle to preserve ayurveda’s heritage in nepal. cameron’s encounters with dr. singh yield comprehensive yet complex ideas about ayurveda that helps us realize many alternative truths about health and illness explicated by non-western systems of healing. concepts such as sattwamatshariram (health as life), panchamahabhuta (five elements) rooted in phenomenological philosophy, the question of who is healthy, side effects of the ‘development’ imperative, universal relevance of ayurveda, etc., are outlined in the chapter. the sixth chapter showcases the lifeworlds of five ayurvedic women doctors in nepal. in a highly patriarchal society, they are placed in a paradoxical situation where their gender stratifies and empowers at the same time. cameron “calls for an expanded objectivity that is situated and embodied” to unpack “how the historically braided nexus of politics, culture, and science have affected women’s lives” (184). whether the increasing feminization of ayurveda lead to its diminished status or vice versa is an important question that is contemplated here. it is riveting to understand the process of women healing women when both service providers and service-users hail from multiple social locations yet are unified by gender. thus, this is a valuable addition to scant research on women medical professionals of non-western medical sciences. cameron’s analytic eye is brilliant as reading three fruits was both painful and hilarious as she picked up experiences that trap ayurveda in twilight between life and death and empowerment and depowerment. the marvelous attention to both emotion and logic is the vital sign of this scholarly ethnography. the book is very revealing of nepal, ayurveda and its doctors alike that it returns me again and again to think about the politics around health care. i felt the inclusion of perspectives on ayurveda held by practitioners of other traditional healing systems in nepal could have enriched the work. this book would be of interest to health activists, health practitioners, researchers and students of social sciences. 5 sudarshan r kottai teaches in the department of psychology, jain (deemed-to-be) university, bangaluru, india. a clinical psychologist and a recent phd graduate, sudarshan’s doctoral thesis titled an ethnographic study of community mental health in contemporary india: interrogating ‘care’, ‘chronicity’ and expansion of patienthood revolves around everyday narratives and practices of mental health care and chronicity that are constructed by official discourses of state and bio-medicine. his doctoral work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as medical anthropology: cross-cultural studies on health and illness, indian journal of medical ethics and economic and political weekly. his broad interests lie in psychotherapies with minority clients, mental health in the context of gender, disabilities and sexualities, and intersections in mental health from a multidisciplinary perspective. © 2020 sudarshan r kottai 1 aspirations and uncertainties of medical labor migrants review by jason danely caring for strangers: filipino medical workers in asia by megha amrith nordic institute of asian studies press, 2016 international labor migration has become an increasingly popular topic for anthropologists, striking at the deep tensions arising from a global economic landscape dependent on both the transnational flows of people and the retrenchment of national, racial and cultural politics that produce practices of exclusion and marginalization of those people. labor migrants stand suspended at the crux of this contradiction, embodying both its precarity and its aspirational imaginations. megha amrith’s caring for strangers: filipino medical workers in asia is a welcome addition to this field, taking the reader into lives that are perpetually unsettled, twisting and turning between worlds, both reproduc-ing and contesting borders and boundaries that seem to mark every decision and relationship. am-rith is clear from the introductory chapter that understanding filipino medical workers means dis-rupting representations of migrants as cosmopolitan entrepreneurs or as victims of global capital-ism. instead, her approach delves into layer after layer of interstitial spaces, from the colonial and post-colonial histories of singapore and the philippines, to the policies that encourage and restrain migrant status, to the displacements and ambivalences felt within the families of migrant laborers. most of all, it is the way she describes the interstitial nature of medical work itself, as straddling the borders between professional and unskilled, institutional and domestic, formal and intimate, that makes amrith’s ethnography so forceful and fascinating. while many accounts of have focused on the very real struggles of precarious labor migrants, typically from an impoverished global ‘south’ to the prosperous ‘north,’ amrith’s ethnography brings our attention to cases that are more ambiguous, where agency is not as easy to locate as ‘resistance,’ but where is it nevertheless fundamental. 2 the first chapters of the book lay out the theoretical, historical and political orientations on which amrith maps the “everyday encounters, anxieties and boundaries” (6) that inscribe what she calls a “cartography of care” (49). first, she situates the book as a response to the literature on the commodification of affective gendered labor. while acknowledging the ways care work entails intimacy and vulnerability, amrith argues that these are entwined with workers’ empowerment and recogni-tion. that said, amrith points out that it is also important to recognize that migration never takes place on even terrain. the histories of singapore and the philippines, where she conducted field-work, accentuate the inequalities between and within asia, while more recent epidemiological and demographic changes create the conditions for directing the flows of medical workers in ways that follow other biosocial transitions. the ethnography shines throughout the remainder of the book. every encounter reveals a new twist on the experience of borders and betweeness. in the context of the philippines, nurses are regard-ed as highly skilled and educated individuals with unique access to international employment in ways that offer essential support for families that remain. the potential for mobility is beautifully il-lustrated in ways stories circulate through social media, charting narratives of success or providing practical advice for those on the way. amrith shows how their qualifications, and the values and imaginaries they inspire, can lead to different trajectories, choices and consequences, none of which can be easily reduced to tropes of exploitation. these choices are best understood as new migrants try to find their place in a new society. again, amrith’s ethnography is thorough and re-vealing. the difference between the ways filipino medical workers view themselves and the ways they are viewed in singapore are most clearly apparent in the type of work they are expected to carry out and in the ways they are treated by patients and coworkers. against these perceptions, themselves based in colonial histories, the filipino workers strive for recognition and respect while simultaneously finding a basis of solidarity with some of the socially marginalized singaporean pa-tients or with other asian migrants. but again, this broad description does not do justice to what amrith really accomplishes ethnographically. each case contains its own rich and complex interplay between labor, place, ethnicity, the body, gender, religion and language that shift and balance differently depending on the encounter and the individual. identities are not completely fluid and random but are reconfigured through vari-ous strategies of border drawing and crossing. this is most vividly described in the ways nurses and other 3 medical workers choose to avoid associating with other filipino migrants employed mainly as domestic workers. this finding was surprising to amrith herself at the beginning of fieldwork but came to illustrate what she calls the “processual character of sociality and identity” (132) as mi-grants cross borders only to construct new borders along lines of class, culture and citizenship. in contrast to assumptions of collective political resistance among ethnically similar migrant communi-ties, amrith compares the “quiet lives” of nurses with the “lively domestic workers,” each group en-acting its own political and moral negotiation of the migrant experience. although amrith herself does not return to the evocative notion of a cartography of care, it is strongly implied in the ways these groups form social and emotional bonds, bodily rhythms, and even spiritual belonging. the notion that medical workers efforts to keep the possibility of moving on to north america or europe open and aspireable, also closes off a border between themselves and their country of origin is un-settling. yet neither borders nor openings are ever total, but rather expose the work that goes into their spatial and temporal making and unmaking. amrith bookends her ethnography by returning to the notion of home and its relationship to the philippines. in detailed case studies, amrith describes how the uncertainty and waiting that pervades the betweeness occupied by migrants in singapore is suspended not only by uncertain yet futures, but also by ambivalent feelings attached to life in the philippines. the process of migration brings about new encounters with the “home” and how to locate it in their experience. the processes that amrith illustrates are, as she notes, not distinctly filipino, nor are they limited to migrants or other displaced persons. amrith connects her work most strongly to bourdieu’s concepts of practice, dis-tinction, habitus, misrecognition and social capital. amrith’s complex and dynamic case studies have potential to do more to build on these theoretical foundations and explore the implications for how class, citizenship and culture construct global capitalisms. on the other hand, while amrith notes the important question of “being at home in the world,” this does not take her into an existen-tialist or phenomenological analysis in the way that other anthropologists have. her approach is, in this way, humanistic and grounded, and in this regard, it is both immediately accessible and thought-provoking. in full disclosure, my mother is a filipina migrant nurse who came to the united states in 1969, and amrith’s book is the first time i found her experience represented in ethnogra-phy. i am sure that many more students, scholars and general readers alike will appreciate, as i did, the way caring for strangers sensitively presents both the struggles and possibilities of between-ness in migrant lives. 4 jason danely is senior lecturer in anthropology of japan at oxford brookes university. he is author of aging and loss: mourning and maturity in contemporary japan (2014). © 2018 jason danely the representation of others in anthropology review by sue ann teo published, august 16, 2021 bruce kapferer and dimitrios theodossopoulos, 2016, against exoticism: toward the transcendence of relativism and universalism in anthropology. berghahn books, 147 pp., isbn 978-1-78533-371-2 keywords: exotic, exoticism, representation, ethnographic nostalgia, exoticization against exoticism confronts the complications of theorizing and researching the ‘exotic’ in anthropology. bruce kapferer and dimitrios theodossopoulos conceptualize the ‘exotic’ in the book as that which is “outside and does not fit into presumptions, opinions and theories that guide the analyses in humanities, social science and sciences that concern with differences and universalities of human sociocultural practices” (137). ‘exoticism,’ on the other hand, is conceptualized as the construction of false and unsubstantiated differences through the inappropriate application of descriptive/analytical categories, and this limits the interpretations of the localized and relative modes of comprehension. these conceptualizations reflect the authors’ intention to disengage from the prevailing dichotomy of west and others. hence, the book constitutes ethnographic studies carried out in south america, africa and asia. these studies focus on the exotic and exoticism as a particular methodological import for anthropology in which the scholars discuss their research experiences and their representation of subjects. in the introduction, kapferer and theodossopoulos discuss the dichotomy of relativism and universalism in anthropological studies pertaining to the ‘exotic’ as subject. they argue that the danger for anthropologists often lies in the slippage between relativism and universalism. as such, they contend that if anthropologists do not recognize their relativism within the universal, they will fall into the trap of exoticism as they misconceive the real difference as merely a variation of the universal. consequently, implications of modifications and changes to the exotic 1 through time and by different stakeholders will be understudied. as a result, the universalism of the notion of exotics often becomes insufficient in explaining subjects with agencies who react and modify the externally imposed imaginaries and stereotypes to fit their purposes. in chapter 1, theodossopoulos argues that anthropologists have ethnographic nostalgia in relating current social realities with past ethnographic records, which are essentialist and taxonomic, often deriving a universalistic theorization and homogenizing the differences of presumptions, opinions and theories of subjects as others. he argues that it is crucial for ethnographers to be aware of the nostalgia, to destabilize pre-existing standards of authentication which engender a de-exoticizing that renders real differences as mere variations. an aspect of the complexity is demonstrated by pnina werbner in chapter 2. he uncovers the pragmatic improvisation in rituals (the mothei) among the tswapong women of botswana. he stresses that the cultural inventiveness in the indigenous rituals is not necessarily due to the influence of the west or to christianity. instead, the changing of socio-economic backgrounds, educational levels and standards of living as the context may have a more direct impact on the improvisation of the rituals. in chapter 3, stephen nugent writes about the importance of the system/context for the analysis of the exotic. he argues that the social and cultural system constitutes the albatross for ethnographers when studying the exotic. by understanding the context, in chapter 4, maurice said uncovers the exoticization and counter-exoticization as reciprocal processes between expatriates and travelers with the locals of southern sri lanka. said argues that the seeming counter-reactions are driven by the agenda and intentions of the locals. the process can be both to empower and disempower and often entails (re)negotiation of the self and other. theodora lefkaditou makes a similar argument in chapter 5, though in a different context, as she analyses the prevailing imageries of poverty, joy, and the cultural and racial identity of bahians in brazil which are continuously appropriated by the current tourism industry of the country. with a specific focus on capoeira practitioners, lefkaditou unravels the tensions, conflicts, compromises and conformances between the capoeira practitioners and the locals during the articulations, as they react to the demand of tourist markets for their livelihood. the studies presented in against exoticism demonstrate the slippage of the notion of the ‘exotic’ and ‘exoticism,’ due to multi-layered complexity of the concepts which are never linear or merely two-way processes. for example, said and lefkaditou in their respective chapters, have shown that it is futile to label who or what constitutes the exotic, as exoticization is not necessarily an external imposition. the subjects of research can also be the beneficiaries, hence, of practicing exoticization. therefore, the processes are reciprocal, simultaneous and often time mutual. 2 lefkaditou found the capoeira practitioners self-reflected and positioned themselves towards the outsiders. hence, theodossopoulos, werbner and nugent have urged for a paradigm shift in understanding the notions of the exotic and exoticism as processes of evolving power relations among subjects of study, which are often driven by perceptions, stereotypes, political interests, economy and social contexts. against exoticism stresses the need for more critical awareness of these changes in anthropology. this book demonstrates the urgent need for a scholarly discourse on methodological concerns with intellectual representations of minorities and subaltern groups. it echoes postcolonial critiques of representation, challenges the “transparency by denegations” of intellectuals and undoes the “epistemic violence” as described by gayathri spivak (2010) in “can the subaltern speak?” chapters in against exoticism demonstrate how to account for the political, social and economic realities of subjects through explanation and narratives (spivak 1988, 76). by unraveling these realities, the book contributes a meaningful analysis of deep-seated social values and heterogeneous norms for advancing the discipline of anthropology. references spivak, gayatri chakravorty. 1998. "can the subaltern speak?" in can the subaltern speak? reflections on the history of an idea, edited by rosalind morris, 21–78. new york: columbia university press. sue ann teo graduated with a phd in religious studies from the victoria university of wellington. teo’s research interests are in minority, gender and micro-politics studies. currently, she is working on a research project about inter-marriage between different indian communities in malaysia and in exploring the institution of casteism among the diasporic hindu communities. teo’s studies are multidisciplinary in nature ranging from anthropology and sociology to gender and religious studies. © 2021 sue ann teo 3 microsoft word ndaluka.final.docx paula uimonen. 2020. invoking flora nwapa: nigerian women writers, femininity and spirituality in world literature. stockholm, stockholm university press, 250 pp., doi: https://doi.org/10.16993/bbe.licence:cc-by 4.0. review by thomas ndaluka key words: womanism, spirituality, femininity, global literature in invoking flora nwapa: nigerian women writers, femininity and spirituality in world literature, paula uimonen does not only invoke the spirit of flora nwapa but also carefully unravels the discursive situation of african women—dead and alive—whose literary contribution has either been long forgotten or largely taken for granted. specifically, uimonen comparatively and carefully elevates african women’s literary prowess and huge potential in order to underscore their proper and deserved position in the global literature of the contemporary world as well as in the familial, societal, and work spaces. after abandoning the feminist approach in order to embrace womanism (the theory which is based on the history and everyday experiences of black women [rousseau, 2013]), uimonen poses an important question: who is an african woman? in her attempt to address this pertinent question, she ignores the colonial mentality of space and location, which tends to demystify and distort things and reality. instead, to her credit, she echoes a critical argument about who is an african or an african woman in a much more enlightening and enriching manner as will be exemplified in the following arguments. using her african experience gained particularly during her many travels to tanzania that she considers as her second home and nigeria where she conducted her field work in 2016, uimonen presents the image of african women as a homogeneous group regardless of their color, creed, or origin. from such a perspective, any woman can be an african woman (tanzanian or nigerian, for example) if she subscribes to the understanding of the societal-imposed role on an african woman in addition to identifying and sympathizing with the plight and struggles of african women as a collective and as individuals in a society still defined by die-hard social norms and values issues of modernity notwithstanding. this type of classification resonated with okot p’ bitek’s song of lawino (1972, p. 40) where an african woman was expected to exhibit prescribed societal roles and dispositions. such matters of identity are not limited to geographical spaces of africa and europe— north or south—since they transcend to other aspects of the multiplicity of roles ascribed to women as mothers, workers, wives, daughters, and writers. however, caution must be exercised when addressing women as a group since there are several fractions that can be best understood if the women’s group is disaggregated as workers, [un]educated, farmers, and businesswomen, to mention but a few. in this book, uimonen’s examination of the portrayal of african women is twofold. to begin with, she looks at contemporary africa women as both writers and audience, and how they have played and continue playing different roles in society. second, she treats them as spiritual women, who ought to oversee the spiritual and moral stability of the society. in this regard, uimonen invokes the spirit of flora nwapa. flora nwapa lived physically as a woman and was a mother of three children and has assumed the role of a spiritual guide for young female writers in her society in nigeria, her home country, and africa as a whole. this role befits her as one of the pioneering modern african women writers in the anglophone tradition. uimonen’s methodological approach is one largely informed by a constructivist view, which works on the assumption that reality is constructed through experiences and participation of different actors in each social setting. this perspective acknowledges how a researcher and those involved in the research process can jointly create knowledge. moreover, her analytical approach does not only embrace the anthropological analysis but also borrows from other related disciplines such as literature and linguistics, thus challenging the colonial established boundaries between the disciplines of anthropology and literature [and fusing them together in a complimentary manner]. this fusion is evident from the outset of each chapter where she narrates a story in the context from which she gathered her information. this intersubjectivity and reflexivity help to deconstruct dominant narratives of information gathering and, in so doing, decolonizes anthropological methods of data collection and analysis. this presentation of combining storytelling and contextualizing the substance under review at the beginning of each chapter resonates well with the african mode of knowledge transfer as amplified by chinua achebe (1958) in his famous book, things fall apart and echoed in the responses of miriam makeba to an interview with a finish journalist in 1969 that knowledge in africa is transferred orally from one generation to another through storytelling. the only difference with uimonen’s mode of presentation is that the stories covered in this book were recorded whereas a typical story in africa relies on oral transmission. also, evident in her presentation is the shift from the broad-based or rather exoteric feminism to much more specific and esoteric womanism when addressing socio-cultural issues pertaining to africa under a gendered lens that takes cognizance of african nuances. indeed, this critical approach is informed by a socio-ecological and discursive practice, which reproduces the relationship between women and men, young and old, and people and nature in an african setting. womanism considers not only women’s struggles against patriarchal structures but also adds different spiritual, cultural and social roles that women in africa ought to play not only under traditional but also modern values. the book further underscores how flora nwapa’s literary mothering navigates through the marginalized and, mostly, neglected areas in addition to challenging the patriarchal hegemony that ignores oppressed men, women, and children. such a candid approach has largely and often been neglected in much of african literature in favor of prevailing political conditions. in this book, uimonen highlights how different women have used their pen to reflect not only their own social experiences—of struggles against powerful patriarchal institutions—but also their resilience in unfavorable environments that largely work against their gender. since a literary work is dynamic, uimonen urges african women writers to be innovative and dynamic. she proffers that world women writers ought to understand the rule of the game including adopting skills that provide an advantage to survive in a competitive and often male-dominated environment. this thrust can be twofold. they firstly can venture into the publishing industry, which has the desired effect of empowering women to challenge the structural limitation imposed by the publishing industry. in this regard, uimonen uses flora nwapa’s publication firm—the tana press—to illustrate this power of influencing the literary discursive practice. secondly, the book implores women to engage actively in the fourth industrial revolution (i.e. digitization and/or information and communication technology), failure of which might work against their efforts. in this book, uimonen insists that digitizing women’s literary works can break the hegemony and limitation otherwise imposed by policies and market forces as well as patriarchal institutions. digitization can also facilitate reaching a wider audience and breaking entrenched structural boundaries. furthermore, digitization can break intergenerational barriers and empower young people to engage with the past via digital media. overall, the book is rich and informative on african womanism, african women’s literary works and african women’s struggles generally. its empirical analysis evokes critical thinking in terms of decolonization of erstwhile colonized anthropological methodology in addition to bridging disciplinary boundaries. the book is a necessary staple for anyone interested in diverse but interdisciplinary fields of literary criticism, discourse analysis, womanism, sociology, history, gender studies, anthropology, and religious studies. references bitek, okot p’. 1972. song of lawino and song of ocol. nairobi, east africa education publishers. chinua achebe. 1958. things fall apart. nairobi, william heinemann ltd. miriam makeba’s interview in 1969. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wonkmpbl7n8. rousseau, nicole. 2013. “historical womanist theory: re-visioning black feminist thought.” race, gender & class 20, no. 3/4: 191–204. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43496941. thomas ndaluka is a senior lecturer and coordinator of society and religion research center (sorrece) at the university of dar es salaam, tanzania. he is the author of the book entitled religious discourse, social cohesion and conflict: muslim – christian relations in tanzania. 2012. berlin, lit verlag and co-edited the book entitled: “religion and state in tanzania revisited: a reflection of the 50 years of’ independence”. 2014, berlin, lit verlag. © 2022 thomas ndaluka microsoft word lenhard_final (#3).docx 1 responsibility and its derivatives – going beyond the ‘standard’ critique of neoliberalism trnka, susanna & catherine trundle. 2017. competing responsibilities – the ethics and politics of contemporary life. chicago: duke university press. 296pp. sc: $26.95. isbn: 978-0822363750. keywords: responsibility, care, health, neoliberalism. neoliberalism, the economic (and societal) form of governance, is widely described through one of its core mechanisms: responsibilization, the ‘divestiture of obligations from the state onto individuals,’ cultivating a self-empowered person (p. 2f), a responsible citizen (p.4). in this very worthwhile volume, the editors and contributors bust this strong link between responsibility and neoliberalism with a wide range of empirical (and theoretical) observations of how responsibility can be found to work differently in contemporary society. the contributions dispute the claim that responsiblization is always a practice of the state stepping out of its original responsibility, often clad in a narrative of enabling personal choice and autonomy; instead, they first find other loci for responsibility and self-cultivation completely outside of the state nexus (9). secondly, the authors also claim that (complete) autonomy might not always be desired or achieved but that the striving for it might in fact result in (new) communities and relations (10). lastly, ‘care for others’ might spring from responsibility as an ‘enduring commitment between parties’ (12) – to be found in settings from kinship to education or healthcare. altogether, the volume is very strong in finding the holes in the neoliberal logic of (self) responsiblitzation: where does it stop? what are its unintended consequences? they argue that in 2 fact the analytic of responsibility is not the issue (in neoliberalism); instead we need to ask: ‘who is held responsible by whom for what’ (16, 34)? *** one of the biggest strengths of the volume is the variety of ‘locations’ and ‘sectors’ that the contributors engage in their search for alternative kinds of responsibility. on the one hand, we learn from zigon comparing different models of (addiction) harm reduction to (empirically and theoretically) sharpen our understanding of responsibility (linear versus networked and open, 65f); on the other hand, several studies focus on the more widely thought of context of corporate responsiblization with its ‘corporate social responsibility’ (csr, smith, ch. 5) and (corporate) audit culture as extended to for instance the university (shore, ch. 4). other contributors zoom out to a comprehensive systems-approach asking the question ‘who is responsible’ looking at public entities (from supra-state actors to states and individual administrators), corporations and (individual) citizens alike in contexts as diverse as air pollution (tnka, ch. 3), missing people in cyprus (davis, ch. 6), war crimes in sierra leone (shaw, ch. 7) or nuclear tests (trundle, ch.10) various different vectors of the anthropological imagination are thought through with the lenses of responsibility, responsibilization and their derivatives: from a focus on medicine and science (chs 2, 3, 8 and 10), economy and business (3-5) and kinship (8-10) to the state which features implicitly in most accounts. only the element of religion is almost completely absent (beyond observations about the moral discourse surrounding hiv in ch 8) which is surprising given the strong (historical) basis for responsibility (or ethics) in this sector (cf. laidlaw 2014). while i appreciate the extension of the analysis – something that is also at the heart of my institute – a slightly more direct genealogy (beyond the introduction) might have benefited some of the contributions and the overall flow. overall, i found the volume particularly illuminating for researchers in the realm of medical anthropology or the anthropology of care and health. zigon’s chapter (ch. 2) starts off specifically strongly and with a lot of nuance on a topic i have been thinking about in my own work, too: safe injection programs as part of harm reduction for drug users. he critiques the ‘standard approach’ 3 to harm reduction producing (neoliberal) restrictive individual responsibility and puts it against the ‘vancouver model.’ in his eyes, the latter more closely resembles a networked landscape of services and open entry points much more aligned to support oftentimes chaotic and non-linear people struggling with addiction. similarly, trnka (ch. 3) takes up the question of air pollution in the czech republic and asks: who has a responsibility to care for the citizens who themselves are hard-beaten by rising unemployment and hardship? is the state the ‘ultimate moral agent’ (p.76) and how much does the steel industry have to pay up? paradoxically, how much individual responsibility to protest and put public pressure on these corporate and state actors do citizens have to shoulder (p. 83)? responsibility – individual and otherwise – features in a great variety of unexpected and intertwined ways in trnka’s story – which is also true for adam’s chapter (ch. 8) on hiv. adam shows how tackling hiv has been framed as a collective goal (of a healthy population) that can only be achieved by focusing on individual responsibility to practice ‘safe sex’ (without having to invoke communitarianism or altruism, p. 187), if need be enforced through punitive measures. in fact, much of this framing has proven both ineffective and insufficient (p. 190) because it does not consider the complex role of competing motivations based on emotions or kinship ties. adam’s chapter seems reasonably close to other case studies of tracing responsibilization, of deflecting responsibility from corporate and state actors (p. 192). which makes me ask: how different are some of the contributions to this volume to the more traditional studies of neoliberal responsibilization critiqued by the editors? absolutely, the understanding of what responsibility is and who in fact is responsiblized is very nuanced; but what about the flip side of responsiblization, de-responsiblization, beyond the state (or the corporate)? what about situations where responsibility is taken away from citizens? this takes me to my last question, can responsibility also be a good thing, something empowering – for instance when responsibility comes with rights, e.g. for (corporate) board members (to oversee) or for union members or even just citizens (to vote)? despite some of the – necessary – question marks the volume leaves open, it surely in its entirety makes one point very strongly: not all responsibility is the same – and it is certainly not all neoliberal; there is a multiplicity of forms reinforcing, undercutting, existing alongside, conflicting and intersecting the ‘classic’ neoliberal form (p. 22). this empirically grounded volume is overall 4 very strong in increasing our theoretical vocabulary and analytical prowess to overcome repeating the same critique of neoliberalism and contemporary capitalism. dr. johannes lenhard is the centre coordinator of the max planck cambridge centre for the study of ethics, the economy and social change (max cam). while his doctoral research was focused on the home making practices of people sleeping rough on the streets of paris, his new project involves fieldwork with venture capital investors in berlin, london and san francisco. find him on twitter at @jflenhard. © 2021 johannes lenhard microsoft word betti final.doc 1 in the time of energy, it is time to make place for energy in cultural production imre szeman 2019, on petrocultures: globalization, culture, and energy. morgantown: west virginia university press, 288 pp. isbn 978-1-946684-88-2 keywords: petrocultures, critical theory, energy, globalization, modernity, climate change. this thought-provoking book is a collection of essays that cultural theorist imre szeman has written over the last two decades. the author takes us through an informed epistemological journey in the deconstruction of the complex and paradoxical relationship between modern society and hydrocarbons. in his book, szeman probes the nature of critical thinking and whether the autonomy of critiques of the modern world can be possible while it is maneuvered and pervaded by hydrocarbons. szeman proposes that it is indeed oil that shapes culture, as all forms of energy have done in the past, enabling hegemonic systems such as dutch mercantilism, british imperialism and us transnationalism (93-94). however, there has not yet been a cultural production which has actually challenged the energy systems in which it lives and from which it is sustained. the author, therefore, calls for new forms of “petrocultures.” the concept of culture, so central in the book by szeman, is indeed a hybrid. in fact, ‘culture’ in this book is the product of humanistic understandings together with more social aspects. nevertheless, in the book the humanistic perception of culture as aesthetic production remains stronger than a culture understood and analyzed in terms of social relations. this is why, as an anthropologist, i took some time to identify with some of szeman’s claims about culture. szeman’s culture is presented, for instance, throughout in reference to a rich body of major contributions to cultural theory and applied to the analysis of globalization, modernity and climate change. in chapter 1, the informative re-evaluation of fredric jameson’s “national allegory” calls for an “attempt to make sense of the relationship of literature to politics in the decolonizing world” (24). in fact, the author argues that “national allegory” is of value 2 because it is heavily contextualized and politicized. in contrast, the “rough assemblage of literary-critical commonsense” (25) that has clogged the cultural production since the fall of colonialism, serves only the de-politicization of capitalism. in the same chapter, szeman stresses mediation as a key component of the cultural project itself (33). hence the cultural project must be one of the platforms on which the gap between politics and human desire and freedom of expression can be bridged. chapter 2 focuses on problematizing at large how the role of culture has shifted since globalization and how it “has circulated in and alongside globalization discourses” (49). chapter 3 deals chiefly with the literary criticism that has played an essential political role during this era of globalization. the chapter aims to discuss globalization as a political project, with the author claiming “there is a politics that extends far beyond the establishment of aesthetic categories” (77). in fact, the possibility of literary criticism lies not only in the re-definition of the practices of globalization “in light of a world of transnational connections and communications” (81), but should also be open to experiment with new narratives, imagination and critics (86). another significant reference to major contributions of cultural theory is introduced in chapters 5 with the deconstruction of richard florida’s “creative class category,” a mere allowance of capitalism to human creativity at the expense of autonomy. in fact, according to szemen, the oxymoronic strategy embedded in the “production of creativity” is powerful in shaping space and labor, especially in modern urban city hubs (122-123). as a result, creativity becomes but an essential asset for economic capitalistic growth. chapter 9 also addresses the role of entrepreneurship as the new and at times only common-sense way of “navigating the inevitable, irreproachable, and apparently unchangeable reality of global capitalism” (201). in chapter 7, the author dissects narratives of petrocultures embedded in movies and documentary productions. chapter 4 is one of the more compelling chapters in the book where the author succeeds in conveying the power of dependency of modern life on petroleum. szeman is inspired by thinkers such as amitav ghosh, who, in books like “the great derangement: climate change and the unthinkable” (2016) interrogates the motives and consequences of human inertia when faced with climate change. this is evident in chapter 4 where szeman eloquently demonstrates the polarization of anticipation of the end of hydrocarbons embodied in the practices of either left-wing pessimistic “apocalyptic environmentalists” (103) or by their ruthless right-wing counterpart, the “strategic realists” (98). not much hope is afforded to 3 those in the last category that szeman individualizes, the more optimistic “techno-utopianists” (100), who have blind faith in contradicting and unreliable technological strategies (100). the book is a challenging read. at certain moments, such as in chapter 1, the reader is at a loss to comprehend the relevance of the sophisticated interaction between critical theory and the broader scope of the book, which aims to create “a critical theory of energy” (9). however, on petrocultures arrives at a decisive moment in the production of knowledge. in fact, more than ever the survival of the humanities and social sciences is threatened unless it functions, impacts and services global capitalism. szeman skillfully reveals the deep entanglements of oil within human phenomenology: the way we, citizens of the modern world, perceive, understand and act has enormous consequences, such as climate change, precariousness, increased global social inequality and vulnerability. in addition, szeman warns of an epistemological project of culture that, since oil, is fast shifting and becoming a token, an entrepreneurial asset of an accelerated capitalistic world. the author is rightly concerned about the future of “real” freedom of expression. szeman certainly succeeds in transmitting a sense of uneasiness and a deep concern not only for the future of our planet and our future generations, but also for the future of the achievement of expression, free expression of the human body, mind and soul. moreover, szemen clearly warns against the dangerous omission of politics in cultural production. he warns against the reduction of uncountable narratives, for example of nation states, but also of smaller scale realities like communities and groups to the dangerously homogenizing one of the “globalized world.” there is a “fake universality” (43), a “falsely utopic space” (42) which is unfortunately reproduced in cultural production. these narratives, coined as “strategic realism,” “technoutopianism” and “apocalyptic environmentalism,” although seemingly contrasting, are similar in the sense that neither of them leave room for imagination, creation or “real” possibilities (see chapter 4). throughout the book, szeman laments the fact that culture is becoming or has already become dangerously a-political. the book skillfully unveils numerous paradoxes of culture and cultural life being created and continuously controlled and shaped in the function of capitalism, like a sad “domestication of art” (131) in the form of “allowances of capitalism” (131). in chapter 6, the author paints the picture in even darker tones: oil is “the structuring ‘real’ of our contemporary sociopolitical imagery” (138). due to this fact, in the dangers of “colonization of the globe by capital” (84), the lack of imaginative vocabulary, the absence of alternative metaphors and counter-narratives to globalization stop alternative understandings 4 and thus challenge dominant narratives (84). in chapter 8, the author’s argument is that as there are multiple ways to relate to and therefore to know oil (for example as a resource, an obstacle, a course or a blessing) and that the “how” individuals and states relate to oil is fundamental for building the critical theory of oil. in chapter 10 szeman claims that adding “energy” in its various manifestations to world literature, might generate a new “ecological relationship to the apparatuses and objects of modern petroculture” (234) and thus a new way to comprehend climate change. the last two chapters of the book (chapter 11 and 12) focus on oil infrastructures: on the role that especially pipelines play in politics and culture. the presence of these pervading entities is not only physical –as they cross lands and seabut also ideological as they affect geopolitical decisions and thus cultural choices and production across the world. ultimately the book is a valuable contribution to the establishment of a “critical theory of energy” and a call for a more interdisciplinary approach to the study, deconstruction and the critique of energy systems. a critical theory of energy is a body of expertise, that comes from the humanities and social sciences, which is profoundly inspired and informed by energy. at the same time, the aim of the critical theory of energy is to examine and deconstruct the sociohistorical and political contexts of energy dynamics and ultimately provide constructive concrete solutions to the challenges created by our petro-controlled world. nevertheless, the book is a challenging read for those who are not familiar with literary criticism or cultural theory. at times, for this audience, namely social scientists and non-humanists in general, it may verge on the inaccessible. this is not to say it is not an excellent book. given the scrutiny and deeper consideration it deserves, on petrocultures produces many valuable reflections, providing ample food for thought. these reflections should be assimilated to constitute a starting point from where a paradigmatic shift in cultural production, critical theory and analysis should start. i would therefore highly recommend this reading to all academics who deal with research on the energy and oil complex. references: ghosh, a. (2018). the great derangement: climate change and the unthinkable. penguin uk. 5 marianna betti holds a phd in social anthropology from the university of bergen, norway. she has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in kenya, norway and italy. her research interests lay in the fields of political ecology, the anthropology of development and religion and the anthropology of oil. © 2020 marianna betti the social life of concepts review by tiatemsu longkumer andrew brandel & marco motta, eds. 2021. living with concepts: anthropology in the grip of reality. new york: fordham university press, 338 pp., isbn: 978-0-82329-427-5 anthropology has one of its contours in dealing with how humans use and embody concepts in their social reality. joel robbins (2020) argues that even though anthropologists are mindful of where their concepts are coming from, anthropology did not have the founding debate about “concept formation.” living with concepts brings philosophers and anthropologists together to understand different aspects of concepts such as: what are concepts? how are they made? what do they do? what do we mean when we talk about concepts? each chapter expounds on different aspects of concepts in relation to life. sandra laugier, in chapter 1, tries to juxtapose philosophy with the everyday textures of being human through reading works by emerson, cavell, and diamond. she delves into the human ability to think and the calibration required to be part of the world. in doing so, laugier explores “concept” and “experience,” pointing to the experiential aspect of concept called “conceptual sensibility” in trying to understand concepts in relation to lived experiences. rasmus dyring and thomas wentzer, in chapter 2, engage with anthropologists working on the ontological turn and ask the question, “what is human?” while asking the question in relation to concepts, they delve into philosophical anthropology to understand the formation of concepts as tied to the “formation of life” which situates concepts as product and process of conceptualization. such formation leads them to see concepts as a process of conceptualization whereby understanding conceptualization as “an experiential responsiveness to the demands that life puts on the living.” 1 veena das, in chapter 3, ponders on the relationship between the notion of concept and the real. she further asks how semiotic apparatuses portray the real and how different pictures of reality might signify different practices and conceptual formation. while delving into these questions, das suggests that the normative bounds of a concept are disclosed through its projection into a new context which needn’t refer back to a rule as it belongs to an “autonomous stratum.” das goes on to further suggest that “a concept is not simply capturing what is there but might be thought of as roaming in the space of possibilities” (p. 104). while reading claude levi-strauss and marcel griaule, andrew brandel, in chapter 4, ponders anthropology’s history of following a rule and the desire to describe phenomena that went against the use of concept in practice. in trying to make his case, brandel meditates on how anthropologists receive texts and claims that the “empirical encounter with texts is already conceptual.” such a claim alludes to the phenomena where providing a definition may run against the use of concept in practice. brandel argues that through our conceptual practice, “we intuit a horizon of use,” revealing the normativity of concepts. jocelyn benoist, in chapter 5, faces the question “does concept give us reality?” benoist while reflecting on the question suggests that philosophy occupies itself with concepts and not reality, further proposing that concepts are “norms that have been put upon reality” which put “reality into play” at the same time that they put us in a position to be “right in its regard.” as an illustration of what “life with concepts” might look like marco motta, in chapter 6, looks at “life with zombies” in haiti and problematizes the anthropological account of “reality” by thinking through the relationship between reality and the imagined. motta further complicates the notion of imagination by opening up to the notion of experience and juxtaposing it as a component of the real. such problematization and different configurations of relations between concept and experience complicate the division between imagination and reality. michael j. puett, in chapter 7, while critically reading zhu xi, asks the question of the coherence of concepts in the world. puett argues that life with concepts is not about expressing a coherent worldview but obtaining new possibilities by working with the endlessly fragile construction of the world. describing the fragility of lifeworlds, michael d. jackson, in chapter 8, deliberates on the loss of concepts that may happen through moments of crisis and transition, asking if “the loss 2 of a loved one, of a physical ability, of a faith or fortune, or home or homeland…may also be precipitated by the loss of concepts” (p. 197). jackson also alludes to concepts, images, and quasi-humans as alternative ways of giving form to “inchoate experiences,” bringing together the aspect of conceptual and lived reality. thus, propounding that concept formation in human experience, concrete or abstract, makes life thinkable and manageable even in difficult situations. michael lambek, in chapter 9, reflecting on mayotte’s understanding of sorcery, tries to understand sorcery from the lens of “ordinary ethics,” which focuses on ethical life rather than the hard questions of ethics. through such reflection, lambek tries to assert how anthropological thinking emerges and is tested through their fieldwork. for lambek, ethics is a form of exercising practical judgment, and concepts enable us to use certain words in certain circumstances. thus, the reality of a concept (here, sorcery) cannot be settled within a single language game, establishing a connection between ethics and concepts in everyday life. michael cordey, in chapter 10, delineates the concept of ethical decision-making through an example from medicine and health policy called shared decision making (sdm). he bases his argument on fieldwork conducted in a swiss neurorehabilitation hospital among people who are waking up from a coma and asks the medical professional if “treating a patient’s pneumonia with an antibiotic constitutes a ‘futile’ intervention” (p. 244). cordey suggests that there constitutes a “futile” intervention with a particular “texture” that can be heard through their tone of voice in such treatment. consequently, cordey argues against the rational and deliberative view of decision-making in an ordinary everyday life setting. the question of ethics, as cordey argues, is “about the difficulties to stitch together what really matters to people in particular situation” as they work through the different “textures” of “futility” (p. 244). lotte buch segal, in chapter 11, explores the expression of concepts in the form of pain caused by violence. such expression while forming a community also reveals a form of fragility and vulnerability as it demands the acknowledgment of the other. buch segal tries to understand such sensation in terms of “secondary traumatization” through the process of “bearing and being with the voice of others,” recognizing the “fragility” of language. she argues that “anthropological theory of being with the pain of others as a shared language hinged on the knowledge that working with people in immense pain is knowing the failure of the voice and the simultaneous return of it” (pp. 2743 275). thus, expression of pain is a form of demand on the witness that subsumes an acknowledgement of the pain of the other and the other itself. an interesting aspect of the book is that each chapter is in dialogue with another, where certain lines of thought are resonated throughout the chapters. the common thread across each chapter is the implicit critique that concepts can be manipulated at will, and that concepts are equivalent to, or function as, a sign. each chapter is a product of extensive dialogue amongst the authors, and each contribution has certain foundational premises that are implicitly or explicitly agreed upon. in doing so, the book puts forward three views of concepts: firstly, concepts are tools that enable us to translate between experiences, unraveling an otherwise hidden reality; secondly, concepts tell us something about what is going on in reality over there; and thirdly, concepts are not merely signs but are also an affective aspect of lived reality. the books’ proposal goes beyond the classical view of concepts which proposes that concepts are encapsulated in definitions where philosophy and other sciences are to discover and sharpen the definition of concepts while voicing different opinions on how their views apply contextually in relation to life. the diversity of opinions further reinstates the notion that concepts are intimately linked with life in particular and “social ontology” (epstein 2015) in general. the discussion can be furthered by trying to understand “concepts” as “social kinds” through “metamodernism” (josephson storm 2021). this book is not just a rhetorical dabble on concepts, but it expounds on how concepts come to life in everyday human and non-human interaction. as the reader goes through each chapter, it will be made clear that this book is not just a different take on what concepts are but also what concepts do. a book like this can be recommended to university-level students and scholars across any discipline. for anthropologists, it is a must-read irrespective of the branch one belongs to. 4 works cited epstein, brian. 2015. the ant trap: rebuilding the foundations of the social sciences. oxford university press. josephson storm, jason ananda. 2021. metamodernism: the future of theory. university of chicago press. robbins, joel. 2020. theology and anthropology of christian life. oxford university press. tiatemsu longkumer is a ph.d. student in the department of anthropology at north-eastern hill university, shillong: india. he is working on the anthropology of religion. © 2022 tiatemsu longkumer 5 https://nehu.academia.edu/tiatemsulongkumer 1 eds. by pamela j. stewart, and andrew j. strathern. 2022. the palgrave handbook of anthropological ritual studies, palgrave macmillan, 395 pp, isbn 978-3-03076824-9 keywords: ritual; ritualization; performance; religion; cultural creativity. this volume engages in the varied and complex field of ritual practices, with a special focus on religious rituals. the work contributes to the field’s vitality with original approaches emerging directly from data collected from a great variety of contexts. the contributions combine critical overviews of theoretical and methodological approaches and in-depth ethnographic research. ritual and other key concepts, such as performance, sacrifice, religion, magic and sport, are complicated through a variety of viewpoints, methods and ethnographic data. particular emphasis is given to ritual’s dynamism, historical processes, and to the complex relationship between continuity, creativity, adaptability, cross-contextual influences, imposition and individual agency. the book is divided into four parts. in the introductory chapter, andrew strathern and pamela stewart trace a critical overview of ritual studies, pointing out the dynamic between continuity and change, and explore main themes and less-studied aspects of rituals, such as concealment, “absent rituals,” failure, contestation and negotiation. the first part presents new perspectives on established themes in ritual studies. in chapter 2, roger ivan lohmann considers charismatic christian practices of dream sharing in papua new guinea as a form of reproducing and democratising charisma. through a combination of synchronic and diachronic analysis, he shows the articulation of enthusiasm and stability in religious services as well as ruptures and continuity with traditional religious practices. in chapter 3, günther schörner develops a critical overview of theoretical approaches and historical, anthropological and archaeological sources on sacrifice, expanding beyond animal killing. the chapter explores aspects such 2 as performativity, language, meaning, aim, aesthetic and emotional experience, human and more-than-human relationships, as well as the contextualization of rituals in historical, cultural, social and environmental settings. in chapter 4, thomas widlok analyses how a better understanding of the wider spectrum of economic transfers can improve our understanding of religions and rituals, using the key concept of sharing as a form of dealing with asymmetries among humans and between humans and other beings and forces. he also explores sharing in ritual and religious practices both in egalitarian and hierarchical societies, such as the san of southern african and the catholic church, and its interconnections with economic processes, social and political relationships and daily life practices. based on ethnographic research on prophetic churches in angola, in chapter 5, ruy llera blanes examines how ritualised acts of cortesia (courtesy) are rife with ambiguity, since they are used not only to express hospitality, but also produce a sense of foreignness, distinction and separation from (internal and foreign) others and confirms hierarchical positions. these acts inform aesthetic, bodily and social interactions, and are connected with traditional values, historical processes and politics. in chapter 6, nigel rapport analyses how the creation and performance of personal rituals furnish a sense of “home,” a comfortably informal, personal lifeworld, security and familiarity, as well as an anchorage for personal identity in situations of mobility, such as migration and work. key concepts include “ritual consciousness,” that “concerns the particular, subjective way in which a kind of reiteration and transcendence is thought and felt by a particular individual” (p.124), reflectivity, intentionality, instrumentality, and a private and internal dimension of thought and feeling. in chapter 7, john w. traphagan offers an insight into sport as a ritualised social and physical space in which normative values of society, masculinity, identity and power relationships can be performed, embodied, regulated, imprinted, contested and negotiated. in chapter 8, andrew j. strathern and pamela j. stewart explore language and cognition in ritual practices, focusing on performance, communication, meaning, sensory impacts, feelings, embodiment, metaphor, abduction and prehension. they also analyse how change can take place, how rituals can be transferred from one context to another or adapt to new situations, and new meanings that can be attributed to old rituals. the second part of the book explores healing rituals. in chapter 9, anne kjærsgaard and eric venbrux analyse rituals centering on grave-visiting in northwestern europe and show how people deal with the complex transition from life to death, cope with loss and 3 memory and maintain interactions with the (un)dead, in connection with cemeteries’ architecture and regulations. based on in-depth ethnographic research in the multiethnic society of inner mongolia, in chapter 10, saijirahu buyanchugla explores shamanic healing rituals and the conceptions that sustain them, ancestral communication, the process of becoming a shaman and medical pluralism, and shows how common principles sustain both biomedicine and complementary and alternative medicines. in chapter 11, anne sigfrid grønseth examines religious ritual practices as a dynamic space for negotiating and configuring identity, belonging and well-being for transnational migrants and refugees in a context of discrimination, vulnerability, uncertainty and risk. her approach centres on empathic face-to-face encounters in everyday life, embodiment, sensorial experience, imagination and emotions. the volume’s third part is devoted to cultural intimacy and innovation. in chapetr 12, sanjoy and shampa mazumdar explore a hindu home-temple in california focusing on the role of ambience, physical and spatial elements, the materiality and immateriality of architecture, experiential and emotional components in ritual and the multisensoriality of sacred engagement. employing clifford geertz’s view of rituals as models of and models for society, in chapter 13, anne-christine hornborg critically analyses new individualcentred ritualised therapeutic and coaching practices in sweden that promise to develop inner potential, authenticity, renewal and success in life and at work, as well as their insertion into the market, legitimacy and communication strategies, the distribution of moral responsibility when rituals fail and the risk of transforming social criticism into self-criticism. based on long-term fieldwork on walking pilgrimages to the marian shrine of fátima in portugal and on mary magdalene pilgrimages influenced by goddess spirituality, in chapter 14, anna fedele explores “ritual crafting,” and creative ritual forms of dealing with experiences of vulnerability, through an approach based on lived religion, embodiment, materiality, intimacy and a focus on smaller, ephemeral rituals aside from official celebrations. the fourth part is devoted to comparative studies of ritual practices. in chapter 15, garry w. trompf offers a critical survey of literature on sorcery and witchcraft through an interdisciplinary approach, paying special attention to social dynamics, changing conditions, patterns of belief, power, conflict, context, internal logic and technical repertory. he also explores continuities and discontinuities of sorcery and witchcraft in 4 papua new guinea after social and cultural changes and the spread of a christian revivalist movement. in chapter 16, through a comparative study in sweden, england, the united states and nigeria, simon coleman shows less-explored aspects of pentecostalism, such as the problematic nature of the concept of ritual, conversion and distinction from otherness, ruptures and continuities with respect to previous traditions, the articulation of sacred experience with everyday life, porosity, partiality and the believers’ combination of elements from different traditions. in chapter 17, jens kreinath develops the concept of interrituality, through keen observation of devotional practices at sacred sites shared by orthodox christians and arab alawites in turkey, highlighting similarities in ritual postures, gestures, movements, the aesthetics of sensory perceptions and other forms of entering into a relationship with sacred objects and places, as an expression of the dynamics of interreligious relations and the ability of rituals to interact with other rituals and different social institutions. in chapter 18, pamela j. stewart and andrew j. strathern explore change and continuity in ceremonial exchanges of wealth and goods, and death rituals in papua new guinea, in a situation marked by social transformations, competition, conflict (often expressed in terms of witchcraft), precarity and fear. the building of and care for elaborated gravesites became the locus of expression of wealth, social status, political relationships, competitions, alliances and economic transactions. in the epilogue, andrew j. strathern and pamela j. stewart examine changes and adaptations in religious and daily ritual practices during the covid19 pandemic, with the surge of digital communication in everyday life and restrictions on movements and gatherings. in sum, this collection is a precious tool for researchers and students from various disciplines (anthropology, history, sociology, religious studies, among others) interested in rituals and religion, as well as other specific topics (such as sacrifice, healing, sport, hospitality, pilgrimages, memory and materiality) analysed in individual chapters. daniela calvo is a cultural anthropologist who received her phd in social sciences from the state university of rio de janeiro. she is a member of nuer – nucleus of the study of religion of the state university of rio de janeiro, of cetrab – center of afro-brazilian traditions, and the iuaes commission on anthropology of pandemics. she has conducted ethnographic research in traditional african and african-derived religions in brazil and italy, with a focus on healing rituals, food and gender 5 relationships, sacred space, more-than-human relationships, and the impact of and reaction to the covid-19 pandemic. © 2023 daniela calvo microsoft word frey.docx 1 late-capitalist reasoning and the foreclosure of disagreement juan m. del nido, 2022, taxis vs. uber: courts, markets, and technology in buenos aires, stanford: stanford university press, 238 pp., isbn 9781503629677 keywords: uber, taxicab industry, buenos aires, rhetoric, consumption juan m. del nido’s taxis vs. uber takes as its subject the conflict between the taxi industry, uber, the judicial system, and the middle classes that supported uber’s arrival in buenos aires in 2016. del nido explores the middle class’s rhetorical strategies to dismiss and pathologize arguments supporting the taxi industry’s interests. to do so, he marshals over a year of fieldwork with taxi drivers, exchanges with fellow middle-class porteños, news media, social media campaigns, and court documents. he argues that these logical and affective strategies, which he calls “postpolitical reasoning,” exemplify late capitalism’s resources for foreclosing disagreement. three central concepts—distribution of the sensible, peronism, and postpolitical reasoning—guide the narrative. the distribution of the sensible, from philosopher jacques rancière, allocates how people and institutions “can rightfully and meaningfully participate in … the social life they share” (6). importantly, a distribution of the sensible delimits the visible from the invisible, speech from noise. this means that some people and institutions do not count, even if they are physically, formally, or institutionally present. taxis vs. uber deals with two competing distributions of the sensible: peronism and the postpolitical. peronism, named after populist mid-century president juan domingo perón, is strongly associated with trade unionism, cavalier economic policy, and political opportunism in the argentinian political imagination. peronism “cuts to the chase, less worried about due process or ideological integrity than about outcomes and realpolitik” (45-46). most of del nido’s middle-class interlocutors conflate the taxi industry with the perceived self-interest of union 2 leaders and, more generally, an inexorable peronist aptitude for getting one’s agenda into the public sphere at whatever cost. enter the postpolitical. in contrast to rancière, del nido focusses on the nonexpert sensemaking of ordinary people, in this case middle-class argentines who eschew the excesses of perón and his successors, the kirchners, as “too political.” to do so, they draw on “logics, rhetorics, and affects” to create “a common experience where a certain kind of disagreement is foreclosed,” namely, challenges from the courts and taxi industry to the consumer’s right to choose and the virtue of economic competition (8). the conflict’s “tangle of law, materialities, and ideologies” is subsequently reduced to a rhetorical binary: taxis versus uber (98). the book is divided into two sections. the first focusses on the political economy of the taxi industry and, to a lesser but important extent, middle-class perceptions of the industry. chapter 1 explores the regulation of the taxi industry through licenses. the regulation, inspired by a passenger’s murder, was led by peronist “big man” and taxi union leader omar viviani, whose opportunism and astuteness made the middle class despair of uber ever coming to buenos aires. chapter 2 focusses on the union-led professionalization and fitness examinations of taxi drivers, which are ineffective in countering middle-class claims of the taxi industry’s unruliness. chapter 3 examines taxi transactions and the mutual suspicion between drivers and passengers. that passengers felt victimized and powerless laid the groundwork for middle-class support of uber. the day that uber arrived in buenos aires, the taxi industry took the company to court on the basis of unfair competition. the second half of the book comprises five chapters that focus on the middle class’s rhetoric supporting uber and writing off not only the claims of the taxi industry but the juridico-political order to which the industry appealed. chapter 4 explores the argument that uber’s rightful place was not a political question to be solved institutionally, but a moral one based on the people’s right to have free economic choice. chapter 5 examines uber’s role as a “stranger king”: an outside ruler whose alterity residents (the middle class) hope will help them solve a problem with an insider (the taxi industry) they can’t otherwise manage. chapter 6, the most dense and theoretical, describes how uber posits an order of economic axioms like efficiency, demand, and market price. this order is only understandable through uber’s user interface and cannot be verified, only accepted or rejected. it turns a political problem into a subjective one in which “the consumer … is the ultimate site of the truth that counts” (134). chapter 7 deals with the court’s failed attempt to limit uber’s operations, which proved to the middle class that uber could not be contained by the existing juridico-political order. instead, the only rightful way forward was to work with uber instead 3 of against it. the final chapter examines how mauricio macri’s postpolitical platform was part of a middle-class temporalization in which infrastructural and economic collapse were, like the political “excesses” of the taxi industry, part of a path to future betterment. in response, the taxi industry engaged in “indexical reflexivity.” through civility and insistence on legality, they tried to distance themselves from the political, peronist past that the middle class categorically rejected. a strength of the book is its detailed treatment of economic tropes associated with neoliberalism, a term which in some ways is losing explanatory precision. del nido traces the origins of the virtue of competition, the righteousness of individual choice, and the “natural forces” of economic development to late-nineteenth-century neoclassical philosophers, who borrowed the language of physics to give these ideas legitimacy and an impression of irrefutability (9). while these concepts supported the enlightenment-era peasants’ revolts, they also created a rhetorical infrastructure that insulates individual experience, consumption, and economic competition from any other political considerations. as del nido remarks in the conclusion, the book’s focus on contemporary modes of disagreement helps us to understand the “near-fanatical obsession” with popular participation in politics, the glorification of the average person’s experience, and how these orientations have changed the way we argue about economics, pandemics, and immigration policies (206). furthermore, academics lack a “grammar” to deal with popular legitimacy’s power to completely dismiss competing claims (207). however, perhaps a grammar of argumentation isn’t needed so much as a certain kind of attention, an ability to stay with the trouble, similarly to how one is meant to help loved ones leave a cult (haraway 2016). along these lines, del nido’s account exemplifies his commitment to reserve judgement and the ethnographic commitment to understand others. the middle-class porteños whom he frequently and tenaciously debates are most empathetically portrayed in chapter 8, where he narrates the political, economic, and infrastructural disasters of the kirchner era, which are compounded by argentines’ gall that they used to “count” internationally but are becoming ever poorer and underdeveloped (15). regarding the taxi drivers, we come to understand, alongside their hustle, their vulnerabilities and frustrations regarding passengers in chapter 3, as well as the helplessness of conforming to middle-class logics, only to be written off again, in chapter 8. one of del nido’s goals is to trace “how affects contribute to generating the categories of postpolitical reasoning” (9). the term hardly appears in the text, however. unlike the deliberate omittance of “neoliberalism,” this absence is not explained, and it is one of the rare themes that is not explicitly theorized. this choice is a lingering question. does affect function 4 here as a catch-all for the many contradictory and/or deeply felt elements of late-capitalist reasoning, such as “common sense” and “sinceramiento”? taxis vs. uber was occasionally challenging in its grammatical and theoretical density, but the effort was well rewarded. overall, this is an impressive contribution to analyses of the origins and consequences of late-capitalist rhetoric, everyday ethics, and how societal affects and discourses attach themselves to new technology. works cited: haraway, donna jeanne, 2016. staying with the trouble: making kin in the chthulucene, durham: duke university press. bronwyn frey is a phd candidate in sociocultural anthropology at the university of toronto and a visiting scholar at the institute for european ethnology, humboldt university berlin. her dissertation, funded by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada, examines app-based courier work in berlin. her research interests lie at the intersection of labour process theory, datafication, and financial markets. © 2022 bronwyn frey colonial, decolonial, anticolonial – the how in doing science review by rasmus rodineliussen liboiron, m. 2021. pollution is colonialism. durham and london: duke university press. so, i ask of you, reader, how do we write and read together with humility, keeping the specificity of relations in mind? how do we recognize that our writing and reading come out of different places, connections, obligations, and even different worldviews, and still write and read together? (p. 31) max liboiron (métis/michif) poses the above question in the recent book pollution is colonialism (2021), and i find it crucial for the overall argument of the book. you might have noticed that liboiron got a "mark" in parentheses after her name; that is one way of addressing the above question. liboiron explains that it is customary to mark "indigenous authors with their nation/affiliation, while settlers and white scholars almost always remain unmarked" (p. 3). in this book, liboiron has opted to reproduce the mark of those who introduce themselves that way and to note those who do not by writing "unmarked" in parentheses behind their names. i found this utterly intriguing, as i agree with liboiron that the context one comes from has implications on who we are, what relations matter to us, and not least, what structures of power we can use/or/and are subject to. to follow suit, let me introduce myself as rasmus rodineliussen (swedish), although i would also like to add (white, male) in order to acknowledge further the privileged position i do come from – like it or not. being explicit of our origins might be a first step to writing and reading together with the specificity of relations close in mind. pollution is colonialism is an intriguing read, written in a clear and sometimes joking language (which, at least for this reader, really allowed points to go through with a laugh), on a very important and timely topic: plastics pollution, science, and colonial relations. liboiron defines the book as a methodological text meant to assist and inspire ways of doing science differently, to do anticolonial science. the book has an introduction setting the stage, followed by three chapters. chapter one, land, nature, resource, property, and chapter two, scale, harm, violence, land, are meant to prepare the reader to understand and engage with the more methodologically oriented chapter three, an anticolonial pollution science. throughout the book, make sure not to miss out on the footnotes – they are something special, a place of intriguing discussions, sarcastic comments, jokes, important suggestions for reading, and more. foot/endnotes, as important as they often are, are seldom as captivating as these – enjoy, i sure did.1 the introduction sets the scene of the book, which is mainly in a civic laboratory for environmental action research (clear) in labrador, newfoundland, canada. the research focuses on plastics pollution and how scientists map its impact on wildlife. one of the driving arguments of the book is that pollution is not simply a symptom of colonialism, but rather a medium of and for colonialism, colonial relations, and appropriation of l/land (the capitalized l does here indicate that the understanding of land is context-specific, rather than land as a universal word).2 1 hello, back at you, max, and thank you for a thought-provoking read. 2 see footnote 19 in the introduction for a more substantial explanation of l/land. liboiron places colonialism in relation to both environmentalism and capitalism, showing that although capitalism and colonialism often enjoy one another's company, this is not always the case. and in the same way, environmentalism can also enact colonial relations even when research or activism is done with good intentions. finally, liboiron explains that the work at clear is not decolonial but anticolonial in practice. this with the argument that decolonial science can be a colonial practice in that ideas and relations continue to be appropriated (p.26). the last point of the introduction is to stress further the importance of specificity when discussing plastics (as there are numerous variants), the we, and otherwise. without specificity, it is not possible to clearly state what one wants to say, to whom, and from what position one seeks to make this claim. chapter one shows how pollution and colonialism are tied together, or rather, that pollution is a means for colonialism. "under what conditions does managing, rather than eliminating environmental pollution make sense? that would be colonialism" (p. 42). here liboiron distinguishes between environmental pollution and modern environmental pollution, arguing that it is the latter that is inherently colonial in how it poses claims on l/land. the chapter ties together land, nature, resource, and property in a discussion on approaches towards pollution. two key concepts are the threshold theory of pollution and assimilative capacity. according to their believers, these two do indicate levels of contamination that are below the threshold of what nature can assimilate on its own – it is only when levels rise above the threshold that pollution occurs. this, then, allow industry and societies to pollute, even giving them the right to do so (p.57). chapter two begins with liboiron stating, "not all pollution is colonial" (p.81). this statement is based on her understanding of pollution as a set of lived relationships between, say, humans, plastics, and a body of water (land relations). the discussion moves toward that of scale, with the explanation that "scale is not about relative size. scale is about what relationships matter within a particular context" (p. 84). scale is then put in relation to harm/violence, where violence is the potentiality of causing harm. this is important. the problem with assuming that a 0 percent plastic ingestion rate is the same as saying that plastics is all right is what i call a scalar mismatch. it conflates relationships, specifically the foraging habits of one species of fish with the violence of a system that allows plastics to exist in every environment ever tested (p. 85). with the understanding that plastics are everywhere, liboiron continues with the idea of the "alterlife," meaning that there is no separation between human bodies and pollutants, but instead a mutual and ongoing co-becoming (p. 89). accepting the idea of the alterlife provides the opportunity to look at what relations matter, or in other words, focusing on systematic violence rather than specific harm. chapter three begins with the question, "how will we do science today?" (p.113). liboiron sets out several examples of how the group of researchers at clear do anticolonial science by focusing on good l/land relations – for example, not taking the right to conduct scientific experiments on animals/nature for given, seeking explicit and informed consent from indigenous/local communities prior to research and publication of research findings, and more. she stresses the importance of acknowledging obligations rather than responsibilities to land relations. she argues that an obligation is not subject to choice; responsibility is. and if seeking to do anticolonial science, attentiveness to these relations is not a choice; they are an obligation. pollution is colonialism is an essential read for those interested in science, environmental activism, sts, pollution, colonialism (including decolonialism/anticolonialism), indigenous studies, and discard studies, to mention a few. i especially recommend it for graduate students to assist with thinking about relationships within their field of research. one key takeaway from the book is how liboiron writes about compromise, not as a failure, but as a matter of fact reality, one has to begin somewhere – this book is a somewhere. rasmus rodineliussen is a phd student at the department of social anthropology, stockholm university. his current research lies within the domain/intersection of environmental anthropology and political ecology focusing on the relationship between water and waste. he has worked with migration and refugee studies, mainly focusing on syria. rasmus has published in peer-reviewed journals such as anthropology now, anthrovision, irish journal of anthropology, and visual studies and is currently co-editor of the anthropology book forum. © 2022 rasmus rodineliussen microsoft word uimonen review.docx melody jue. 2020. wild blue media. thinking through seawater. duke university press, 240 pp., isbn: 978-1-4780-0612-1 keywords: ocean, media, diving, cognitive estrangement, milieu-specific analysis if you have immersed yourself in underwater worlds through scuba diving, you will probably find that luc besson’s classic film le grand bleu (the big blue, 1988) resonates with you, reconnecting you with that exhilarating feeling of otherness. in le grand bleu free-divers dive deep on one breath of air. and in the more recent netflix film, sous emprise (no limit, 2022), a woman also enters this competitive sport, thus breaking the male dominance in cinematic representations of free-diving. although free-diving relies on divers holding their breath, they also use various techniques and technologies to control their immersion. and if you want to stay under the surface for longer than a few minutes, you also need air supply. the deeper and longer you are submerged in the ocean, the more sophisticated the technology. as humans are increasingly exploiting and extracting marine resources, more advanced technologies are being developed. driven by the greedy quest for profit, the infrastructure that enables commercial saturation diving is quite remarkable, as captured in the recent netflix documentary last breath (2019). while the film shows the dangers of deep sea diving, it is silent on the devastating environmental effects of deep sea mining. such anthropocentric portrayals of the ocean are by no means exceptional, but in the anthropocene they become particularly problematic. i am reflecting on these films to situate this review in some media representations of diving, which bring out the risks and dangers involved, while evoking feelings of fear as well as fascination. these films also show the otherworldliness of human immersion in the ocean. because humans cannot live underwater. we are terrestrial creatures. in wild blue media, melody jue relocates theory building into the ocean, using seawater to think through some epistemic foundations in media and literary studies. through her methodology of conceptual displacement, she theorizes milieu-specific analysis, emphasizing the importance of considering how the observer’s milieu influences his/her orientation to the world, along with culture, class, gender, race, ability, age etc. thinking through seawater, jue elucidates the terrestrial bias in media theory, not as something false or incorrect, but building on donna haraway, she shows that the terrestrial milieu constitutes a situated perspective, which can be quite different from knowledge situated in the ocean. “the milieu of the ocean offers an epistemological check on human knowledge formation, presenting entirely different conditions for perception, sensation, and life than terrestrial environments” (p. 11). through oceanic immersion of some key concepts in media theory, jue shows the difference that milieu-specific analysis brings to terrestrial-based theories. the three core chapters of the book are each devoted to one concept: interface, inscription and database. this is followed by a chapter on underwater museums, which also summarises the main arguments. the chapters draw on close readings of texts and visual analysis, combined with scholarly engagements with theoretical work from a wide range of disciplines, as carefully explained in the introductory chapter that conscientiously situates the author and the book. for instance, in chapter one, jue takes breathing underwater as an analytical key for a phenomenological reading of the interface. while interface is typically thought of as a physical thing (computer screen, game console) in media studies, emphasising surfaces of interactive visual iconography, jue starts with the human lung in scuba diving, extending her analysis to critical bodily experiences underwater, from pressure and proprioception, to nitrogen narcosis and tissue saturation. the analysis draws on the work of jacques cousteau, including his development of the aqualung, which he reflected on in terms of “our flesh feeling what the fish scales know,” thus formulating a sensuous epistemic (p. 45). after discussing interface in the context of media studies, jue turns to literary theory, and the spatial metaphors of surface reading and depth. here she uses the writings of dr sylvia earle, a world-renowned oceanographer and ocean advocate. in jue’s analysis, earle’s experiences highlight gendered differences in the predominantly male world of early ocean explorers, while nuancing oceanic epistemics. in the tektite ii project in 1970, earle led the first all-female team of aquanauts. the underwater tektite habitat enabled them to spend much more time diving, since they did not need to worry about pressure and decompression. earle’s reflections on saturation diving in terms of having an extended passport into an alien world is extended to an analysis of differences between land and sea. jue uses the media concept of excommunication to describe what she calls an ontological condition of amphibiousness: “in diving, the human is excommunicated from the surface world the longer they reside at depth” (p. 63). she elaborates on the human-as-alien in the ocean in terms of liminality “the human figure is the liminal trespasser that can only temporarily belong to the ocean” (p. 64). to earle, this sense of unbelonging instilled an epistemic humility that inspired her lifelong care for the oceanic other, her deep insights of ocean life compelling her to share her knowledge and protect the ocean, as depicted in the netflix documentary mission blue (2014). melody jue argues for diving as a humanities methodology, and throughout the text, the reader is exposed to the ocean, through imaginary or literary diving. whether through the words and images of early explorers such as jacques cousteau and sylvia earle, or jue’s recollections of her own diving experiences, from her initial reflections when learning to dive in north carolina to her epistemic insights when diving in jason declaire taylor’s underwater museum in mexico, jue brings the reader into the ocean. in her concluding chapter, jue elaborates on diving as a method of cognitive estrangement, arguing that diving makes visible terrestrial biases in theory making, offers a means of witnessing environmental change, and can function as an ethnographic practice. the methodological advantages of scuba diving are evident in emerging anthropological scholarship, as exemplified by current work on trash diving in stockholm (rodineliussen 2021). if anything, jue’s sophisticated theorizing on diving as a method of cognitive estrangement and conceptual displacement should inspire more scholars to immerse themselves in the ocean. for anthropologists, the book’s subtitle thinking through seawater recalls stefan helmreich’s pathbreaking work on seawater as a theory machine (2011). in this foundational text, helmreich advances theorizing of the ocean well beyond the nature/culture divide, concluding that “[s]eawater is both good to think with and here to live with, in multifarious actuality” (2011, 138). melody jue’s interdisciplinary approach builds on helmreich’s work and he is acknowledged for having “generously read every inch of my writings about the ocean” (p. xiii). indeed, her engagements with anthropological work, including haraway, helmreich, and ingold, along with other disciplines, from ocean humanities to sts, make jue’s scholarly efforts stand out, an impressively interdisciplinary work that is of great value across various disciplines. jue’s sophisticated theorizing is combined with an ethical commitment to care for the ocean, and she refers to wild blue media as a pre-activist book. written at a time of climate change and environmental crisis, she draws on critical scholarship to underline the urgency of thinking through seawater. jue’s book will hopefully inspire scholars and activists to immerse themselves into underwater worlds, and show people above the surface what a wonderful world of many worlds our pluriversal blue planet is. water is life. references helmreich, stefan. “nature/culture/seawater.” american anthropologist 113, no. 1 (2011): 132-144. rodineliussen, rasmus. “caring for water: underwater waste, trash diving, and publicity in stockholm.” kritisk etnografi swedish journal of anthropology 4 no. 2 (2021): 67-81. films cited besson, luc. 1988. le grand bleu. da costa, r., and parkinson, a. 2019. last breath. nixon, r., and stevens, f. 2014. mission blue. rosenthal, d. m. 2022. sous emprise. paula uimonen is professor of social anthropology at stockholm university. she is specialized in digital anthropology as well as the anthropology of art, visual culture, world literature, ocean and water. her current research project swahili ocean worlds explores environmental and social sustainability in fishing communities in tanzania, through multisited and multisensory fieldwork. this collaborative research project is carried out with researchers from university of dar es salaam and funded by the swedish research council (2022-2024). paula’s recent open access publications include the article “spiritual relationality in swahili ocean worlds” (2021, special issue on water in kritisk etnografi), the monograph invoking flora nwapa. nigerian women writers, femininity and spirituality in world literature (2020, stockholm university press), and the book chapter “one world literature with chinua achebe and flora nwapa”, in claiming space. locations and orientations in world literatures (2021, bloomsbury academic). © 2022 paula uimonen microsoft word dasgupta final.doc 1 the omnipresence of mobile borders review by amrita dasgupta hubb dijstelbloem, 2021, borders as infrastructure: the technopolitics of border control, cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press, 285pp., isbn 9780262542883. being born and brought up in a family of 1947 india-pakistan partition survivors, i have always been curious about borders, their existence, manifestations, shapes, and workings. the exodus in the wake of the fracture of india and pakistan took place across proposed (invisible) colonial borders that would require decades to manifest physically. still the migrant families that crossed these invisible borders to find shelter in either hindu majority india or muslim majority pakistan, both on land and sea, faced the immeasurable consequences of lost home and hearth, of lost identity in a (to be formed) new country. hubb dijstelbloem’s new book, borders as infrastructure: the technopolitics of border control attempts to answer such questions. using technopolitical and morphological analysis, dijstelbloem studies the different kinds of european borders (on air, land, sea) in relation to human migration. to map the “materiality and movability of borders and border politics” (57) the author extracts scholarly support from bruno latour and peter sloterdijk’s concepts of “mediation”— the intermingling of human, technologies, and nature (59), and “peramorphic politics”— the interaction between border and politics (58), respectively. it helps dijstelbloem comprehend the “morphological notions of technopolitics” (57). the objective of the book is to problematize the “ontic” and the “ontological” understandings of the border (10): in the anthropological sense “ontic” views technology as an instrument whereas “ontological” highlights the human-technology relationship. in this case, dijstelbloem explains how these ideas relate to “peramorphic politics”— the shape of the boundary affected and produced by politics (ix). however, in so doing, he exposes the absence of the desirable borderless world which seemed achievable with the fall of the berlin wall in 1989 2 and reunification of the east and west germany. he argues that despite the schengen agreement, europe monitors and controls movement of its residents through walls and border checks between member states which became globally evident during the 2014-2016 migrant crisis. such that he proposes “something else has changed—namely, the borders themselves” (4) where “everything becomes a border or is perceived as such” (5). to explain further, dijstelbloem defines the soft, hard, visible, invisible, concreate, abstract, material, and ideational borders as moveable. such movements are not only caused by shifting and redrawing of state boundaries but are also made mobile through “kinopolitics” where, with the help of technology, the borders move with the migrants: iris scans in airports, biometrics at land and port boundaries (7). the increase in surveillance and its direct impact hinder the movement of migrants, forcing people to take risky routes to reach their destinations. the book, comprising of eight chapters ending with a focused section on changing/emergent borders owing to covid-19, was born out of the author’s interest to understand the influence of technological developments on the creation of global tensions in the backdrop of the death of eleven detainees held at the detention center in amsterdam’s schiphol’s international airport, in schiphol east (the detainees had fallen prey to a fire breakout on october 27th, 2005). nonetheless, during his research period the role of border politics in the 2014-2016 refugee crisis creation added nuance to his project. borders continue to be a compound issue in academic study and political debates. to effectively communicate ideas that where writings and theoretical frameworks employed in the book fall short, dijstelbloem engages with ethnographic photography. he places a selected few photographs from henk wildschut’s collection of european migration, camps, and border controls at the end of each chapter. it clearly identifies the focus of the book: borders. the use of original photographs allows the presentation of the anthropological observations from the field. it not only enhances insight but also compels the readers to think through an image as if it were complex evidence. the book evaluates the proposed concepts in association with the infrastructural developments of the european borders that began from the mid 1890s.the function of the border institutes and border technologies (frontex agency, european asylum dactyloscopy database, schengen information system, visa information system) as border infrastructures that allows the border to move is detailed by analyzing the difference it exercises in 3 documenting and surveilling migrants and travelers (27). thus, the book tries to highlight how various infrastructural additions to the border multiplies its ability to exist in any place where there might be a migrant. the author provides precise examples of the real-life functions of the border infrastructures from the field: first, he deals with the european airspace which shapes the european union’s global border by passing decisions about curtailment and permission of movements of people who want to access the airport. here, the class of “kinetic elites” are allowed to move but the movement of others is obstructed (82). the decisions are “mediated” through infrastructural functions as design, detection, and detention. second, he is attentive to the creation of seascapes as borders in europe. this he says was fueled by the alarming escalation in the numbers of undocumented migrants leading to security concern in the greek aegean islands in 2014-2016. such a condition was forced by the syrian war in which the migrants arrived in europe by crossing the sea while the land borders remained strictly closed. dijstelbloem, diagnoses the effect of closed borders and the purpose of the consequent initiation of the european surveillance system on both land and sea by conducting in-person interviews in athens during which he asked his interviewees about their perspective on marking chios and lesbos as a critical space termed “hotspot” (165). though the author talks about several issues in the context of “infrastructural investigations,” they never lose sight of the necessity of “humanitarian borders” as an alternative to “extreme infrastructures” (179). the author increases the value of the book by delving into an intelligent enquiry of the contemporary border functionalities during the pandemic. he ends the book with a section titled “coda” where he relates the workings of the border infrastructures with virus transmission and human mobility. this book is a detailed study on borders becoming mobile and is an important read for scholars that take interest in border manifestations, border technologies, and its workings in relation to legal and illegal migrations. the book, however, leaves much scope for discussions around people-centric policy building to negotiate with the inhumane undertakings resulting from the infrastructural growth of the borders. at the same time, the theoretical framework that the book builds on can also be applicable to the studies of border functionalities outside europe. 4 amrita dasgupta is a doctoral candidate at the department of gender studies, school of oriental and african studies (soas), university of london. she researches transnational migration, borders, sex work, climate crisis and gender in the lower deltaic bengal. her phd deals with indo-bangladesh water-borders and trafficking in humans. © 2022 amrita dasgupta microsoft word wood review.docx 1 re-politicizing tourism madilde córdoba azcárate, stuck with tourism: space, power and labor in contemporary yucatán. oakland: university of california press, 2020. 278 pp. isbn 978-0-520-34449-5 matilde córdoba azcárate’s stuck with tourism powerfully details the predatory nature of tourism industry development. through a careful examination of four interrelated case histories from mexico’s yucatán peninsula, the author relates how “tourism works according to a typical extractive logic, by which it invades, plunders, and exhausts places, bodies, and resources in order to satisfy short-term consumer demands” (12-13). drawing inspiration from the pioneering work of british sociologist john urry while also deeply engaged with an impressive array of contemporary scholarship, the author writes that “the tourist gaze…has become one of the most powerful orderings, defining and reifying patterns of inclusion and exclusion, gender and racial ideologies, and understandings about nature, culture, and society at large” (11). at the center of córdoba azcárate’s ethnographic research is a clear understanding of capitalism’s incessant drive for profit which “creates subservient classes of workers, especially among ethnic and indigenous minorities” while at the same time “intensify[ing] the extraction of land as well as natural and cultural resources for the enjoyment of a few” (11). in this impeccably crafted study, the author carefully analyzes how industry practices in the yucatán peninsula manifest new social and environmental geographies shaped by what she terms a “predatory and sticky tourism [that] naturalizes [these] processes of extraction…and entraps people in contradictory situations” (12). chapter 1, titled “beach enclosures: manufacturing a caribbean paradise,” critically considers how cancún was transformed “into an elite ‘sun, sea and sand’ international resort destination” 2 (36). created by government fiat and opened in 1974, the establishment of cancún soon set the stage for widespread regional change. córdoba azcárate describes cancún as a “frontier enclave development” uniquely designed and situated to incorporate the region’s indigenous people into a state-led modernization project. cancún was divided into an exclusive hotel zone servicing international visitors and a neighboring cancún city which grew rapidly to accommodate laborers (many of them indigenous) from across the peninsula and elsewhere in mexico. following just more than a decade of profitable operation, two record breaking storms notably hit cancún: hurricane gilbert in september 1988 and wilma in october 2005. both wrought major destruction and dealt travel industry stakeholders major losses. yet tempest was quickly turned into opportunity as “federal and municipal governments as well as tourism corporations …viewed hurricane destruction as a creative occasion to accumulate capital” (42). cancún’s tourist infrastructure was immediately identified as a vital national economic priority by president carlos salinas who quickly ushered in a massive influx of international money through a rewriting of foreign investment laws. in what followed, post-disaster reconstruction served to advance an accelerated privatization “of land and public resources, especially the beach, for the exclusive use of the global tourism industry” (42). only three months after gilbert, roughly 80 percent of hotel zone guest room availability had been restored. two years later, feverish construction efforts had produced a total of twenty-one new hotels with no apparent end to the building in sight (43). whereas cancún had initially operated as a low-density site for elite tourism, disaster capitalism afforded by gilbert prompted the transformation of the hotel zone into a high density, all-inclusive tourism destination. then on october 20-21, 2005, hurricane wilma, the most powerful storm in north atlantic history to date, “brought cancún, once again, to its knees” (48). this time, president fox declared a national emergency and allocated two billion dollars to again rebuild the hotel zone. motivated by a desire for “shorter cycles of investment recovery,” insurance compensation, along with undisclosed amounts of money poured in from the inter-american development bank and the world bank to significantly remake cancún into high-rise condominium zone (50-51). post wilma, the new financial strategy attracted a wider array of investors well beyond the former collection of north american, spanish and mexican hotel chains as the ensuing wave of largely 3 unregulated condominium construction only further intensified privatization of land and natural resources. through it all, many looking for employment arrived, like córdoba azcárate’s informants ata and ana, a young married couple from veracruz and mérida who figured they could come to cancún “to sacrifice a few years of [their lives] to make money faster and then move out” (60). many pursuing this strategy, however, “have become so dependent upon tourism, their everyday work and living spaces so monopolized by the industry’s designs, that they have become stuck to its inequitable ways and have normalized its predatory relations” (60). the author identifies the difficult bind those who labor in the tourism industry find themselves in as one that engenders a “sacrificial logic” which “has done more than entrap individuals into ambivalent moral regimes…[i]t has also weakened social bonds and created a generalized sense of detachment and disengagement” (59). córdoba azcárate regularly assesses the damaging environmental impact of tourism. in cancún, for example, she relates that a shocking 80 percent of untreated sewage is dumped directly into the ocean. consequences of this include the proliferation of floating brown algae (sargassum) and a rapid killing of coral reefs. and without live reefs to protect local beaches, “sand just washes away” (64). keenly aware of these and other ecological costs, some have sought out a more sustainable “ecotourist” alternative. yet as evidenced in córdoba azcárate’s second chapter focused on the celestún estuary along yucatán’s gulf coast, ecotourism’s lofty promise to pave a greener path for industry growth has unfortunately too often been effectively undermined by the tourism’s seemingly insatiable quest for profit. identified in the late 1970s by the mexican national tourism secretary (sectur) as a site for the development of “low environmental impact” visitation, celestún’s boosters were quick to single out the area’s pink flamingo population as a leading attraction. first visiting the area in the mid-1990s, córdoba azcárate observed that celestún “was still outside the region’s tourist circuits” (67). yet as regional tourism development advanced, celestún would not remain a small, relatively isolated fishing village. in 2000, the united nations reclassified celestún as part of a vast stretch of northwest yucatán’s and neighboring campeche’s gulf of mexico coast as a 4 biosphere reserve—a determination that, however ironically, was accompanied by accelerated development. when the author returned in 2002, she was immediately struck by the fact that “[t]his was not the laid-back, off-the-beaten-path community i had remembered” (68). as would soon become all too apparent, celestún was not only equipped with all the trappings of modern tourism but had entered into a new era where limited opportunity, increased migration and a struggle for continued access to natural resources had led to intensified social conflict, lawlessness and violence. rather than mitigating social inequality and environmental despoliation, internationally sanctioned ecotourism seemingly had exacerbated these same problems. córdoba azcárate details how the build-up of celestún has largely profited powerful local players who have utilized existing patronage networks to monopolize commercial operations and dominate the fierce competition for jobs and economic opportunity. skewed ecotourism development has benefitted this privileged minority while exacerbating problems for many others in celestún who suffer not only from underemployment and poverty-level wages but also from the fact that the city has neither a hospital, a local doctor, birth services or even an ambulance. sadly, the author is led to conclude that, “[r]ather than delivering the promised sustainable and inclusive economic growth for the local population, this scaling up has produced in celestún an unequal geography of capitalist accumulation that has profoundly shaped the spatial and social fabric of the community, benefited only a few, and fueled social and ecological conflicts” (103). enrique, a resident biologist from mexico city succinctly put it this way: “what they did in celestún…[was] to see biosphere reserves…and the extracting of natural resources with a business mentality” (75). stuck with tourism’s next chapter focuses on high-end tourism taking place at a collection of five rebuilt historic hacienda hotels financed by banamex head roberto hernández and the fundación haciendas del mundo maya (fhmm). drawing on the role the mexican hacienda has served as a historic institution for the region’s powerful landowning elite, córdoba azcárate insightfully analyzes the process by which these sites have been remade for the depoliticized consumption of “heritage,” “luxury,” and “taste.” here again, the author brilliantly demonstrates how elite tourism largely compounds existing problems while also creating newfound “inequalities and privileges 5 [as it] coloniz[es] imagined regional geographies of the past and re-creat[es] them for value extraction” (146). the situation, however, is a “sticky” one as córdoba azcárate reveals in talking with individuals employed as landscapers, craftswomen, restaurant servers or providing maya massage (sobadadas). what workers here again testify to is the fact that working at the hacienda hotel “entraps people in a sacrificial logic that jeopardizes their futures” (146). but given that the yucatán countryside has been a landscape “desolated after the henequen demise, depleted by migration and where women have limited opportunities in strongly patriarchal societies, the hacienda hotel [nevertheless] offers a source of income to some…but at great cost” (141). stuck with tourism’s final chapter 4 explores the burgeoning inland town of tekit which in recent decades has assumed a dynamic, “tourism backstage” service role as supplier of guayabera shirts and blouses. iconic and highly regarded as a prized souvenir by visitors to the region, tekit claims the title of “guayabera capital of the world” and in so doing points to a complex process of “organically scal[ing] up to satisfy the [growing] demands of the tourist industry” (152). as before, córdoba azcárate’s research in tekit pays close attention to shifting economic, geographic, social and cultural changes brought on through increased supply-chain demand from nearby tourist centers. talking with those who do the hard work of sewing guayaberas, the author finds that producing clothing for the tourist market leads to both opportunity and hardship. informants share satisfaction about the benefits of living and working in tekit given that they are able to enjoy a relatively stable income and are able to keep their families together rather than having to migrate either to cancún or the united states. at the same time, however, they also reveal the physically demanding nature of the work which takes place both in home workshops and also in highly compromised, poorly ventilated and dimly-lit larger workshops. many suffer asthma, skin rashes, loss of sight and chronic pain. as an integral part of the regional tourism industry, tekit, in contrast to other inland towns, is a bustling place. sadly though, industry work appears to have captured the imagination of most of the younger town residents appear who have mortgaged their futures by choosing to earn a paycheck rather than go to school to get an education. it is a difficult bargain struck over and over again as many reckon that “sewing for tourism [is] a 6 worthwhile livelihood despite the sacrificial logic that it entails” (179). some even figure that “after centuries of slave work on haciendas,” manufacturing guayaberas “is the region’s lesser of two evils” given the greater freedom it affords (179). matilde córdoba azcárate’s razor-sharp critique concludes with a brief discussion of the planned train maya project—a regional high-speed rail infrastructure thought by many to deliver “development” and “progress” to the yucatán peninsula. here, the author argues that the proposed enterprise should be vigorously challenged for it engenders yet another hollow discourse of how it is that tourism will supposedly “save the day” and bring about positive change for mexico’s southeastern region. astoundingly, the way that politicians and so many others have uncritically envisioned the train maya project reminds córdoba azcárate how “[t]ourism has this capacity to endlessly renew itself despite its [many] failures” (186). yet there is a clear explanation for our selective memory when it comes to tourism history: “[it is] because we—as citizens, workers, tourists, researchers and politicians—have contributed to emptying tourism of any political meaning or praxis” (186). instead, we need to do more than think of tourism as simply “a set of recreational activities” or “just another sector in the economy” (186). in contrast, it should be evident that tourism is profoundly “about moral and ethical questions” (187). in closing, córdoba azcárate insists that a broad public discussion take place that identifies tourism’s “centrality as a major contemporary geographical force that shapes how capitalism, globalization, ecological deterioration, and indigenous oppression take place today” (193). such an endeavor would involve not so much a call for the complete cancelation but instead a committed repoliticization of tourism so as—in at least some modest way--to slow deepening global inequality and the wholesale destruction of the planet. andrew grant wood was born in montreal, canada. his research focuses on the history of mexico. he has published on a variety of social and cultural topics: urbanization, immigration, grassroots collective action, housing, regional politics, civic ritual and celebration, tourism, film and popular music. he is currently writing a history of colonial veracruz. © 2022 andrew wood precolumbian syncretism among the classic maya, a review of maya gods of war review by keith eppich karen bassie-sweet, 2021, maya gods of war. louisville: university press of colorado, 340 pp., isbn: 978-1646421312. religious syncretism, in a latin american context, usually refers to the colonial period and the imposition of old world deities on native belief systems. yet the idea of comingled religions is not limited to colonial settings. the concept can be applied, with great effect, to earlier blends of religious beliefs. karen bassie-sweet’s latest book focuses on one such precolumbian syncretism, the adoption of central mexican gods into classic maya pantheons. specifically, she discusses how the classic maya incorporated deities of teotihuacán into their own religions. they did this for distinct political, military, and theological reasons, not wholly importing foreign gods, but fusing them with pre-existing ones. “the teotihuacán tlaloc god,” she writes, “did not displace or supersede the local thunderbolt chahks; rather, he was incorporated into maya cosmology…” (260). this work is maya gods of war and, with it, bassie-sweet has written a particularly brilliant blend of iconography, anthropology, and art history. she uses these to chart the introduction, modification, and spread of teotihuacán deities across the classic maya world and the means by which maya rulers put such gods to use. in doing so, bassie-sweet’s text consists of a deep dive into the complex cosmology of the period. the book strongly resembles the great art histories of the 80s and 90s, and it is something of a throwback to the works of linda schele and her collaborators. this is much to its credit and maya gods of war stands as a prominent contribution and worthy successor to those landmark texts. one could say of this book, that the “blood of kings” flows in its veins.1 the book itself is organized with an introduction and seven succeeding chapters, each addressing classic maya gods, as well as their uses, their iconography, their role in the politics of the day, and their syncretic aspects. this all centers on the goal of the volume, “…to analyze the attributes and nature of the teotihuacán deities found in the maya region and to explore how these gods were introduced into the maya region and then incorporated into maya worldview” (4). the introduction frames the text, providing necessary background information on the nature of these mesoamerican gods and their place within classic maya civilization. this includes their roles within the military conflicts of the day, the words, deeds, politics, and scenes of classic period warfare. after this, the seven following chapters consist of detailed essays on the blending of maya and teotihuacán deities. this begins with a discussion of the chahk thunderbolt gods and the fire deity giii, chapters 1 and 2, through the classic maya tlaloc deities, the kaloomte’ lords and their associated tlaloc cult, chapters 4, 5, and 6 respectively. it concludes with chapters 6 and 7, discussions of the critical role of women within the tlaloc cult and the place in the maya cosmos held by god l and his many friends. the book then ends. while maya gods of war is a very good book, it is not a perfect one. it has three distinct problems, and while not crippling, they do hamper the point that the book is trying to make. they are organizational, evidentiary, and illustrative. organizationally, the book is not constructed around a single, focused thesis, but consists of seven loosely interconnected essays, each forming its own chapter. even within each chapter, the text meanders. in the middle of a discourse on classic gods, bassie-sweet spends long pages discussing minor titles of nobility. in the midst of a discussion on warfare, the narrative will pause for a lengthy treatment of ceremonial helmets. the result is a text that wanders far afield, resembling a lecture from a brilliant professor who just cannot stay on a single subject for very long. this is most evident in the introduction, which should have focused on the role of gods within classic society and in classic military ideology, as well as the maya cosmos and the historical sequence of classic civilization itself. instead, it wanders in a long discussion of titles and offices, which would have been better served in its own chapter. on opening the text, non-specialists are likely to be quite baffled. there is no real conclusion, either, just a brief summary of the major themes of the book, which would function as a better introduction than the actual introduction. hence, this review recommends that readers should actually read the last seven pages first. the second issue with the text is evidentiary. the book restricts itself to well-known, wellpublished maya artworks, eschewing discoveries made within the past decade. maya gods of war is heavily slanted towards the sites that produced classic iconographic studies of the classic maya, the art programs of yaxchilán, tikal, copal, and palenque. largely absent are the art and iconography of calakmul, cancuén, la corona, motul de san jose, chunchucmil, naachtun, among others. even my own site of el perú-waka’ is given short shrift, despite being a major player in the introduction of teotihuacán to the region. bassie-sweet describes it as being a “small site” (169) despite that fact that, as a major classic city, el perú-waka’ dwarfs palenque and many of the other places she discusses. the whole of belize is mostly absent. admittedly, many of these newly-discovered texts are fragmentary and difficult with a scattered publication history. yet, these new-found texts played a vital role in the syncretism of teotihuacán beliefs into maya cosmology. for instance, chapter 6 addresses the role of women in the tlaloc cult, yet focuses on the relatively smaller, but well-published sites of naranjo and yaxchilán. the long tradition of female kaloomte’ associated with calakmul, la corona, and el perú-waka’ appear slightly, if at all. the third issue is illustrative, being that the book simply does not have enough drawings and photographs of the art and iconography referenced in the text. to do its subject justice, maya gods of war needed double its number of illustrations. this is admittedly an unfair criticism and it is one that bassie-sweet herself addresses. nevertheless, it is one that readers should be aware of, given that readers will need internet access to fully appreciate this book in order to look up some of the monuments mentioned in the text. on the whole, though, these are minor issues in a major work on classic maya religion. this is a complex, layered subject requiring a strong familiarity with the iconography of the classic period and an appreciation of the multivocality of maya imagery. this is an art program where a sky-band can also be jade illuminated with thunderbolts, where an axe in the forehead can also be a smoking obsidian mirror and both can be references to godly luminosity. this is in addition to the idea that mortals, during performance, can take on the aspects of gods and that gods can also perform and take on aspects of other gods. thus, a maya chahk deity can perform as a teotihuacán war-serpent and mingle the iconography of both. performance itself functioned as a type of conjuring magic, with gods summoned through theatrical acts. writing and iconography seems to have functioned in a similar way, with the depiction of a deity serving as a way that tombs and temples can themselves “perform” as the god whose image they bear. bassie-sweet handles such intricacy and complexity very well and her text is able to explain how such performative magic worked and created the icon-covered architecture known for the classic maya. a distinct strength of the text is her treatment of a suite of images and individuals that she terms “the tlaloc cult,” making use of the much-later nahuatl term for this serpent god of mesoamerica. the cult itself seems to have consisted of a series of religious practices centered on the teotihuacán war-serpent and the special importance held by the practitioners of that cult. these are the royal kaloomte’ lords long-noted in the maya epigraphic corpus. usually interpreted as “emperor” or “over-king,” bassie-sweet’s research suggests that the political authority of the kaloomte’ was likely secondary to their role in sacred cult. “high priest” rather than “high king” would be the better translation. after all, the title extended to both kings, queens, and non-royals alike. this would fundamentally alter what we know the teotihuacán entrada of the 4th century with the appearance of mexican imagery being less of a political conquest and more of an influx of religious-military ideologies. the use of the kaloomte’ title by the 7th century hegemony of calakmul would then be that of newly-fashioned state-sanctioned cult, not the appropriation of foreign titles from an earlier era. this is an astute piece of iconographic analysis, which will take scholars years to fully appreciate. yet, it is only one of several novel perspectives on classic maya religion in the book. chapter 7, focusing on the obsidian/merchant deity god l is equally masterful, although a much less contentious subject. the whole book is as such, a close reading of the complex iconography of the classic maya that results in a new understanding of, and deep appreciation for, classic religion. it is packed with this evolving interplay of icon and imagery. maya gods could perform as teotihuacán deities and maya nobility, in theatrical display, could appear as both, simultaneously. a maya artist could portray a thunderbolt chahk with the serpentine aspects of teotihuacán god, blending the two. maya rulers could appear as high priests of a tlaloc cult and conjure alien gods with performative magic. such deities would be novel and potent yet contain familiar aspects. this sheds new light on the very concept of religious syncretism itself and how two different religions can co-mingle, transforming into a single, blended entity. maya gods of war is a book that could have easily been twice its length and, perhaps, should have been. however, this is a very rich subject and, i suspect bassie-sweet will explore such topics in forthcoming volumes. they will be eagerly anticipated. maya gods of war is highly recommended and deserves a place on the shelf of any serious maya scholar. 1schele, linda, and mary ellen miller, the blood of kings: dynasty and ritual in maya art (1992) keith eppich has been a professional archaeologist for twenty-five years, and has worked across the continental united states as well as in the republic of guatemala. he has worked at the site of el perú-waka’ since 2003, focusing on the classic traditions there. he has published numerous reports, articles, and chapters on the subject, including co-editing the volume breath and smoke, tobacco among the maya. he teaches in texas. © 2022 keith eppich microsoft word warner review.docx 1 stone, nomi. 2022. pinelandia: an anthropology and field poetics of war and empire. oakland: university of california press, 307pp. isbn: 9780520975491 keywords: poetry, militarism, indefinite wars, empire, human technology, iraqi diaspora the term “left of bang,” as american anthropologist and poet nomi stone opens in her latest work pinelandia, indicates an imagined space along an artificial spectrum of defensive (read: hegemonic) intervention with “bang” being a zero-point denotating open, oppositional violence to american desires. situated in this semi-mythical “left” dimension is an american military training program – referred to as a qualification or “q” course – that takes as one of its many stages the “country” of pineland. if pineland has never appeared on your geopolitical radar, that may be due to the fact the united states is the only country recognizing or funding a purposely rogue nation that emerges when needed along the rolling hills and amidst the dense pine forests of north carolina. the purpose of pineland, comprised these days of madrasas, mosques, and middle eastern markets, is to provide an immersive training space for american special forces to practice persuading “local” pinelandians (often role-players hired from the iraqi diaspora for their perceived ability to compliment training verisimilitude) to join forces so as to enact a desired outcome. success in this qualification course means remaining invisible and left of bang by ultimately achieving a cultural rapport that in turn influences locals to subvert or re-direct pineland into the realm of american/north atlantic influence. it is here that stone re-engages the ethnographic inquiries and interrogations of affect that informed her stark, widely-praised volume of poetry kill class. in so doing, she furthers her efforts to decenter the lived experience of the american soldier in so-called “war literature” so as to discover and discuss the positionality, precarity, and enforced performances of the iraqi role-players in pineland. role-players that come to be seen as sought-after tools in american military efforts to militarize or weaponize culture. drawing on years of fieldwork that finds her connecting with the 2 concepts of identity, (conflicted) allegiances, and life in the iraqi diaspora, stone flows forth from her work in kill class to write into reality a theoretical and methodological path that leads to fresh spaces from which to examine war, militaries, human technology, and the mechanics of empire. however, while necessarily including voices and perspectives of american military personal into pinelandia, stone is quick to underline that “this book is not proposing [q courses or pineland] should be ‘improved’ or made more ‘authentic,’ but rather critiques their core logics as well as the indefinite wars that produce them” (2022, 8). the connective concept woven by stone through the chapters of pinelandia is “human technology;” a trope she argues is an appropriate entry point, despite its dehumanizing tone, as the “military logics and discourse” (2022, 16) inform a certain positionality that cannot be disregarded. this as both the soldiers training within pineland as well as the iraqi “locals” paid to perform in the constructed space are seen by the military as tools – with or without their informed consent toward such a role or its ramifications. in a line, stone offers a poignant encapsulation: “empire creates the frame here, conscripting individuals as human technology to perform its fantasies, without shielding them from the costs” (2022, 101). indeed, closely following stone’s development of fieldwork alongside the iraqi diaspora employed as actors to recreate (the basest) aspects of middle eastern life-worlds is her examination and ultimate estimation that she “felt increasingly uncannily enmeshed in the simulations: just as many iraqi role-players had been…(l)ike them, i was playing a military version of myself (american woman, outsider), but not on my own terms” (2022, 192). here, stone’s command of the arabic language as well as extensive participant observation and insightful discussions (at times far from her fieldwork in the fictionalized fragment of north carolina soil) contribute careful and curated substrates of experience, evidence, and evocation that build into her overall argumentation and theoretical engagements. while moving through these associated geographies of empire and variations of the anthropological “field” in pinelandia, we can sense the traditional signs of multi-sited fieldwork. yet stone’s efforts may perhaps be viewed more engagingly through the lens of a “single geographically discontinuous site,” a conceptualization ghassan hage (2005) arranges and argues for during his own transnational research. as such, we are guided to gauge and reimagine the structure of fieldwork not only within or at a distance from “empire,” but also to evaluate and 3 expand upon alternate ethnographic encounters that can contribute to the anthropology of “long wars,” militarism, and (imperial) power. though a close, cover-to-cover examination of pinelandia allows the strengthening of certain lines – narrative and argumentation, methodological and reflexive positionality – in a reader’s mind, the book is also relatively accessible on a chapter-to-chapter basis with key themes reiterated and critical actors surrounded by contextualization. in turn, stone seeks a trenchant examination of counter-insurgency (coin) strategies thus also of the key coin texts that have steadily emerged since the american invasions of afghanistan and iraq. furthering this pursuit, she highlights interviews and encounters with a broad spectrum of actors; from the lofty heights of military hierarchy overseeing training strategies to the individual soldiers seeking to successfully complete the q course. from further behind the scenes, stone brings into focus the anthro-mercs (anthropologist + mercenary) picking at the remains of the u.s. military’s human terrain project and the private military contractors providing a wide array of products – people, pigs, or pre-fab imaginations – to pineland. along the way, we are directed into a selection of perils and pitfalls shaping participant observation and fieldwork that, at times, can far outpace notions of control or consent. alternately, academically-oriented readers will also find repeated theoretical positioning and interpretation via the work of deleuze and guattari as well as sustained meditations on martin heidegger’s conceptualization of the (working) tool. readers from a military background will encounter a mirror that, far from flattering, will offer a patient practitioner of war games and cultural training strategies a new reflection from which to realize and rethink. while stone repeatedly (and persuasively) returns to the impossibility of what such training and strategies seek to accomplish, a military affiliated reader may come away with an entirely different set of conclusions: “lessons learned” to be added to a playbook assembled to deflect us from seeing the impossibility of the desired military praxis and performance (a deflection especially desired, as stone notes, when there are congress(wo)men courting voters and military contractors courting congress). a final structuring/generative component of stone’s pinelandia must be highlighted: poetry. in the book’s epilogue, stone assembles a micro-masterclass in “using poetry to build anthropological worlds” (2022, 209) that is accompanied by a robust bibliography of (emerging) poetic practice 4 and possibility. it is a defining epilogue that will speak on multiple levels to established academics, multi-modal ethnographers, and emerging anthropologists seeking to shape (or more rigorously reinforce) the role of poetry both in the generation of knowledge as well as in the expression of ethno-encounters. strategically placed within the volume by stone, the reader encounters the epilogue’s incisive insights after first engaging with her “field poems” and “field poem fragment(s)” that, more than excerpts allowing mere contextualization or ethnographic texture, seek to actively collaborate in the generation of the overall text. this reflects a desire for the poem fragments to engage the reader directly while further subsensory explanations and thoughts intersecting with her poetry are held until after the book’s conclusion. in a sense then, stone’s poetry and (self)reflexivity vis-a-vis the role of poetry in anthropology is but one reply to a question posed and pierced by sapiens poetry editor, christine weeber, and inaugural sapiens poet-in-residence, justin d. wright, in their 2022 essay, “what is anthropological poetry?” their key theme of poetry-as-transformation in “thinking and being” connects with stone’s own personal transformations during her extensive participant observation in pineland as well as across the diasporic plane (re)generated by her research reciprocators. this while also engaging a transformative conversation that chips away military perceptions of weaponized culture, rapportvia-research-and-regurgitation, the contradictory coercions imperialism seeks from “the local,” and the fallacy of finding positions “left of bang” when you are the bang. a conversation that is considered here, in the style of stone, with a brief, concluding assemblage elicited by a reading of pinelandia: we may be free to find an insurgent line, that ties or lies or plies a truth to time… yet the iamb of our land(ia) meters a might, that wants to be “right” (of bang)… thusly, (s)killed being the left -behind being the righteous -aligned is the riposte & reciprocity scaling our economy of allegiance & identity, as poetic proximities find or define (en)forced futures of fictional lands. 5 bibliography hage, ghassan. 2005. “a not so multi-sited ethnography of a not so imagined community.” anthropological theory 5(4): 463-475. weeber, christine, and justin d. wright. “what is anthropological poetry?” sapiens (30 august 2022). accessed september 2022. https:// https://www.sapiens.org/culture/what-isanthropological-poetry/. charles o. warner iii is a doctoral researcher with the faculty of social & cultural anthropology and leuven international & european studies (lines) at the university of leuven, belgium. he holds a fundamental research grant from the research foundation – flanders (fwo) with research emphases on veterans studies and strategic peacebuilding in former yugoslavia. prior to his turn to academia, charles served as an explosive ordnance disposal (eod) technician in the u.s. air force for six years, conducting counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and force protection missions in south korea, iraq, germany, and the united states. © 2023 charles o. warner iii microsoft word 2022 year in review.docx 1 year in review we began writing year in reviews in 2019 to take a moment to reflect on the past year and share our plans for the future. this marks our fourth year, and we are more excited than ever for what is to come. for those unfamiliar with the anthropology book forum (abf), it was founded by the american anthropological association as an experimental digital platform aimed at accelerating the scholarly book review process and expanding conversations around newly published work. as an open access journal, committed to a set of principles that aims to reduce barriers to accessibility, the forum publishes reviews of newly published work in multiple formats every monday, 52 weeks a year. based on the idea that book reviews are not just summaries of academic texts, but engagements with scholarship, ideas and authors, the forum seeks to facilitate connections and exchange between authors and readers within and outside of anthropology. working with over 100 publishers around the world, we continuously seek to make available a broad range of texts relevant to anthropological audiences, broadly conceived. with an online readership of around 3,000 per month, and a contributor base of 1300 and growing, we are constantly exploring and experimenting with new modes of engagement and new forms of written, audio and visual review formats. our facebook page currently has over 2,600 followers, and we are in the process of expanding our website. with avid engagement, the forum demonstrates that such spaces play a crucial role in facilitating a vibrant exchange of knowledge, particularly in a time increasingly characterized by exclusion and remote virtual connectivity brought on both by the pandemic and ongoing political, economic and academic boundaries. image: facebook post reach and engagement statistics. our posts reach an audience of about 10,000 facebook users each week. 2 in 2021, we moved to our new home, a site dedicated entirely to the forum. as the new site grows, it will facilitate the expansion of new review formats, cross-disciplinary conversations and a space for ongoing experimentation and dialogue. looking back: 2021 year in review this year, the anthropology book forum was awarded the 2022 new directions award (group category), presented by the general anthropology division, a sub-section of the american anthropological association. the new direction award recognizes work that presents anthropological perspectives to publics beyond the academy across diverse forms of media, with methodological rigor and ethical engagement. you can read more about the award and view the original announcement here. this award means a lot for the anthropology book forum, as a recognition that we are on the right path towards our aim of making anthropological knowledge as widely accessible as possible, to audiences within and outside of academia. it was an enormous honor to be recognized in this way, and we humbly thank the gad committee for considering the forum for this award. we continued publishing reviews over the past year on a regular basis that engage a great variety of topics within the current anthropological literature, and also published in some new review formats. we published one author book talk, with dr. raja swamy contextualizing his book building back better in india: development, ngos, and artisanal fishers after the 2004 tsunami (2021). we have published one author interview, featuring david lancy interviewed about his 3rd edition of the anthropology of childhood (2022) by chantal medaets, gabriela tebet, and flávia “in their selection, the gad awards committee recognizes the anthropology book forum for the vision, commitment, and broad impact that diverse and accessible formats of anthropological knowledge offer multiple readerships within and outside the academy.” image: editors rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp (right) accept the gad award from kathryn kozaitis (left) at the american anthropological association annual meeting 2022 in seattle. 3 pires. we were also able to continue providing audio options for many of our reviews, something we aim to expand in the coming year. if you are interested in volunteering your voice to provide an audio recording of a review, please contact us! our goal is to provide audio options for all our reviews on the site. looking forward: 2023 in the coming year we will continue publishing reviews of current anthropological writing and media on a weekly basis. we aim to have a number of these reviews in audio format for increased accessibility, and we look forward to putting further emphasis on the conversational dimension of book reviews by publishing more author book talks and author interviews. the forum remains open to different and experimental formats beyond the traditional book review as a way to engage with recent work. this year, we will be working to expand our trajectories and conversations sections: conversations: published on a rolling basis, this venue will feature conversations around a particular theme invoked by a recent publication, for instance, a new definition of a concept like kinship or a novel regional perspective. we invite proposals from individuals who are interested in taking the lead on putting together a conversation with at least five participants who can each offer their own perspective. trajectories: similar to a review article, trajectories are between 1500 and 3000 words and attempt to succinctly tease out major themes in recent scholarship within a topic or subfield. for instance, this review may focus on recently published titles relevant to biological anthropology and suggest how these newly published texts are pushing the field in new directions, or perhaps, revisiting old debates. based on interest, we will also put out calls for reviews on specific themes or subjects that seem to be particularly present in recently published work. currently, we are putting together a special edition on ritual for publication in mid-february, 2023, and are looking for reviews on books, films and other media that grapple with ritual. you can view the call for contributions here. call for reviewers special issue on ritual 4 we are as always very much looking forward to engaging with our reviewers to find new modes of interacting and engaging with newly published work. if you have an idea that is not yet represented on our site, please get in touch! additionally, the anthropology book forum will host a roundtable at the american anthropological association’s annual meeting in toronto 2023, where we will engage in an exercise of scholarly exchange based on the concept of the book review, and its role in bridging divides between academia and larger publics. stay tuned for more information about this event, and for those of you planning to come to toronto, please come join us. it will be an exciting conversation. lastly, we want to thank our readers, reviewers and publishers whose labor and interest make the project that is the anthropology book forum possible. we also wish to extend a special thank you to bridget kelly-vincz, sheena harris, and janine mckenna for their enduring support of the forum. we are confident that the forum will continue to grow during the 2023 year and that we will, with your help, continue to offer a useful and dynamic resource for knowledge exchange. your editors, rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp facebook book reviews books available for review © 2022 emilia groupp and rasmus rodineliussen microsoft word gambardella review final.docx 1 edward f. fischer, 2022, making better coffee. how maya farmers and third wave tastemakers create value. oakland: university of california press, 306 pp. isbn 9780520386969. keywords: economic anthropology, maya coffee, values, tastemakers, social sciences “the history of coffee becomes inseparable from the history of colonialism, imperialism, and the rise of global capitalism.” (tucker, 2011: pp. 33–34) what makes a coffee “better”? what constitutes “quality”? how are prices legitimized? with those questions in mind, anthropology professor edward fischer gives us insight on twentyfirst century global political economy by analyzing how economic gain is conceived and produced within processes of high-end coffee commercialization. the creation of value is the main topic of this ethnographic research, carried out between the united states and guatemala’s highlands. focusing on attempts to build social relationships through third wave coffee trade, the author goes beyond standard definitions of coffee as a commodity, by taking into consideration symbolic values and narrative connections among growers, traders and tastemakers. in this context, quality is not anymore just a matter of taste, instead, it reveals underlying inequalities, capable of determining subjective experiences as well as influencing broader social and cultural dynamics. martinez-torres considers coffee as a product “around which the dependent economies of many states in the tropics were developed” (martinez-torres, 2006: 129). making better coffee allows the reader to gain awareness on the “neoliberal matrix of power linked to legacies of colonialism” in which exchanges take place, therefore raising the question of mass production, power relations and the increasing “commodification of culture” within contemporary capitalist society (nash, 2000: 129). fischer analyzes strategies implemented to “liberate food 2 systems from industrial-scale production,” questioning the linear equation between money and privilege by stating that “power derives from the ability to define what quality is” and not only from controlling the means of production (4). the book distances itself from developmentalist theories, recognizing that farmers have a significant role in shaping consumer desires and experiences. underlying how different forms of value are built, the author acknowledges their agency, refusing to reduce power to material conditions and profit seeking criteria. talking about a chain of production and distribution would presuppose a linear vision that situates the start of the exchange at the moment of the production and the end at the final tasting. this study observes contradictions between ideals and practice and is able to account for the ramifications, ambiguities and intermittences of coffee exchanges as “relational structures” (le velly, 2011: 54) and markets as “moral projects” (fourcade and healy, 2007: 141). unequal and stratified hierarchies within market economy, class and colonial legacies are not erased nor invisibilized: power systems and objectification practices influence the conditions of maya workers (escobar, 2005: 142), while embedded in a complex system of values, and not only built around political and economic criteria. this process prevents the passivization of indigenous communities as victims of a unilateral relationship of power and dependence beyond their control. instead of reproducing a sharp divide between “hostile-worlds beliefs,” the author manages to convey the profound complexity of the phenomenon, realizing that the social and the economic sphere coexist and “contaminate each other” when they come into contact, and therefore cannot be considered as isolated (zelizer, 2006: 174). the book also includes an important work on existing literature on the topic, thus representing a particularly interesting and enriching tool for researchers and scholars, yet it remains open and accessible also to a non-specialized and broader audience. furthermore, the researcher provides a deep reflection on his own preconceptions, addressing the problematic enigma around ethnographic authority (clifford 1983). he ultimately allows his fieldwork to genuinely surprise him, subverting his perspective and “unravelling the complexities of lived experience, and taking seriously the hopes and concerns of those we study” (197). there is no symmetry between third wave coffee producers, intermediaries, traders, buyers and tastemakers, as, “value worlds converge and collide” in the attempt to create overlapping paths towards the common goal of producing better coffee (201). in this book materiality encounters ideologies, shaping contemporary economic, social and cultural conditions and 3 “possibilities of human dignity” (antrosio and colloredo-mansfeld, 2015). the meaning conveyed by the beans speaks in terms of hardship, justice, worth and desires. the power of making better coffee rests within the life stories of all those social actors who collectively participate in the production of values, a word that needs to be plural to account for the multilateral flows inhabited by each cup of this worldwide famous black drink. “we call those objects valuable that resist our desire to possess them. […] in a word, exchange is not a by-product of the mutual valuation of objects, but its source.” (simmel in appadurai, 1986: 4) miria gambardella holds a ma in anthropology from the university of neuchâtel (switzerland) and is currently a phd candidate of social and cultural anthropology at the autonomous university of barcelona (spain), a position funded by the msca doctoral networks. she’s also teaching cultural anthropology at the university of brescia (italy). her main areas of research are economic and political anthropology as well as anthropology of social movements. she conducted her fieldwork in mexico, focusing on ethical economies and international solidarity with zapatista indigenous communities through coffee fair trade. works cited: arjun appadurai, 1986, the social life of things. commodities in cultural perspective. cambridge: cambridge university press. 329 pp. isbn 9780511819582. arturo escobar, 2005, economics and the space of modernity: tales of market, production and labour. london: taylor and francis group ltd. “cultural studies”, vol. 19, n° 2, 2 march 2005. pp. 139-175. catherine m. tucker, 2011, coffee culture. local experiences, global connections. new york: routledge. 160 pp. isbn 9781138933033. james clifford james, 1983, on ethnographic authority. berkeley: university of california press. “representations”, n° 2. pp. 118-146. 4 jason antrosio and rudi colloredo-mansfeld, 2015, fast, easy, and in cash. artisan hardship and hope in the global economy. chicago: university of chicago press. 200 pp. isbn 9780226302614. june nash, 2000, global integration and the commodification of culture. pittsburg: university of pittsburg. ethnology, vol. 39, n° 2. pp. 129-131. maria elena martinez-torres, 2006, organic coffee. sustainable development by mayan farmers. athens: ohio university press. 176 pp. isbn 978-0-89680-247-6. marion fourcade and kieran healy, 2007, moral views of market society. “annual review of sociology”, n° 33. pp. 14.1-14.27. viviana a. zelizer, 2006, economic lives. how culture shapes the economy. princeton: princeton university press. 496 p., pp. 171-180. isbn 9780691139364. /© 2023 miria gambardella microsoft word del nido 2023 -revised.docx 1 gwen burnyeat, 2022, the face of peace: government pedagogy amid disinformation in colombia. chicago university press. 320 pp., isbn: 9780226821627 in a national referendum held october 2nd, 2016, colombians rejected the peace agreement their government had negotiated with the revolutionary armed forces of colombia, commonly known as farc. president santos amended the deal, skirted the people and sent it to congress, which ratified it. implementation began december 1st. the office of the high commissioner for peace, a state dependency, launched several projects under the aegis of “peace pedagogy”: a mission to educate colombians on the contents of the 297-page document that was to end five decades of war. the face of peace is the result of burnyeat’s ethnography of peace pedagogy, its bureaucrats, and their ardent belief that disagreement is a misunderstanding in need of a technical key. the book is divided into two parts. the first, anthrohistory of the santos government, spans the first three chapters. in chapter 1, burnyeat examines how santos’ accession to power consolidated a liberal (or in slobodian’s (2018) sense of the term, globalist) government worldview, including the hiring of global marketing agencies to woo combatants into peace (44). formally declaring the conflict an internal war opened it to international humanitarian law and to a liberal peace paradigm; chapter 2 examines how, in peace pedagogy, this paradigm is propelled forward by a “rationality drive” that sees its own work of explaining peace as technical as opposed to political in both the conversational sense of “governmental” and in the sense of the given hierarchy of values of a worldview (104). “the antipolitics of cultural liberalism,” chapter 3, opposes juan manuel santos and ex-president and agreement skeptic (my term) alvaro uribe to flesh out how the liberal common sense conflates the political with politicking, manipulation and dishonesty, so that technocratic utopianism can dismiss its internal other: the irrational, backward populist (117). the second part, ethnography of peace pedagogy in action, begins with chapter 4, where we join a peace pedagogy officer during a town visit to examine how these officers produce 2 legitimacy for themselves, the agreement and the government in the key of explanations, “the culturally liberal mode of government communication with society” (133). chapter 5, “stateconsciousness: three layers of responsibility and trust” shows how, having decided that “information” was “too technical” and “not emotional enough,” peace pedagogy practitioners organised popular sessions to target people’s emotions: always anxious about falling in the “populist” trap of “misinformation,” they aimed for a kind of cultural authenticity, lodged inside the suffering subjects of tokenised diversity, to complement their sense of their own rationality (163, 169). chapter 6 looks at a version of the political these officers did not pathologise: liaising, be it with other organisations, popular leaders or local authorities. chapter 7, the last one, examines how international organisations’ demands, funds and timing shaped the work of peace pedagogy consultants, comfortably middle class and liberal/globalist in outlook but increasingly set in the “elite precarity” (215) proper to short term contracts and project managerialism. this is one of the first book-length ethnographies to come out on the issue of the post-truth, dis/misinformation and the political, speaking from a refreshing vantage in a singularly perfect case study. the face of peace is an exceptional examination of how technocratic reason coopted the political philosophy of liberalism (in the historically accurate sense of the latter term), confusing its own penchant for trivial technicalities with the latter’s sense of what makes political virtue. simply put: the entire book pivots on the paradox that these officers were charged with explaining the reasons the peace agreement was good – and, i add, the particular form of peace it proposed –but without campaigning for the agreement, or actually endorsing it in any way, even though they were hired by the very government that produced and negotiated that particular agreement. “pedagogy but not politics” (15) is fine and dandy on paper, but as the inevitable question then becomes “how do we tell the difference?” great ethnographic potential ensues. burnyeat’s analysis of these anxieties, and ultimately of the triangulations between liberal philosophy, technocratic cultures and populism they lead to (106-117) is particularly sharp, advancing debates on all three fronts. of interest is also the author’s judicious examination of how this reason found its ethnographic limits. these officers explained to themselves their defeat in the referendum as a result of having been too technical, “not emotional enough,” and of the success of the other campaign’s lies; doubling down on their own reasons they told themselves in order to succeed they had to educate the people and “be emotional” (101, 103, also 162). with both argumentative rigour 3 and ethnographic generosity, burnyeat honors her interlocutors’ explanation of their defeat without necessarily endorsing it, makes room for their frustration with their campaign opponents and refuses trivial nihilistic relativism: “uribe’s ‘myths,’ however, were often barefaced lies that deliberately sought to misinform. critiquing liberal claims of objective truth should not create false equivalences between the inescapable biases of always-already situated knowledge and intentional post-truth” (52-53). from a certain political reading, those ethnographic limits tease perhaps the boundaries of the argument. the author was herself a peacebuilding practitioner before the referendum (11), and when doing peace pedagogy for her ethnography she used a documentary she produced to discuss why the agreement and all its terms were necessary to end the conflict (93). she positions herself with frankness: “in everything i did, i was firmly on the side of civil society and of peace” (12). recognising the crucial difference between explaining how a set of people saw “peace” as “technical” and opposed it as “political” and endorsing that opposition is partly what makes this book a success – but the analogous difference with respect to the opposition between “peace” as absence of conflict and “peace” as in the exact content of this 297-page agreement is now harder to find. it is, of course, not the author’s work in this book to examine the arguments presented by anyone who opposed this agreement, simply because that’s not what the book is about, but this positionality and ethnographic approach make it harder to develop a language for, for example, those who did want peace – just not this particular version of it. or to understand other, equally technical, arguments someone may have made against this peace, against several parts of the agreement, or against the fact of declaring peace. by the author’s own description in the second half of the book, many different parts of “civil society” actually disagreed with the agreement or even with declaring peace. “the side of peace” has, in a sense, collided with “peace,” such that the dichotomy technical-political the book so expertly problematises now haunts us in the guise of peace-antipeace. i suspect the author was aware of this risk, as the conclusion takes the argument forward by resorting to neurosciences and other such disciplines exploring in their own assumptions how humans are never rational, how affects, emotions and ambiguities permeate all our decisions, and so on. this is undoubtedly an exciting direction, but sceptical readers may find the turn to the brain and to affect as much of a fix as the turn to the technical, shying away from our actual political condition: that where they may be a perfectly “rational,” reasoned, aseptic, case for not having this peace. 4 these considerations notwithstanding, the face of peace is an exciting, original, timely contribution to the growing field of studies concerned with truth battles, but also important to anthropologies of bureaucracy, technocracy, government, ngos and the political, as well as sociology, geography, development studies and cultural studies. the prose is clear, all arguments are well contained and the book does not presuppose knowledge of colombia or of the theories it uses, making great course material from early undergraduate years onwards. works cited: slobodian, quinn. 2018. globalists: the end of empire and the birth of neoliberalism. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. juan del nido is research associate at the university of cambridge’s max cam centre for ethics, economy and social change. his work focuses on political and economic reasoning, and has been published by economic anthropology, the cambridge journal of anthropology, the anthropology of work review, and hipertextos. his book taxis vs. uber: courts, markets and technology in buenos aires, (stanford u. press, 2021) examining postpolitical reasoning in the conflict around uber’s arrival in argentina was awarded the carol r. ember book prize by the society for anthropological sciences. © 2023 juan del nido 1 davis-floyd, robbie, and charles d. laughlin. 2022. ritual what it is, how it works, and why, new york: berghahn books, 322pp., isbn 978-1-80073-530-9 key words: ritual, belief system, human behaviour, performance, cognition ritual what it is, how it works, and why is designed for both academic and lay audiences. the book begins by clearly defining how the term ‘ritual’ will be used and an outline of its key characteristics. the authors identify and elaborate on eight core characteristics of ritual. ritual is defined “as a patterned, repetitive, and symbolic enactment of enactment of cultural (or individual) beliefs and values. more simply put, ritual enacts cultural (or individual) beliefs and values” (p. 256). using multiple examples, the book details how ritual works on the human body and brain to produce its often profound effects. these include enhancing courage, effecting healing, and generating group cohesion by enacting cultural or individual beliefs and values. it also shows what happens when ritual fails. appendix one and two provide great support to the book and are invaluable for all readers. the authors organize the book into twelve sections. chapter one focuses on symbols and the authors describe a process they call “symbolic penetration.” this process they argue is where symbols enter individual conscious and generate a strong emotional reaction based on their belief systems. chapters two and three expand on these core concepts introduced in chapter one. the discussions center around the “cognitive matrix,” a system of meaning and belief that rituals are designed to express, enact, and transmit. in chapter two the authors draw on commonly known stories such as the three little pigs and adam and eve to demonstrate how rituals are enacted and then spread through myths, paradigms, and belief systems and the individual or group values they contain. chapter three investigates the nature of belief systems paying particular attention to the great degree of variation these systems have across cultures. chapter four discusses the characteristics of ritual as the authors demonstrate the impacts ritual drivers have on the brain. this is achieved through a discussion on states of consciousness and altered states of conscious. the authors provide a wide range of ritual examples and their associated 2 intrinsic drivers. chapter five analyses ritual techniques and technologies investigating both how rituals are technologized in a modern world but also how ancient techniques are deeply embedded into ritual that operate in the modern high-tech world. chapter six explores how rituals are framed and set apart from ordinary reality. the authors also investigate the possibilities when rituals fail. this concept is important to discuss as not all rituals (both informal and formal) are successful. as the next chapters discuss the successful elements of ritual through performance, cognition, and adaptation to question of failure needed to be addressed. chapter eight discusses ritual and cognition, viewing the four stages of cognition with a connection to the anthropological concepts of realism, fundamentalism, fanaticism, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, and global humanism. chapter nine investigates the way rituals both conserve and transmit the cognitive matrix and belief systems. this chapter is one that i found to be most interesting as the cultural significance of ritual is addressed. while this chapter views some historical examples such as prohibition there is also an assessment of how covid has changed greeting rituals. chapter ten is an interesting and practical entry as it provides examples on designing ritual. the authors explore the idea of adaptive ritual strategy explaining how traditional rituals can be combined or adapted with new rituals in successful forms. appendix one and two both provide useful information. appendix one, using key points from the book, outlines how to create and perform an effective stage four ritual. the authors note this will only make sense if the book has been read, which i found to be true. appendix two provides a list of documentary films about ritual with a short outline and where to access the films. the authors also state which chapters the films most accurately align. this list is an excellent resource as it provides examples beyond those discussed in the book and allow the reader connect with theory and examples. having this checklist for ritual production and list of films are great tools for lay audiences interested in ritual, students, and academics. having this list of films is also highly valuable for educators to show in classes to support chapter excerpts that could be assigned as class reading or core lecture topics. the authors provide a sound canvas of relevant literature that both captures the historical significance of ritual along with more recent texts on the phenomenon. the book also engages with several pieces of classic anthropology such as levi-strauss, ruth benedict, and bronislaw malinowski. the authors do a good job ensuring key theoretical elements of the literature are well explained and accessible to non-scholars and academics. the authors draw on their own ethnographic fieldwork to complement the literature. the final element which in some ways was the most compelling were the use of familiar topics that would provide a good entry point for a more 3 lay audience. referencing myths, well known stories, and global events such as the covid pandemic. this book provides the reader with an opportunity to reframe their understandings of what is meant by the term ‘ritual.’ the ethnographic examples, while primarily from other literatures, are grounded through the authors’ own experiences with ritual. the book could benefit from a more detailed methodological discussion in the introduction, particularly for lay audiences who would be unfamiliar with this process and may have questions about data collection. the writing does a good job of clearly explaining several complex issues and terms while remaining very lucid and highly engaging. the chapters all engage with interesting and well analysed topics that build on one another culminating in the design of rituals. the build throughout the book ends on a satisfying note. the authors, robbie davis-floyd and charles d. laughlin, have provided their own original contribution to a broad body of work on the topic of ritual in anthropology. this book is ultimately a fantastic resource for those who desire for an enriched, holistic understanding of ritual in society (both past and modern). due to the book’s rich literature review and clear definition of ritual it would be ideal for any undergraduate classroom, non-academic interested in understanding ritual, and professional scholars. jesse negro is a casual academic at macquarie university school of social sciences, sydney, australia. his research explores urban environments and the lived experience of residents in these environments. they are author of, fabricating a steel city: an ethnography of the illawarra’s steel industry (urbanities may 2019). © 2023 jesse negro microsoft word gil review final.docx 1 albert c. goodyear, christopher r. moore, eds. 2018. early human life on the southeastern coastal plain. gainesville: university press of florida, 434 pp. isbn 9781683400622 key words: coastal plain, late pleistocene, early holocene, pre-clovis, younger dryas. albert goodyear and christopher moore’s edited volume compiles the most up-to-date paleoclimatic and archaeological research on the prehistoric southeastern coastal plain of the united states. the fifteen essays review the available archaeological record to shed light on the early human occupation of the region extending from virginia to alabama, and the adaptive strategies to major climatic and environmental changes which occurred over the last 50,000 years. the narrative structure follows a loose chronological sequence from the earliest arrivals (late pleistocene/pre-clovis) until postglacial times (early holocene/early archaic). it is finely divided into four topical sections that confront the latest research trends in southeastern archaeology: pre-clovis contexts, demographics and settlement patterns, climate and sea level changes, and lithic artifactual analysis. the first subtheme covers pre-clovis cultures in the southeast. in chapter 1, goodyear and moore introduce the natural and geomorphologic features of the southeastern coastal plain and early human arrivals. the strategic location of this area, enclosed between the atlantic on the east and the gulf of mexico on the west, as well as its warm weather and biotic diversity during the late pleistocene, turned it into an optimal scenario for human occupation. the presence of the pre-clovis clarian lithic complex at topper site (south carolina) described by goodyear and stain in chapter 2 demonstrates that humans peopled the americas well before the late pleistocene. along the same lines, ensor (chapter 3) describes the unique resemblance of capps lithic technology, found at cappsshelley sites in alabama, to the old world levallois percussion-based flat flaking technique. hemmings et al.’s (chapter 4) reconstruction of the depositional history at vero site (florida) and recovery of early holocene nonlocal artifactual material and 2 thermally altered animal bone, suggest human presence in the area during the late pleistocene. the following thematical section focuses on settlement patterns. in chapter 5, harris examines the evolution of the paleolandscape along the continental shelf, from virginia to the gulf of mexico. the author’s goal is to identify the regions submerged after the last glacial maximum in order to locate ancient habitation sites. the results indicate that pre-clovis and clovis populations may have lived at the edge of the continental shelf from 75,000 to 11,000 years ago. austin et al., in chapter 6, apply a variant of the quarry cluster approach to assign lithic artifacts to geographic areas according to their geological characteristics, as well as visual analysis and nondestructive means. chert procurement patterns in florida show that paleoindians and early archaic populations depended on local sources and had a relatively restricted foraging range, although they also accessed exotic stones via exchange. in chapter 7, smallwood et al. explore the changes in paleoindian settlement in the south carolina coastal plain based on the distribution of clovis, redstone, post-clovis unfluted, and dalton paleoindian points across the region, as well as the choice in raw material types, and the transport distances from source. chapter 8 and 9 concentrate on the younger dryas cosmic event which occurred 12,800 years ago. lecompte et al. (chapter 8) provide a thorough overview of the origin and characteristics of the cosmic impact. the authors detail the various primary and secondary impact-related proxies in the younger dryas boundary layer and claim that these components can be used as chronostratigraphic datum regionally, nationally, and internationally. in the following chapter, kennett at al. describe the geological, environmental, and cultural consequences of the younger dryas cosmic collision, including abrupt cooling of temperatures, global changes in ocean circulation, paleoindian clovis decline, and megafaunal extinction. in chapter 10, moore et al. advocate for the implementation of optically stimulated luminescence, combined with sedimentology, archaeostratigraphy, and carbon dating, to study site burial processes in shallow and sandy geologic contexts along the southern atlantic coastal plain. their purpose is to interpret the depositional environment and timing of burial processes and link them to cultural or climatic events. the final set of essays concentrate on stone artifact analysis. in chapter 11, bridgman sweeney applies social network analysis to a large database of archaic lithic artifacts from 3 the early side-notched horizon (11,200-10,500 calbp) to reveal ancient social boundaries and intergroup interactions within the coastal plain. in chapter 12, thulman analyzes the shape and distribution of 329 early archaic bolen points to establish a rigorous typology based on morphometric analyses, and to reconstruct prehistoric social organization patterns. in chapter 13, wilkinson studies over a thousand early archaic bifaces and unifaces from the interriverine area spread between the savannah and the santee rivers (in south carolina) to understand settlement organization of early archaic cultures and their subsistence strategies. in chapter 14, anderson conducts artifact morphological and distributional analyses through the lenses of network analysis and cultural transmission theory to study diagnostic stone artifacts. the goal is to delimit subregional cultural traditions likely reflecting band ranges and multiband interaction patterns. finally, schuldenrein’s chapter 15 performs as corollary and sums up the major lines of research presented in this volume. the author emphasizes the importance of reevaluating the question of the initial peopling of the southeastern atlantic slope and its environmental correlates by focusing on complex human/landscape relationships and promoting the “inter-disciplinary imperative” in archaeology. in my opinion, goodyear and moore have put together an accessible, yet methodologically complex, account of the early days of paleoindian cultures in the southeastern u.s. to non-specialists, this book provides solid background knowledge on the archaeological development of the coastal southeast. although it is not meant to be an extensive and exhaustive linear chronicle of the prehistoric past of the united states, the well planned structure and the narratory flow help the reader to build an early amerindian timeline. also, it inspires further reading on the field to fill up the existing (albeit inevitable) historical blanks. to specialists, the book gives testimonial evidence of the benefits of joining traditional and modern methodologies and theoretical approaches. methodologically, these contributions are significant to the development of prehistoric archaeology in the united states as they introduce new scientific technologies into the archaeological toolkit, such as geographic information systems, digital modeling and imagery, remote sensing technology, and optically stimulated luminescence, which are interwoven with traditional methods like sedimentology, archaeoestratigraphy, carbon dating, visual analysis, and formal typology. theoretically, this book makes a scholarly statement by addressing many of today’s controversial questions in the archaeology of 4 the early southeast, such as the sudden demise of the clovis technoculture, the recognition of the mysterious “middle paleoindian” period, or the adoption of the younger dryas hypothesis. in sum, goodyear and moore succeed at consolidating the state-of-the-art knowledge of the pleistocene and early holocene archaeological deposits, and presenting it as a point of departure for future inquiry. irene martí gil is a ph.d. candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university and the assistant curator at lsu natural science museum, where she curates ethnological and archaeological collections since 2020. her research interests range from cultural heritage studies, museology, anthropological linguistics, and archaeology. © 2022 irene martí gil microsoft word barron_ethnographers before malinowski_11-22-23.docx 1 rosa, frederico delgado, and han f. vermeulen, eds. 2022. ethnographers before malinowski: pioneers of anthropological fieldwork, 1870-1922. easa series 44. new york: berghahn books. in terms of form, ethnographers before malinowski: pioneers of anthropological fieldwork, 1870-1922 stands in contrast to similar edited volumes such as the university of nebraska press’s ongoing histories of anthropology annual—headed by regna darnell and frederic gleach and the university of wisconsin press’s now defunct history of anthropology series— formerly under the editorial eye of george stocking and, later, richard handler. whereas darnell and gleach are deliberately loose in their thematic organization, ethnographers before malinowski is topically streamlined. whereas stocking and handler often narrowed their content to a handful of detailed essays, the current volume includes 12 chapters—not counting a forward from thomas hylland eriksen and jointly authored introduction and conclusion from the editors frederico delgado rosa and han vermeulen. perhaps more notable is the rather pointed nature of rosa and vermeulen’s editorial intent. as they articulate in their rather dense introduction, which is in many respects a stand-alone essay in its own right, they seek to challenge received wisdom by “recovering” the “forgotten or neglected monographies produced by ethnographers whose work, surpassed and overshadowed by that of later anthropologists, may both enlighten and question the dichotomy between canonic models of writing culture and ‘pre-malinowskian’ ones” (2). through this pursuit, the editors suggest the notion that malinowski’s much mythologized and protracted excursion to the trobriand islands constituted a methodological revolution in the discipline is in need of serious qualification if not outright rejection. though his name graces the cover and virtually every chapter, malinowski, despite his polish origins, functions more as a synecdoche of a kind of a 2 dogged “anglocentrism” that continues to haunt the historiography (if not the history) of anthropology (3). the editors suggest that entangled in this privileging of western european ethnographers working in malinowski’s wake are various dichotomies that begin to crumble upon deeper historical analysis including armchair anthropology vs off the veranda, academic vs. amateur, evolutionist vs. humanist, and colonial vs. anti-colonial. in an effort to put these assumed breaks and dichotomies to the test, the editors have conveniently organized the volume into four thematic sections with each part building on the former. part i brings the reader’s attention to the raison d’être of the ethnographic project as articulated in most introductory textbooks: to glimpse the world from “the native’s point of view.” contrary to the long dominant narrative that positions malinowski as the origin point, the three chapters in this section show how such disparate figures as franz boas, katie langloh parker, and edward westermarck were already conjuring their own form of ethnographic magic before malinowski stepped foot off the veranda. this proverbial magic is reimagined in part ii as the often-referenced colonial gaze of early ethnography is subverted—but not entirely rejected. the reader comes to see how the ethnographic accounts of individuals such as henry callaway, elsdon best, and alice fletcher were made possible by their enduring relationships with indigenous ethnographers including mpengula mbande (in callaway’s case), tutakangahau (in best’s case), and francis la flesche (in fletcher’s case). immersed in and made possible by what george stocking once termed “colonial situations” (1992), these collaborations constructed windows (some more translucent than others) into the lives of indigenous peoples disrupted by the conditions of conquest and settlement. part iii puts the colonial conditions in more stark relief with cases from turn-of-the century arizona and africa where military/colonial ethnologists and roman catholic priests slide along a spectrum of invasion and empathy troubling the notion of a discrete divide between colonial and anti-colonial ethnography. part iv picks up on the empathetic thread by turning the volume’s attention to the expeditionary variants of pre-malinowskian ethnography suggesting that mythologized sojourns could be sites of both understanding and methodological innovation. the virtues of the volume are numerous, none-the-least of which being the geographic scope of the case studies. for this reader, it is the volume’s ability to push against a caricatured view of 3 salvage ethnography—one that strips the subjects of ethnographic research of their agency—that is most stimulating. without casting an artificially rose-colored tint that would have us believe that salvage pursuits were devoid of colonial entanglements (they were called into being by the effects of conquest!), the varied case studies spotlight the motivations and creative calculations of indigenous ethnographers and interlocutors who saw in these itinerant outsiders a certain degree of use value. hardly the kind of stories upon which one would want to mount a public relations campaign for the discipline but a useful qualifier for some of the more kneejerk and empirically thin assessments of late 19th and early 20th century fieldwork. such histories have humbling qualities for practicing anthropologists who may have largely absorbed the discipline’s past through corridor talk and anecdotal asides. and yet, i cannot help but detect a slight irony at play in the framing of the project. as detailed in their introduction, rosa and vermeulen are troubled by a kind of “postcolonial anxiety” in prior works that have purported “to demonstrate the ethnographic nature of the colonial machine” (18-19). the irony, however, is their circumscribed engagement with these postcolonial anxieties. peter pels and oscar salemink’s 1994 article, “five theses on ethnography as colonial practice” stands in for a body of literature that, from this reviewer’s perspective, is quite varied. moreover, there are recent additions to the conversation that do not figure into the framing. perhaps a more direct engagement with the works of aaron glass, isaiah wilner, or margaret bruchac (the latter does appear in the endnotes) would make the stakes of this “counter-critique” more tangible. without it, statements such as “[w]hile we acknowledge the import of this trend, we are also inclined to embrace diversity among historians of anthropological ethnological sciences” appear a bit evasive (22). to be fair, the editors do argue that the contemporary “radical postcolonial critique” has reached “hegemonic” proportions (31). this would suggest that the evasive nature of the framing and the pivot to “diversity” is deliberate. in his own work, rosa has offered a direct and thorough evaluation of johannes fabian’s canonical musings on ethnographic writing (2019). and i suspect rosa would count fabian amongst the promoters of postcolonial apprehension alongside pels and salemink. so perhaps that just means the onus is on another set of editors/authors to bring the full range of “radical postcolonial critique” into the mix. and whoever that author (or authors) might be, they would do well to count rosa and vermeulen’s humbling volume amongst their reading list. 4 references rosa, frederico delgado. 2019. “totalitarian critique: fabian and the history of primitive anthropology.” in disruptive voices and the singularity of histories, edited by regna darnell and frederic w. gleach, 1–50. lincoln: university of nebraska press. stocking, george w., ed. 1992. colonial situations: essays on the contextualization of ethnographic knowledge. madison: university of wisconsin press. nicholas barron is a historical anthropologist whose research interests concern colonial/imperial studies, indigenous politics, and the history of anthropology in north america. his writings have appeared in history and anthropology, histories of anthropology annual, berose: international encyclopedia of the histories of anthropology, and the journal of anthropological research. he currently teaches in the department of anthropology at the university of nevada, las vegas while also serving as a managing editor for the history of anthropology review and the book review editor for anthropology and humanism. © 2023 nicholas barron microsoft word loewe review.docx 1 goodwin, michele. 2020. policing the womb: invisible women and the criminalization of motherhood. cambridge: cambridge university press, isbn: 9781139343244 while the frenzied calls of trump rally goers during the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns to jail hilary clinton – “lock her up, lock her up!” – was never more than a perverse form of catharsis, the passage of so-called fetal protection laws throughout the united states in the last two decades really has resulted in the incarceration of hundreds of women, especially indigent women of color. at present, at least thirty-eight states have such laws, and while some state laws were originally intended to protect pregnant women – who are at higher risk of domestic violence – such laws are increasingly used to prosecute rather than protect them. indeed, between 2006 and 2020, according to the center for public integrity’s websitei, more than 1,300 women have either been prosecuted for fetal crimes or have been subject to involuntary medical interventions. of these, most are in the south and nearly one-half have occurred in alabama alone. two trends, as goodwin shows, undergird the expansion of these laws. the first is the tendency to treat fetuses and even embryos as children. this is best exemplified by a recent georgia adoption law that declares that embryos have “rights and responsibilities” under state law. the second is the tendency to assume that a woman has complete control over the outcome of a pregnancy, or, as one south carolina court held, “absent depraved conduct on the part of pregnant women, stillbirths do not occur and that all pregnancies produce healthy babies (42)”. while the first tendency is rooted in religious dogma or belief, and, therefore, cannot be disproven, the second one clearly can be as there are many medical, social and environmental causes that can and do lead to miscarriage, and many cases in which this outcome cannot be determined. a major of focus of policing the womb is on the impact that fetal protection laws have on the fiduciary relationship between patients and their doctors or other health care providers. thanks to tv court dramas, most americans are likely aware that communication between lawyers and their 2 clients is scrupulously protected; lawyers are even prevented from revealing information about illegal activities that their clients are involved in without their clients’ consent. a similar relationship historically exists between doctors and their patients regarding the release of medical information; however, as goodwin notes, pregnant women living in the south – particularly poor, women of color – are increasingly at risk of arrest if a toxicology report reveals that they have illicit substances in their bodies. such was the case in south carolina where dozens of black women responded to an advertisement for free prenatal care at the medical university of south carolina, which, as the medical director later acknowledged, was little more than a sting operation. carrying the comparison further, the goodwin argues that while police receive legal training and would be required to obtain permission from a judge to search a home, medical personnel have no training in constitutional law, and need not apply to a neutral, third party to conduct a search of the body or give the results of the search to law enforcement. while the south carolina legislature, the district attorney and the musc might be directly to blame, goodwin is also very critical of organizations like planned parenthood whose singular focus on abortion has not only led them to ignore the proliferation of “fetal protection laws,” but also the cases like captain susan struck who became pregnant while stationed in vietnam and was told either to terminate her pregnancy or leave the base within 48 hours. when struck, an observant catholic, refused to have an abortion, she was discharged from the military, a decision she appealed unsuccessfully on seven occasions. in this vein, goodwin argues for a broader perspective on reproductive rights that includes: contraception (as well as protection against involuntary sterilization), pregnancy screening, testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, pre-natal care, “and, of course, the equally important right to maintain or terminate a pregnancy” (13). policing the womb also discusses somewhat better known topics such as the south’s dismal maternal health outcomes, and institutional violence in the u.s healthcare system more generally. for example, in contrast to the pregnant south carolina women described above, goodwin notes that notwithstanding the fact that white women use prescription drugs during pregnancy at a higher rate than black women – including certain pharmaceuticals that might harm a developing fetus – they face no similar risks of arrest or incarceration. a similar contrast can be drawn between the moral and media panic surrounding crack babies born to black mothers in the 1980s, and the much more muted response to women (more frequently caucasian) who smoke or consume alcohol 3 during pregnancy despite the fact that alcohol poisoning causes serious and permanent neurological damage to babies in utero whereas the effects of crack are inconclusive at best.ii while no reader, certainly no anthropologist, will mistake policing the womb for an ethnographic study, goodwin does punctuate this timely study with moving, albeit brief, descriptions of women who’ve been victimized by these new and recently revised laws. perhaps, the most poignant – certainly the most gruesome – of these is the case of marlise muñoz, a thirty-three old women who collapsed and died after a blood clot entered her lungs. however because munoz was fourteen weeks pregnant at the time, and a resident of texas, neither her advanced directives nor her family’s desire that she die with dignity were honored. indeed, her brain dead, body was tethered to medical “life support” equipment for 62 days to permit a fetus -with hydrocephalus and other serious fetal abnormalities – to gestate. only after a state judge ruled that the texas fetal protection law did not apply to muñoz because she was dead, did this extraordinary intervention come to an end. there are a couple places in the book where readers may feel that goodwin gets down in the legal weeds or is writing strictly for lawyers. one is the discussion of gidulig v. aiello, a case in which four pregnant women sued the state of california’s disability insurance program when they were denied coverage. the prevailing view among feminist legal scholars is that the decision by scotus to provide a pregnancy exception to the insurance program meant the court rejected the application of the equal protection clause to pregnancy. however, based on a complex analysis of justice potter steward’s footnotes and justice brennan’s dissent, goodwin argues in favor of much narrower view of the decision with the aim of showing how a sex equality agenda might still be constructed out of existing judicial decisions. such ventures into complex legal analysis, however, are few and quite far beyond between. some readers, though, may choose to skip chapter 10. in short, policing the womb is an impressive, scholarly, yet very readable, study which draws on more than two hundred court cases, statutes, legal briefs, and legislative and government reports as well as an impressive list of scholarly books and articles which span medicine, health policy, law and the social sciences. it also draws on hundreds of newspaper articles, films and other media sources. while i plan to use it for an upper division medical anthropology course that i’ve been teaching for the last seventeen years, i think it would also be suitable for courses on health policy and law, women and gender studies, and ethics. 4 ronald loewe professor of anthropology, csulb december 27, 2022 i https://publicintegrity.org/inside-publici/newsletters/watchdog-newsletter/pregnancy-loss-crime-reproductiverights/ ii https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4180095/ © 2023 ronald loewe microsoft word del nido review.docx 1 kriti kapila, 2022, nullius: the anthropology of ownership, sovereignty, and the law in india. chicago: hau books, 195 pp., isbn: 9781912808472 keywords: india, sovereignty, gift, ownership, property since marcel mauss’ the gift, our discipline has been concerned with a kind of excess: that created by the act of giving, that extra something that could not be reduced to the actual things being exchanged. in nullius, kriti kapila examines the exact obverse of the gift, or as the first sentence of the introduction asks: what is left when something is taken away? what kind of relationality is forged “in the condition of dispossession” (pg. 4)? taking away something someone else has, or could have, is an act that requires a certain power over that thing and that someone: a power over the possibilities of property and ownership, in our world held paradigmatically by the modern state. contemporary anthropology, as it happens, usually deals with the state with liberal political categories, explicitly or implicitly through the work of foucault, agamben, and within their sticky traditions. based on ethnography and historical and archival analysis of colonial india and the independent indian state, nullius examines dispossession in the key of longstanding, canonically anthropological agendas, such as debt, hospitality, indigeneity and, of course, the gift. what can an anthropology of property, sovereignty and ownership in such a key reveal that liberal political thought may not? chapters 2 and 3 (chapter 1 is the introduction) prepare the rest of the book by examining the tensions between cultural and legal subjectivities in india. the former looks at how universalising reforms introduced by the newly independent state changed the foundational principles of kinship, relationality and descent, such that “monadic calculus par(ed) down relationality” (pg. 48). the latter focuses on the pastoralist gaddi of north india to examine how legal senses of property in that constitution generated particular kinds of dispossession, for example, turning the gaddis’ identificatory relationship with the landscape into a proprietary one (pg. 58) and making it harder to involve non-agnates in estates and inheritance (pg. 71). 2 chapter 4, terra nullius, studies how the annexation of the andaman islands by the nascent independent india nullified pre-existing claims over the islands by their inhabitants. whereas imperial authorities had worked as one norm of sovereignty among other ontological equals, the postcolonial independent state was ontologically universalising; to consolidate itself as the only one, it generated an “as-if” of continuous present tense that turned islanders’ alterity (an adjacent people) into sameness (indian subjects), translating thus their claim for ownership into a “compensatory logic of welfare and upliftment” enfolded within its logics (pg. 98). chapter 5, res nullius, follows the journey made by many colonial objects to two imperial exhibitions in the mid-19th century to show how a number of exchanges removed property rights from these objects and reinscribed them in a different register, “as if there were no prior relations of title that needed to be attended to, or (…) recognized and respected” (pg. 118). corpus nullius, the sixth and last chapter, takes the logic of dispossession to the final frontier: the human body. aadhaar, the world’s largest mandatory biometric identification infrastructure, is owned by the indian state. focusing as literally as possible on the bioin biometrics – the corporeal, the vital – kapila argues that the capturing of the labours of these bodies as they open bank accounts, buy cell phones, or other daily activities forcibly registered by aadhaar further the value of the aggregated indices that allow the state to know, in the sense of apprehend, its citizens, encased in a perennial debt that has no transformative potential – simply reproduces the condition of subjection (pg. 142-149). there is a sizeable body of literature on dispossession in anthropology and sister sciences, and some of that work takes the conversation towards sovereignty. in this context, nullius’ originality is to set the concept of dispossession (not necessarily the extant body of work addressing it, and for good reason) as the counterfactual to that of the gift; its success is to take the ethnographic imagination the whole nine yards to flesh out the theoretical possibilities of this counterfactual that could have easily remained a superficial witticism. that success also hinged, partly, on walking a very tight rope. the foucauldian and agambean approaches the author chooses to sideline are by now a wholly unreflexive toolkit when studying states and sovereignty, and time and again one sees how the narrative could have fallen back on that track. for example: as the author points out in chapter 1, that liberal tradition imagines sovereignty as the ability to call for an exception, in the key of agamben's work on schmitt. kapila chooses instead to think through bataille’s notion of sovereignty as 3 emanating from the ability to act out of arbitrariness and chance (pg. 12). this distinction, made in the introduction, could seem trivial, but as the narrative develops the author harnesses these precisions to indeed sustain an actual reimagination of sovereignty beyond the heuristics of liberal thought: a state that can mostly be understood in terms of discipline is now intelligible in terms of the capture of a vital surplus, a predation, whose potentialities exceed those of the actual things being taken away. whereas certain chapters could have conveyed such an imagination without the entire scaffolding kapila has erected for her argument, for example chapters 2 and 3, the entire enterprise bears its fruits in the three chapters that give the book its name: terra nullius, res nullius, corpus nullius. the latter is exceptionally persuasive, linking the capture of vitality through photographs and voodoo dolls with biometric appropriation (pg. 152) (this chapter is also, incidentally, a remarkably original argument on data appropriation, privacy and sovereignty). although nullius is based in ethnography and archival research, it is an eminently theoretical book. it does not assume prior knowledge on the part of the reader, but it is rich in references to classical anthropology texts and their contemporary offshoots, as well as to that liberal tradition it separates itself from, so readers with a good prior knowledge of both will probably get the most out of it. it would probably work best with advanced and graduate readers working on political anthropology, economic anthropology, anthropological theory, aside from the state, data, and of course india as topical concerns. juan m. del nido is research associate at the university of cambridge’s max cam centre for ethics, economy and social change. his work examines political and economic reasoning, ethics of new technologies, economic affects, legitimacy, and neoliberal philosophy. his book taxis vs. uber: courts, markets and technology in buenos aires was recently published by stanford university press (2021). © 2023 juan m. del nido microsoft word dewan review.docx sophie chao, 2022, in the shadows of the palm: more-than-human becomings in west papua. durham: duke university press, 336 pp. isbn 978-1478018247. in the shadows of the palm explores how the marind people in west papua colonised by the indonesian state experience, conceptualise and contest the social and environmental transformations provoked by deforestation from oil palm expansion. this is a pressing subject in the current moment of global planetary environmental crises as commercial oil palm is the second largest industry driving global warming: dramatically reducing biodiversity and damaging the habitats of multiple species. through powerful vignettes and magic-like dream narration from long-term, immersive ethnographic fieldwork, sophie chao masterfully captures how these transformations reconfigure the relations of marind to each other, to other species and to their environment. in a sense, this is a book about political ecology as the marind seek redress for the violation of their land rights, their nearby environment being exploited, and themselves subjected to dispossession as the indonesian state and settler corporations accumulate profits through the expansion of oil palm and the enclosure of common lands, forests and waters. in the book, chao broadens the scope of dispossession by drawing on the strengths of ethnography and current efforts to decolonise multispecies studies. chao suggests that by taking seriously the oil palm as an agent capable of violence, not just an object of human exploitation or a passive instrument of capitalist gain, allows us to conceptualise violence as a multispecies act where humans are not always the perpetrators and nonhumans not always the victims. this argument comes from chao’s efforts to theorise ethnography and ethnographising theory by attending to how her marind companions blame oil palm itself rather than human actors only: state, settlers, soldiers, corporations and oil palm are ‘introduced and invasive’ (pp. 5-7). chapter 1 on pressure points starts with a political ecology background on land-rights struggle and state-led development through capitalist extraction of nature in upper bian. the state and corporate nodes of control over roads, military garrisons and plantations enable certain kinds of movement but interrupt the flow of organisms that enliven the forest – they impose borders so that marind people can no longer travel freely to meet their relatives in papua new guinea. this chapter has a dramatic vignette where one of the checkpoint soldiers was conducting an id-check of travellers and demanded formal papers. darius, chao’s marind companion, cut his arm and wrote his name with blood, saying “here is my identity, my blood. the blood of my land you stand on. the land you stole from my amai [plant and animal kin of marind clans], the sago and dog” (p. 36). in chapter 2, chao explores the tension between state-led mapping of the forest and marind’s own conceptualisation of living maps where “there are no straight lines in nature” (p. 53). upper bian communities have limited access to the official maps that stop their access to sacred sago groves. the chapter shows how maps not only bolster dispossession as they exclude places of cultural and spiritual significance and reduce political visibility, but also that they are ‘dead maps’ different from live maps illustrating animal movement and specific sounds as ways of understanding time and space to navigate the forests. since oil palm plantations are silent, devoid of life, marind are unable to navigate inside of them. chapter 3 “skin and wetness” is based on chao’s immersive everyday living together with marind who still maintain their kinship relations with the sago grove and the other-thanhuman beings that dwell inside it. it describes how marind become anim [human] by having ‘good skin’ and cultivating wetness (sweat, tears, blood, saliva-sharing) through physical and collective activities in the forest. skin and the flow of wetness are emic concepts that are in dialogue with symbiotic becomings, or multispecies “skinship” [kinship via skin], through the flows of shared liquids and life across species lines (p. 83). unhealthy looking skin and dry bodies reflect an imbalance that results in blockage of human and more-than-human social relations, chao argues. based on recent discussions on the materiality of pollution as well as that microbial becomings and the porosity of bodies, i wonder whether affect and oxytocin, as well as sharing of microbiomes, may also play a part in sustaining such shared personhoods. another fascinating aspect of this chapter is the phenomenon of skin changing into the form of a different animal. the gripping story of okto describes how he changed into the skin of a cassowary bird so much so over the years that his physical appearance and behaviour resembled that of a cassowary and provides insight into how being human is something that must be sustained, or it can be lost. chapter 4 on the ‘plastic cassowary’ focuses on how wild animals that due to habitat loss caused by oil palm plantations become ‘domesticates’ that lack both wetness and animal skin and are neither food nor pets. the chapter delves into the similarities between domesticates and ‘settlers’ who are muslim indonesian, as they eat ‘settler foods’ like rice, instant noodles and cookies – while marind sustain themselves from sago palm. these settler foods are seen to be plastic and defy the logic of decay and regrowth. humans and domesticates that eat plastic foods no longer participate in life-sustaining exchanges of bodily flesh and fluids (wetness and skin) of the forest. in this worldview, settlers (pendatang), plantations, products and pets are all plastic – and they also “invade and multiply” (p. 107). this chapter also illustrates a key tension of the book: who are “the marind”? one of chao’s companions stated: “there are few native marind left in merauka. all of us are becoming pendatang [settlers]” (p. 106). marind children do not speak the language, refuse to eat sago and eat noodles and rice, while young marind men and women use urban cosmetics and whitening products to conceal their papuan traits of curly hair and dark skin. other marind sell their land or seek employment on the plantations and are seen to trade marind identity for an indonesian one. this shows how diverse the interests, lifestyles and worldviews are of ‘the marind’ and how things are rapidly shifting. chapter 5 ‘sago encounters’ is an evocative description of the intimate enmeshment of marind life with the sago palm and its agency to share space with others, to produce themselves as environments for others to flourish in and from through multispecies assemblages – for marind the sago palm is kin, and eating sago is affirming their connection to other papuan people. one of chao’s companions stated: “true marind are marind who eat, encounter, and know sago.” given the way marind are becoming plastic, one then wonders, who is marind and who is not? what kind of politics of purity may this give rise, especially when both settlers and domesticates are seen as alien and invasive? in chapter 6, chao argues that unlike sago palm, oil palm refuses multispecies relations. here she develops the idea of a contrapuntal relationship between two vegetal beings: oil palm with its violence and asymmetry vs. sago palm and its harmony and complementarity. this raises the question of whether the oil palm is necessarily always bad, or if it has become a ‘monster’ due to disrupted multispecies relations as it is being forced into a plantation (c.f. tsing et al. 2017). perhaps it is the mode of planting that is the problem, rather than the oil palm itself? chapter 7 describes how chao’s interlocutors perceive oil palm to stop time and their resistance to the development narratives of new oil palm projects, while chapter 8 ‘eaten by oil palm,’ focuses on how the arrival of oil palm has resulted in an increased frequency of dreams of being eaten alive. it wraps up the intense and vivid interludes of such dreams throughout the book. by paying attention to dreams of being eaten by palm, chao sheds light on socio-psychological trauma and dispossession in the wake of settler colonial plantation expansion. marind are not only being deprived of land and money – but they are being deprived of their sovereignty, culture, identity, and a marind life world. here, chao points out how oil palm plantation and settler (plastic) life sows fissures from within: those that do not dream, are traitors. collective dream sharing thus becomes a way of foresting a collective narration to form new solidarities. overall, this is a brilliant book beautifully written based on rigorous and sensitive ethnography and sharp theoretical analysis that seamlessly blends ethnography with theory. chao’s respect and admiration for her interlocutors shines through the text and brings to life marind skinship with sago and more-than-human becomings -and how this is under threat by the oil palm as an actor of multispecies violence. in the shadows of the palm is an important contribution to environmental anthropology and will be of interest to those interested in extractive agriculture, posthumanism, indigenous studies and settler colonialism, decolonising anthropology, political ecology and development studies – both within and beyond southeast asia and papuan oceania. camelia dewan is a postdoctoral research fellow at the department of social anthropology, university of oslo on the research project life cycle of container ships: ethnographic explorations of maritime working worlds funded by the research council of norway. she holds an intercollegiate ph.d. in social anthropology and environment from the university of london (2017, soas and birkbeck college) for which she obtained the rai sutasoma award. dewan is the author of misreading the bengal delta: climate change, development and livelihoods in coastal bangladesh (2021, university of washington press). works cited: tsing, anna lowenhaupt, heather swanson, elaine gan, and nils bubandt, eds. 2017. arts of living on a damaged planet. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. © 2023 camelia dewan microsoft word rodineliussen final.doc 1 normal water jeremy j. schmidt. 2019. water. abundance, scarcity, and security in the age of humanity. new york university press: new york, 320 pp, isbn: 9781479846429 water is a thought-provoking book wherein the human geographer jeremy j. schmidt sets out on a task to retrieve a lost philosophy that he argues is the very basis for the by now common assumption that water is a resource (p. 224) – it should be emphasized that this lost philosophy is not one the author agrees with (p. 36). this narrative is told over 230 pages of intense philosophical history in the setting of the united states of america, where, as he argues, the very idea of “normal water” was born, and which is the driving force behind today’s view on water as a resource. water consists of nine chapters, divided in four parts that mostly follows the subtitle of the book: abundance, scarcity, security, and rethinking the anthropocene. prior to the chapters there is an introduction that sets the stage and they are followed by a conclusion rounding up the arguments of the book as well as situating them within a forward-looking anthropocene context. at first, it seems appropriate to define the title of this review, as it is a core concept running through the book: normal water: “a program for bringing water’s social and evolutionary possibilities into the service of liberal forms of life” (p. 4). from this definition schmidt continues to explain that, “initially, crafting a common way to think about water was accomplished by categorizing it as a resource. this classification is now so common that it appears natural, but in the united states water was not a ‘resource’ until 1909” (p. 4-5). but why does it matter that water is defined as a resource? and how did it end up that way? these are core questions of the book that schmidt takes the reader along to discover and discuss – hence, i will leave them for the reader – would hate to take away the fun! however, what i found especially interesting in the book is how schmidt illustrates the political as well as intellectual developments in the u.s. for over a decade – pointing out how the philosophy of water management became key to organize liberal ways of life first nationally, but later also as a tool for international engagement and influence (p. 71). in the first part of the book, abundance, there are three chapters. the story starts in the u.s. showing how “despite their own pretences to objectivity, water managers crafted their own myth around the belief that liberal societies are uniquely equipped to manage the vast array of social and evolutionary possibilities made available by water” (p.5). 2 water management was part of separating the colonial ties to britain, as well as of scaling up american influence internationally. in the book schmidt illustrates how water was first defined as a resource in order to be managed so that america could rise beyond european civilization, “because mastery of water was, in fact, mastery of evolutionary abundance” (p.76). the second part of the book, scarcity, consists of two chapters that lay out the idea that the once abundant water was now becoming scarce (p. 95). this was done with the intention to promote international development and spread national american liberalism abroad. for example, in chapter 4, schmidt illustrates how water management travels, when david lilienthal visited the indus basin, located between india and pakistan, in 1951 in order to broker a peaceful deal between the two countries while developing water (p. 111). dams were important as liberal powerhouses where water could be stored as a scarce resource (p. 114). but something else was needed to fully make the claim that water was a scarce resource. namely, the factor of demand had to be included (p. 115). “as abundance was buried behind large dams, the shift to scarcity appeared to happen in short order.” that water was scarce was declared already in 1977 at the un conference on water, with the “appearance of a crisis” (p. 116). however, as schmidt illustrates, there was nothing sudden about this shift, as it could be traced back to early 1900 u.s. water management schemes. from here followed the idea of “rational planning,” that meant “there was enough water – but not if this scarce resource wasn’t valued correctly” (p. 132) – by valued i understand managed. in the third part of the book, security, the readers are lead to understand how normal water goes global (ch 6) with the help of the idea of “integrated water resource management” that “took hold of the sustainable development agenda when it came to water” (p. 143). iwrm became a platform that connected management and development, looking at water as an economic resource. however, things developed and iwrm fell out of favour and got exchanged for a new concept: “the water-energy-foodclimate nexus” (ch 7). this shift takes us into the new water decade (2005-2015) and the birth of the resilience concept, as well as “blue” and “green” water (p. 168-9). the final part of the book, rethinking the anthropocene, brings the so-far historical perspective of the book into the present. illustrating how the “lost philosophy” now retrieved is crucial for our future-thinking in the anthropocene, schmidt writes: “disrupting the naturalization of process and the social pretences that position liberal forms of life as uniquely equipped to manage geological contingencies is the political task of the anthropocene” (p. 201). this is partly done by recognizing that water defined as a resource is now haunting us as a “premature naturalization of process” (p. 206). as one of his closing arguments schmidt argues, “social scientists should refuse the notion that water resources is a neutral category” (p. 229). 3 before closing this review, let me state the book's relevance for the anthropology book forum, as well as note who the interested reader might be. schmidt is well-travelled in anthropological theory and engages anthropological theoretical debates throughout the book. moreover, many of the key protagonists of his story are in fact early anthropologists such as wj mcgee (schmidt stresses that mcgee did not want any punctuations in order to save ink), who was president of the american anthropological association from 1902-1912. the book does also engage, among others, margaret mead and franz boas. so, for the interested anthropological reader – there is much historical food for thought. water is going to be of interest to scholars of water, international development, american history, liberalism, and not least for those interested in the anthropocene. the book is not a light read, as it is philosophically and theoretically heavy, so i would recommend it for graduate courses and post-graduate scholars as well as for a general reader that is not a novice to the subject. i want to add a caveat; exactly because this book is so packed with historical and philosophical knowledge it is not the easiest book to review. not because i do not like it – i do! – but choosing what to take away from the book was difficult. hence, readers of this review might find that many important points are left out. i do not, for example, mention: “earth-making” (p. 45), “the people” (ch 3), the “international hydrological decade” (p. 118), or the tennessee valley authority (p. 118). some gems are still hidden in this dense but important read. to end, let us ask one of the most important questions of the book, what is water comprised of? according to schmidt (p. 33), scientists cannot agree on what “water” is – so how could a simple review define such a grand question? rasmus rodineliussen is a phd student at the department of social anthropology, stockholm university. his current research lies within the domain/intersection of environmental anthropology and political ecology focusing on the relationship between water and waste. he has worked with migration and refugee studies, mainly focusing on syria. rasmus has published in peer-reviewed journals such as anthropology now, anthrovision, irish journal of anthropology, and visual studies and is currently co-editor of the anthropology book forum. © 2021 rasmus rodineliussen microsoft word lennon review.docx 1 caterina scaramelli, how to make a wetland: water and moral ecology in turkey. stanford, california: stanford university press, 2021. 240 p. ibsn 978-1-5036-1540-3. keywords: environmental anthropology, turkey, infrastructure, political ecology, water, more-than-human wetlands are one of the biomes that have suffered most under the auspices of modernisation and development, having often been imagined as antithetical to progress as places of disease, stagnation, and illegality. now, they are having a mild renaissance, becoming worried over and emerging as potent terrain for new struggles. in how to make a wetland, caterina scaramelli takes us through the histories of two turkish wetlands, the gediz (outside i̇zmir, on the aegean; the focus of the first three chapters) and kızılırmak (near samsun, on the black sea; the focus of the latter two chapters), demonstrating how they have been continually politically, materially, and culturally remade through the moral claims of various groups. scaramelli’s core thesis is that wetlands, as category and material environment, are not given, but made. her explorations of both wetlands examine this making by unveiling the historical contingencies around this process, periodising the wetlands’ histories to demonstrate the changing imaginaries around it; from malarial threat and developmentalist obstacle, to birders’ paradises and scientific marvels, to nationally vital conservation areas. this takes us through their turbulent political lives, from swamps and marshes that were understood as desolate and dangerous geographies to be ‘civilised’ and rendered productive, to wetlands, presently chiefly taken as biomes whose preservation is imperative and that must be managed stringently. however, this layered history importantly tracks how in each iteration of the ‘wetland,’ it is not a simple and sharp transition, but a muddled one, with tools and logics repurposed from previous projects and visions (p. 14). scaramelli suggests moral ecology as a theoretical lens to help elucidate this (ongoing) process, using it to interrogate the “forms of ecological practice and thought in which morality—the concern with what is of value in life—is at stake” (p. 10). she argues that the root of many 2 people’s claims and actions within these wetlands are moral, though clarifies that “moral understandings of ecology […] are not necessarily emancipatory, inclusive, progressive, or sustainable” (p. 85); instead, it just foregrounds that people’s understandings and practices are undergirded by an affective relation with elements of the wetland, complicating our understanding of scientists, farmers, birders, urbanites, and conservationists’ intents and interactions within the wetland, and shows how alliances, camaraderie, and rivalries can form and fade on the basis of affective pressures. this is smoothy melded together in scaramelli’s use of ‘care’ as a concept, which emphasises both affect and practice, to show that different actors’ projects are multiple, intersecting, and, often, contrasting (p. 121). fundamentally, her approach hones into the fairly precise point that “moral ecological claims are connected to the imagination and control of material processes” (p. 83). these moral claims are not made on an abstracted wetland, though; scaramelli identifies two chief proxies for these moral conflicts: infrastructure and non-humans, in chapter three and five, respectfully (although, the wetland itself is a proxy for wider nationalist discourses [p. 14]). it is in discussing these two subjects and the moral contentions around them that she most interestingly nuances and advances understandings of their roles in human politics. with infrastructure, she contends that there is no binary to ecology and infrastructure, and that her interlocutors did not conceive of the “delta ecology outside its built infrastructure, yet they saw different connections and attributed contrasting moral salience to the changing delta” (p. 88). this is a large thrust of the work: that there is not a binary between infrastructure and ecology, but ecologies are made through infrastructure, such as dams, irrigation projects, bridges, and bike paths, and ecological interventions can be infrastructural, such as with flamingo islands and wild horses. she maintains they cannot be meaningfully divorced from one another, as infrastructures alter ecologies, becoming parts of them, and ecologies are infrastructural. this is a valuable point that advances a more nuanced understandings of disputes around infrastructure, recasting what could be flatly resisted as ‘damaging’ as instead more multifaceted and variably contested. for scaramelli animals, too, are “lively proxies for the profound questions of environmental politics” (p. 159), taking an approach that acknowledges and interrogates their participation in and imbrication with human societies, while not unduly lingering on their agency or influence. she consistently foregrounds human protagonists and how they use and invoke animals in their 3 moral claims, detailing how conversations about animals were actually “everyday politics extended to nonhuman animals but not fully detached from human politics” (p. 135). they are not relegated to a subordinate or overdetermined role, however, as she highlights that animal practices are not reflective of human concerns, but instead that “the valuation and governance of animals… are intrinsic to human politics” (p. 135, emphasis added). this is a constructive framing of nonhumans’ roles in politics: maintaining a vital and fundamental place within politics, but does not smother them by insisting they are our echo. she positions all of this within a complex web of ecological relationships, leaning into metaphors of water and amphibiousness to emphasise the flow of and entanglements in these environments; how the “wetland itself muddles, sediments, and transforms the political” (p. 14). this can sometimes slide into an overdetermination of the landscape’s influence upon politics—is the inability for national politics to be cleanly reflected in the wetland because the wetland is particularly complicating, over other environments, or because there is nothing clear-cut to reflect? nonetheless, the creative usage is evocative, and functions well as an aid to her exposition and theorising. overall, scaramelli advances several interesting perspectives throughout the text, but could have benefitted from subjecting her concept of moral ecology to a more sustained dialogue with political ecology. conceptually, political ecology is present, but foggily, only openly addressed in the closing pages where it is asserted that moral ecology may be an aid to political ecology’s longevity in the present era through its changed focus to moral claims (p. 170). lacking this more substantive case, the moral ecology’s contribution is left somewhat imprecise, instead seeming more to be an advancement of political ecologies already extant emphasis on moral claims implicit in ‘politics.’ how to make a wetland is a fine-grained and rich ethnography of a politically and materially muddled terrain, and scaramelli provides several compelling ideas to enrich understandings of varied people in their variable environment. it ought to be of interest to those engaged in infrastructural and environmental politics, the anthropology of water, and political ecology more widely, as well as those interested in specifically turkey, its environment, or politics. gabriel urlich lennon is from aotearoa/new zealand. he is a graduate of the ma programme in the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. his thesis 4 focused on the process of constructing fictional worlds and the ontological disruptions this generates. © 2022 gabriel urlich lennon microsoft word the accidental ecosystem.docx 1 alagona, peter s. the accidental ecosystem: people and wildlife in american cities. university of california press. isbn: 9780520386310 what does it mean to be a ‘good’ urban animal? is there a coexistence code of conduct that one has to learn? since animals can’t read municipal or homeowners’ associations’ notices, how can the rules of the game, set by humans, be meaningfully communicated to wild animals? in ‘accidental ecosystem,’ peter s. alagona makes the case that an interspecies etiquette goes both ways. it’s also a work in progress: indeed, a matter of “actively trying to work out a new ethic for living with animals” (p. 99). in accidental ecosystem we learn that there may, in fact, be such thing as a ‘good’ urban animal, insofar as good means adaptable. just as domesticated animals become ‘friend-shaped’ (neotenous and round), urban animals quite quickly differentiate from their wildland cousins by often becoming fatter, having more offspring, living longer, becoming bolder, louder and more curious. birds adjust their pitch to drown out traffic noise. black bears become less territorial and more willing to compromise for grub. at the same time, coexisting with humans is a tightrope walk. when urban animals transgress some unwritten code of conduct, by coloring outside the lines – behaviorally, trophically or geographically – they are put in their place in various disciplinary mechanisms and practices: lethal control, hazing campaigns, relocations, or naming and shaming in the media as rowdy rebels. a standout of the book is that these disciplinary responses to unwanted urban animal presences are depicted with a brutal honesty and cover all of the united states. as a result, accidental ecosystem makes clear they are not well-coordinated interventions, but all too often a “long drawn out, costly, violent, ineffective and largely pointless boondoggle (p. 170). this failure to communicate with urban wild animals is owed to several things, we learn throughout. first, urban ecology, while it is improving, is still systematically ignored, underfunded and set aside for study of pristine nature with a capital n. second, unlike in the countryside, where landowners steward their own properties, there is no clear mandate for who is to manage wildlife in the city, nor is there a clear revenue stream for doing so. 2 a latent theme of accidental ecosystem is mobility: learning to moderate one’s mobility as a wild animal. but mobility can also be used as a weapon: blocking roads, climbing poles to chew off power cables, opting to nest in undesirable places. as mavhunga (2011) tells, an animal’s success depends on the management of its mobility. this becomes exceedingly important for an urban animal. in examining pest control and culling, alagona argues that the “decision to launch a response should depend on an animal’s behavior—whether it appeared injured or sick or was acting aggressively—and not its mere presence.” in so declaring, he taps into what scholars of wildlife management understand to be a categorical vs situational rationale for culling various animals (crowley et al., 2018). categorical is when the mere presence of an animal triggers lethal control—it is simply a matter of out place. invasive species fit the bill. situational is when coexistence is the ambition, but an individual animal has not managed to stay in its lane. it may have demonstrated excess boldness, predated on domestic animals, or shown willingness to interbreed with pets. this conditionality of coexistence is a theme well worth scholarly attention today. along with mobility, there is a general geographical strand in the book, focusing on ecological infrastructures, waterways, zoos as ‘pulling’ sites for wild animals, suburban interfaces, road crossings, changing ideas of animal territory and fragmented habitats. alagona also has a metabolic strand, which could perhaps be teased out more, that declares “you are what you eat” (p. 90) and documents the novel trophic interactions in which urban animals engage. this is illustrated also historically: the dung produced by horses, left on victorian city streets, provided breeding ground for parasites, diseases and odors. today and tomorrow, the ‘emerging’ character of zoonotic diseases, which proliferate in dense, multispecies congregations—like the urban—dominates the agenda and fears around biosecurity. certain species are more suited as vectors, amplifiers, or sentinels of such diseases than others. getting an environmental philosopher’s take on the ecology and epidemiology of this proves highly digestible. tapping into the ostensive irrationality of human-wildlife relations more broadly, we also see how some species get excessively blamed or scapegoated for various messes and harms to public health, compared to actual culprits. the concept of waste is central in a straightforward way: it is the foundation for much wildlife to congregate in human areas. waste may be thought of as a hotspot for human-wildlife relations. managing waste is essential to managing wildlife. alagona traces the rise of this general philosophy well; that is, a gradual reorientation from treating the symptoms of an illness, nuisance wildlife, to addressing underlying causes. this is connected to what wildlife 3 managers now informally refer to as a bottom up or ‘field of dreams’ approach (after the kevin costner movie quote: “if you build it they will come”). addressing habitat is the key issue. you can make an ecosystem ‘boring’ to animals to deter them, as has characterized airport design (bauer et al., 2019), and you can make it juicy by throwing in what alagona later calls subsidies: resources coming in from outside the ecosystem – such as a feeding station. the notion that we can manage and improve our relations with wild animals via managing habitat is a hopeful and doable one, as we are not there yet. the book’s strength is in showing how this is not enough, and that sometimes we need to deal with problem animals that arrive in our midst, and these responses have historically been pretty amusing. broad trends on nature relations are described, and show how changing aesthetic ideals and attitudes to wilderness inform the city’s response to wildlife. urban animals can become famous, made into mascots, turned into social media accounts, broadcast via nest cameras to livestreams. this has been picked up and made relevant in the context of covid lockdown by turnbull et al. (2020) in ‘quarantine encounters with digital animals,’ where intimacy without proximity is achieved through the screen. some examples of especially memorable urban animals in this book, with whom the public has formed a mediated attachment, include the pittsburgh bald eagles (whose nest is livestreams), cows and bulls that escape from the abattoir to become vigilantes and pedals the bipedal bear in new jersey. the latter also had a strong social media presence, which worked against him: a hunter stalked out his whereabouts online and killed him with a bow and arrow. the people who are sent to deal with these animals—to reason with them by appeal to the interspecies etiquette—are also mentioned. “bear whisperer” steve searles and his hazing campaign of black bears in los angeles in the mid-1990s provides the perhaps most intriguing scholarly point of entry. his quote to the la times, that “dead bears learn nothing” points to a potential shift from the shoot first, ask questions later approach that has characterized pest control in the past, to one of communicating the rules of the game through aversive conditioning—rubber bullets, bats, shouting, noisemakers and more. is communicating across species boundaries with clear signals that are intelligible across different species’ perceptual umwelts (von uexküll, 1992), the way forward for coexistence, then, i ask? it may appear absurd to expect this of animals, but the fact is we do operate with the expectation. alagona quotes caddyshack the movie, in which bill murray’s groundskeeper says of the nuisant gopher on the golf course “i think it’s about time somebody teach these varmints a little lesson about 4 morality and what it’s like to be a decent, upstanding member of a society” (p. 169). clearly, we have an ambition to teach wild animals. the book concludes with a beautiful metaphor: the author finds a robin’s nest that is a perfect “postmodern collage” (p. 213) of scraps of napkins, paper towels, cigarette butts, nylon and aluminum foil. it reconnects to the concept of waste, of sharing space, of hybridities. the stories told of multispecies encounters in cities are the grand narratives and sensational events. if the book has a blind spot, therefore, it is in its omission of those everyday vernacular encounters with wild animals that escape viral media. projects like ‘meet your wild neighbors,’ collating urbanites’ garden camera footage of unexpected wild critters, and accounts of feeding wild boar in cities (kowalewska, 2019), should going forward lend ethnographic on the ground detail to this philosopher’s account. indeed, it is perhaps in the everyday individual encounters that are the locus of the truly accidental. works cited: bauer s, güttler n and schlünder m (2019) encounters in borderlands: borderlining animals and technology at frankfurt airport. environmental humanities 11(2): 247-279. crowley sl, hinchliffe s and mcdonald ra (2018) killing squirrels: exploring motivations and practices of lethal wildlife management. environment and planning e: nature and space 1(1-2): 120-143. kowalewska a (2019) feral urban wild boars: managing spaces of conflict with care and attention. przegląd kulturoznawczy 4(42): 524-538. mavhunga cc (2011) mobility and the making of animal meaning the kinetics of “vermin” and “wildlife” in southern africa. in: kalof l and montgomery gm (eds) making animal meaning. michigan state university press, pp.17-44. turnbull j, searle a and adams w (2020) quarantine encounters with digital animals: morethan-human geographies of lockdown life. journal of environmental media 1: 6.16.10. von uexküll j (1992) a stroll through the worlds of animals and men: a picture book of invisible worlds. erica von essen is an associate professor of environmental communication, who works with changing human-wildlife relations in the anthropocene at the social anthropology department of stockholm university. her research examines new roles that animals come to play in society, with new moral implications and manifestations of multispecies encounters. 5 © 2022 erica von essen microsoft word dornisch review.docx 1 language, religion, and learning to embrace the human lifecourse anna i. corwin, 2021, embracing age: how catholic nuns became models of aging well. new brunswick: rutgers university press, 180 pp., isbn 978-1-9788-2227-6 keywords: aging, religion, death, language, well-being embracing age is a masterful ethnography of convent life illuminating the linguistic, psychological, and cultural processes that shape the late-life experiences of franciscan sisters in the american midwest. it is a 188-page, soft-cover volume in the global perspectives on aging series, edited by sarah lamb. the author, dr. anna corwin, a linguistic and psychological anthropologist, draws from a decade of ethnographic visits to the assisted living and infirmary halls of a catholic convent to unveil the sociolinguistic and historical contexts that support nuns’ well-being through the lifecourse. this synthetic work culminates corwin’s previous publications into a central claim that anthropological methods and theory illuminate the way nuns socially and linguistically embrace age to experience well-being despite age-related decline. the compelling applicability of corwin’s conclusions make embracing age a critical read for social scientists, clinicians, and thoughtful humans alike. in a society obsessed with “successful aging,” but caught in a paradox that inhibits its realization, scholars like corwin serve as trustworthy guides as they blend humanities and science into works of vital significance. the book’s introduction welcomes the reader with a clear and concise substantive foundation. key bodies of anthropological scholarship include language socialization, especially the work of linguistic anthropologist elinor ochs, and on the anthropology of aging, the work of cultural anthropologist sarah lamb. david snowdon’s epidemiological work with nuns’ health, and medical anthropological scholarship on pain and healing are frequently referenced. corwin’s 2 commitment to clarity and accessibility is fully displayed in the introduction and consistently reinforced throughout the text. her first-person perspective is reflective and sometimes vulnerable, transmitting the deep humanity and ultimate importance of her research questions. the book’s ethnographic content is organized into two parts and seven chapters. part i describes the processes of life in the convent, particularly the social and spiritual, and connects these processes to the nuns’ experience of aging and well-being. part i is stylistically intimate and weaves the reader into rich dialog with the author and ethnographic interlocutors. part ii deploys a more scholarly style to expand analysis to the complex social and historical unfoldings through which the nuns have lived and aged. the chapters include carefully selected and analyzed linguistic transcriptions collected during the fieldwork to enliven the scholarship and scaffold the reader to participation in the analytic process. each chapter concludes with a concise but comprehensive summary of the key points. following part ii is a holistic conclusion connecting the scholarly concepts to sensible applications. this first edition is printed in small type-font with tight line spacing, making for light and easy handling, but difficult visual reading. part i includes four chapters that connect the nuns’ ideologies and practices to their experience of aging by describing the ethnographic field and tenets of linguistic analysis. chapter 1 outlines the physical, social, and temporal elements of the convent. nuns’ life history narratives and the author’s own story of arrival and integration leads the reader to the space, the rhythms, and divine presence at the convent of the franciscan sisters of the sacred heart. chapter 2 explores cultural and scholarly discourses on aging and well-being, contrasting the dominant discourse on successful aging with the nuns’ practice of embracing aging. corwin concludes that americans’ cultural concept of successful aging is actually better described as an anti-aging model where value in old age is ascribed using the same neoliberal principles of independence and productivity that drive value throughout adult life. the nun’s exceptional well-being in late life is attributed to the rejection of this anti-aging paradigm and an acceptance of inevitable declines in independence and productivity. methods for assessing the nuns’ well-being, including a quality of life questionnaire and the resulting score ranges, are also included in this chapter. chapter 3 directs an anthropological lens to the prayer practices in the convent to show the multimodal functions of prayer. public intercessions communicate the presence of god and social support of fellow sisters 3 while linguistically socializing attitudes on age, suffering, and death. these prayer practices serve as a way of both teaching and learning how to embrace age. chapter 4 describes the communicative strategies used to uphold meaningful engagement in the convent as some sisters experience declines in cognitive and communication function. this chapter produces clinical and social applications by elucidating the importance of avoiding elderspeak and detailing how meaningful engagement is maintained with jokes, blessings, and narratives. these conversational forms limit communicative burdens on cognitively impaired interlocutors by eliminating the necessity of sophisticated responses. this chapter is insightful, complimenting therapeutic literature on cognitive-communication disorders to reveal the unique power of linguistic and cultural analysis through ethnography. part ii includes three chapters to describe the social and historical changes in catholic ideology and convent practices that shaped the nuns’ life course and their experience of aging, suffering, and death. catholic reformations in the 1960s, known as vatican ii, resulted in significant ideological, institutional, and habitual changes that impacted nearly all aspects of life in the convent. this historical restructuring in catholicism, through which many of the ethnographic informants lived, is central to the sociohistorical analyses of part ii. chapter 5 analyzes nuns’ narratives to track how habitual prayer practices have shaped their perspective on god and their own bodily vulnerabilities. pre-vatican ii, god was interpreted as a distant authority who allocated pain. transformed prayer practices reframed god as an intimate caregiver who exists within and in support of a suffering body. this non-punitive and amoralistic reevaluation of god’s involvement in suffering casts painful aging as an opportunity for divine comfort and communion. chapter 6 tracks the still-developing and sometimes conflicting understanding of healing within and between catholic ideology and biomedicine. the aging nuns work to reconcile the contemporary medical model of pain as a problem-to-solve with the theological notion of pain as inevitable and spiritually opportunistic. still a work in progress, the nuns balance conflicting biomedical and catholic prescriptions by engaging with both medical and spiritual modes of healing to maximally respect their own bodily divinity. chapter 7 explores the theological notion of kenosis, the emptying out of oneself, as central to the sisters’ vows and practices of poverty, chastity, and obedience. vatican ii resulted in individually variable levels of change in the meaning and practice of these vows, which are shown to influence how the nuns relate to material goods 4 and self-determinism in later life. corwin argues that kenosis and acceptance are linked and essential to nuns’ ability to embrace age. nuns who remained committed to kenotic practices throughout their lives are better prepared to accept the inevitable age-related losses in ability and independence. a conclusion to the book emphasizes how anthropology reveals the interconnected cultural, historical, and habituated practices that shape the nuns’ exceptional level of peace and joy in latelife. while noting the specificity of context in which the nuns enjoy a rich and connected aging experience, corwin offers seven lessons to the reader that revolve around embracing age through social and linguistic habituated practices. like a well-packed bag, embracing age thoughtfully includes all necessities without unwieldy intellectual distractions or jargonistic burdens. corwin’s writing maintains clarity and conciseness throughout, using minimal words to effectively carry great meaning. embracing age establishes anna corwin as a masterful writer and inspirational guide to a future of well-being. seth dornisch is a phd student in biocultural anthropology at the university of massachusetts amherst. his research focuses on well-being through life course transitions, particularly on the role of religion, place, and materiality in late-life and death. he is a licensed speech-language pathologist specialized in gerontology. © 2022 seth dornisch brothers and sisters in christ review by kristina helgesson kjellin for anthropology book forum todne, t. 2021. kincraft. the making of black evangelical sociality. durham and london: duke university press. what comes to your mind when you hear the words “american evangelical churches”? maybe you immediately get images of megachurches with predominantly white members with conservative opinions on various matters. maybe the most recent, former american president also turns up in your images, together with his supporters at big rallies. and maybe in your mind you already “know” exactly what these people think, for instance when it comes to family matters. well, i can say that all those images come to my mind very quickly when i hear those three words, and this despite the fact that i, for more than 20 years, have studied churches (not evangelical however, but pentecostal and lutheran), and by my training and experience knows very well that reality is always much more complex than we think it is. when i read “kincraft. the making of black evangelical sociality,” by todne thomas (2021), i am quickly reminded of the strength of the stereotypes regarding certain forms of religiosity, as well as of how important it is with close ethnographic studies in order to do away with misconceptions and broaden our understanding and knowledge of the world. todne thomas, phd, is a socio-cultural anthropologist and associate professor of african american religious studies at harvard divinity school. building on fieldwork carried out during thirteen months from 2007 to 2008 in one afro-caribbean (dixon bible chapel, dbc) and one african american church association (corinthian bible chapel, cbc) in the metropolitan area of atlanta, thomas explores and analyses “church members’ spiritual definitions and enactments of family” (p. 2). the two congregations, dbc and cbc, come out of plymouth brethrenism, a british evangelical movement that was established in the 1830s and in the 1860s and 1870s through missionary work spread to, among other places, the caribbean. the plymouth brethren emphasized the importance of small, local, and independent congregations, with male elder governance and leadership, with a strong focus on the priesthood of every believer, biblical teaching and evangelism. through the missionary work starting in the 1950s, by among others, t. michael flowers, an afro-bahamian evangelist, dbc and cbc were founded. while black americans at the time migrated in the other direction, flowers decided to migrate south. according to thomas, “flowers’s missionary work endeavored a textual reformation of a stereotyped charismatic african american christianity and an institutional reformation of a cloistered white evangelicalism” (p. 59). she emphasizes the importance of studying missionary work in closeness to context and to what happens at the microlevel, in order to deepen and broaden our understanding of missionary historiography. thomas describes how black evangelicals have had to navigate and find their own space in the landscape of churches in the u.s., between on the one hand white evangelicals who dominate the image of american evangelical churches, and on the other hand, the dominant understandings of the “black church.” throughout the study she shows how “family” is much more than just biology and something in the private lives of people. rather, “family,” in the context of these evangelical congregations, is constituted collectively, through spiritual bonds that create spiritual kinship, and in relation to experiences of migration and of belonging to a transnational diaspora. through various practices, what thomas calls “kincraft,” church members construct themselves as “brothers and sisters in christ,” as “spiritual kin.” by addressing one another as “brothers” and “sisters” spiritual connections are prioritized over social distinctions, and it also signals inclusion, belonging, and identity. these familial connections transcend racial, ethnic, and denominational boundaries, although these boundaries are also highly tangible in the lives of the members of the two congregations. thomas describes how the processes of kincraft take place through, for instance bible studies, and through the incorporation of church and home. the gender dimension is central to how community and family relations is being formed in these various settings. home bible studies are, as thomas phrases it, “important sites for social interaction” (p. 121), where men play a crucial role. it is the male members that lead the bible studies, teach and preach, while women are not to take on leading roles in gatherings where both women and men are present. instead, women play decisive roles when it comes to how spiritual relationships are crafted “in and across households, such as prayer partnerships and spiritual parenting ties, that infuse a sense of intimacy and familiarity into community sociality” (p. 135). although they stay in the congregations and thus accept the given order, in conversations with thomas some of the women express criticism towards the exclusion of women from official leadership positions, from speaking and teaching in mixed-sex groups, and towards the theological understanding of the submission of women. despite the reproduction of these traditional gender roles and norms of family patterns, thomas argues that the study of black evangelical spiritual kinship can help us to deconstruct and be critically conscious of “the contexts and frames of conventional western heteronormative notions of kinship” (p. 19). family, as she points out, is much more than the nuclear biological family; the extended family ethos mediated through spiritual kinship is crucial to how these evangelicals understand family and community, where the histories of migration and diaspora need to be taken into account. the productions of kinship, as thomas states, happen “in and beyond normative frames” (p. 19) and these perspectives challenge conventional understandings of family and kinship. “kincraft” is a rich and thorough study, and in inspirational ways thomas combines kinship studies with studies of religion and spirituality. she argues for a broad understanding of relatedness: “[t]he migrations and kinship tracing of dbc and cbc evangelicals reveals that fields of religion and spirituality provide grammars and rituals by which vital forms of relatedness can be created and described” (p. 49). taking these forms of relatedness seriously is also to legitimize “some of the social ties that have been vital to black social life” (p. 49). thomas also gives an honest account of her own prejudice towards evangelicalism, and describes a situation when she, after her fieldwork, when she had gone through a divorce, is contacted by her “spiritual parents,” brother and sister stewart. she expects to hear their judgement regarding her divorce and family situation, instead they show, through the conversation, that they share a spiritual kinship with one another. there is nothing of the judgmental attitude that she feared. she writes: “even though i was writing a book that examined the ways in which black evangelicals produced family beyond “the family,” even though i had experienced what it meant to be accepted by this community, i still fell into the assumption that our relationship would be contingent upon my successful maintenance of a heteronormative marriage” (p. 200-201). this brings me back to my introductory reflections on the strength of stereotypes and of how important it is with studies like this. as thomas ends by stating, there is much to be learned from the members of dbc and cbc. instead of privileging individualistic and nuclear family wellbeing, the members of dbc and cbc form kinship ties and practices of reciprocity that go beyond the nuclear family, and also beyond the nation state through transnational ties. not least are these ways of creating kinship and relations important in a situation such as a pandemic, when nationalism and closing in on ourselves sadly seem to have won over generosity and reciprocity. kristina helgesson kjellin is associate professor in cultural anthropology at church of sweden research department and uppsala university. she has done research on south african pentecostalism, on the consequences of missionary work, and most recently on the role of churches in relation to issues of migration and integration in the swedish society. © 2021 kristina helgesson kjellin microsoft word fisher review.docx 1 eds. by hanna garth and ashanté m. reese, 2020, black food matters: racial justice in the wake of food justice, university of minnesota press, 302 pp. isbn 978-1-51790814-0 keywords: black space, food geographies, food politics, food justice, food deserts black food matters: racial justice in the wake of food justice is an anthology consisting of articles by authors exploring phenomenon around black food access, food geographies, and food justice, while challenging food justice practices that actively contribute to the cultural erasure and displacement of blackness for the sake of what alternative food justice movements deem to be adequately “healthy” or “quality.” while explaining what food justice can mean from black perspectives, authors make a point of including the historical persistence of black food cultures in america’s food system that has not prioritized sustaining black bodies since its formation. mobility, entrepreneurship, cultural resilience, and black ingenuity are some of the few concepts explored by authors as they define the varying means of how black food matters in an anti-black food system. to introduce the book, editors hanna garth and ashanté m. reese challenge the misconception that the only way to understand black relationships with food is through its absence (p. 5). this is often defended with the history of soul food, however, it does not include forms of food access present in several black communities that are often overlooked by non-community members. the post-slavery importance of black entrepreneurship for economic security and stability in “chocolate cities” (cities with large populations of black people) has a solid basis in growing and selling food. the formation of “hucksters,” food trucks, and small grocery stores not only created food access in black districts without chain grocery stores during the jim crow era, but also continued food cultures, built community, supported black economics, and formed resilience. different authors of the chapters exploring various food geographies provide similar accounts of entrepreneurship within black food cultures. 2 andrew newman and yuson jung successfully evaluate common criteria for defining what must be absent for an area to be deemed a food desert. this includes consideration of how the words “access " and "quality" are perceived by outsiders that can overlook long-standing black entrepreneurship which provides food for the community through alternative means other than large-scale grocery stores. common overlooked methods include mobile grocery stores, and smallscale grocery stores. the authors explain how “quality” in food justice often references the store's aesthetic appearance and environment while shopping. the lack of consideration for smaller-scale grocers while deeming an area a food desert directly discredits black grocers providing food for the community (p. 141). when gentrification occurs, neighborhood markets unable to upkeep aesthetics against wealthier competitors can no longer survive, in-part, due to a perceived “lower quality.” overlooked entrepreneurship is reiterated throughout the book, but significantly in bill hall’s chapter exploring the displacement and exotification of black food geographies in miami. marketable areas for black food that provide the best aesthetic experience receive government funding to renovate businesses and bring in more tourists. the restaurants and shops able to provide this were largely wealthier gentrifiers who financially invested in businesses because of what the area's history could bring in tourism profits. older, black shops providing culturally significant food to the community are greatly affected and displaced by gentrification, as gentrifiers and tourists benefit from a romanticization of “jim crow era” black food geographies in which the black community of reference is no longer able to financially survive (p. 173). the gentrification of black food geographies in miami reveal the importance of food sovereignty within the food justice movements rather than only “quality.” food can be a healing means of cultural longevity, and hanna garth highlights the importance of avoiding cultural erasure when participating in food justice. garth was told to not reference her favorite food, macaroni and cheese, because her co-worker deemed it too “unhealthy” to mention to children in a food justice program and denied the food’s significance in black food culture. the co-workers refusal of the food’s cultural importance for black people and enforcement of her own ideologies of “health” are common anti-black practices in food justice movements. the food 3 justice movement’s emphasis on “justice” fights for food access, but more importantly the restoration of choice for black populations. the opportunity to choose along with food access allows people to participate in food cultures, build community, and/or health from cultural, psychologically based traumas (p. 84). the restoration of access, choice, and education provides food justice in the form of food sovereignty (p. 97). the black panther party and community services unlimited (csu) are uplifted in several chapters for their inclusive and cultural proficiency when fighting for food justice. the black panther party provided food for families and children experiencing poverty as a means of social activism. they were able to acknowledge the interdisciplinary aspects of what makes food culturally important and healing to the community that they were a part of. they avoided cultural erasure or whitewashing and brought food sovereignty to the community. csu in los angeles originates from the initial black panther party food justice program and continues the same cultural understanding of restorative justice through food sovereignty (p. 116). csu attempts to holistically serve communities with the same mission as the black panthers, “serving the people, body and soul” (p. 117). the two organizations' understanding and incorporation of blackness in food justice programs avoids the cultural erasure seen by garth when participating in food justice and actively includes the community in each level of decision making. growing food for self-preservation and survival is greatly valued by descendants with gullah geechee heritage in south carolina. gillian richards-greaves highlights community members' value of self-sustained food security due to the government’s historical forgetfulness of black people in times of war or political conflict. their access to land and horticultural knowledge created food sovereignty for individuals and for the community. access to land greatly aided in the creation of food sovereignty in south carolina, although land access is scarce in urban environments. monica m. white details the activism to create urban agriculture in detroit to increase food access and green space. the ingenuity and activism of black women to create urban gardening spaces is another example of resilience against the anti-black food system. the constant continuation of community collaboration, activism, and entrepreneurship centering food lies within the beauty of black food cultures. 4 the authors' research and interpretations of food culture, food geographies, and food justice were extremely enlightening in challenging common anti-black missteps in food justice and changing how food justice should be approached in black spaces. its evaluation of differentiating cultures, geographies, and people reveal the common theme of the outstanding resiliency of blackness and black food cultures. approaching food justice in black spaces should encompass food sovereignty through choice, education, and access to avoid cultural erasure. azure fisher is an environmental science master’s student at california state university, dominguez hills. her research focuses on empirical evidence of environmental phenomena alongside the experience of marginalization. she currently works in the csudh office of sustainability as an education intern, helping to educate community members on various sustainability topics including food justice, environmental injustice, and cultural sustainability. © 2023 azure fisher microsoft word salih review (final).docx 1 / sonia ahsan-tirmizi. 2021. pious peripheries: runaway women in post-taliban afghanistan. standford, ca: standford university press. 239 pp. (isbn: 9781503614710). keywords: afghan women, taliban, khana-yi-aman, landay, promiscuous modernity, honor, ethics, piety, selfhood. pious peripheries opens with the question of what happened to the runway muslim women living in khana-yi-aman (“home of safety”) after the second fall of afghanistan back to the rule of the taliban regime in 2021. the work of ahsan-tirmizi is a deeply anthropological endeavor in both thought and content. it unveils the underexplored narratives behind a shelter built to host afghan women who have run away from their homes for different reasons (including abuse, rape, and violence). the shelter was established by the ministry of women's affairs (mowa) in 2001 to handle women’s rights issues in afghanistan. now, the mowa has been replaced with the ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice in september 2021. ahsan-tirmizi’s ethnographic articulations as both a participant observer and an empathized activist, and her autoethnographic insights as an insider woman who can speak pashto through seventeen years of growing up in peshawar, provide unparalleled richness to the text. at the backdrop of wider scholarship on islam and feminism, particularly related to the taliban and afghanistan, ahsan-tirmizi takes the promiscuous self of the runaway muslim woman as a central aspect of the project, looking beyond the binary understanding of tradition and modernity and affirming the idea that the everyday struggles of afghan women are not limited to the consolidation of norms and their subversion. the study consists of six chapters, which are painstakingly written with first-hand accounts of khana-yi-aman in kabul. the first three chapters are ethnographic illustrations of khana-yiaman and the diverse modes of struggles taking place there. the following three chapters speak about three power structures: taliban, pashtuwali, and islam, and the configuring meanings of piety, chastity, and promiscuity in both taliban and non-taliban (feminist and modernist) literature. additionally, the introductory part highlights major theoretical and methodological inputs that make this text unique, such as dismantling the binary between tradition and modernity and proposing the notion of the promiscuous modern, connecting how running away is interwoven with sexual transgression through the views of the taliban and the state. the conclusion reveals the intellectual goal behind the project which is not to give voice to the women, but to talk about the ambivalent everyday struggles of the runaway women within the context of gendered piety in afghanistan. the first chapter, shelter, delves into the structure of khana-yi-aman and its ordinary operations in governing the everyday lives of the runaway women. the home was essentially viewed as a house for women who were categorized as adulterous or promiscuous and acted as a halfway house between prison and community reintegration. ahsan-tirmizi conveys a 2 paradox regarding this institution: on one hand, taliban supporters believe that women's rights organizations protected promiscuous women and encouraged noncompliant sexual attitudes among them. simultaneously, the khana-yi-aman management was concerned about increasing islamization in the shelter when “the inhabitants fully practiced the rituals of islam through prayer, fasting, reciting the quran and veiling” (22). here, at khana-yi-aman, the paradoxical ideas of piety and promiscuity come together to create a complex social environment women were forced to navigate. chapter two, portraits of pain, unfolds the heartwrenching stories, memories, and traumas of the inhabitants of khana-yi-aman and the insecurities and pressures faced by those who run the shelter. the chapter conveys an emotional touch while conveying the narratives of each of the inhabitants in the shelter. the author argues that the vulnerable and complex histories of the runaway women are the result of long battles with families, the state, and the courts. moreover, they take the risk of being called promiscuous along with inhabiting pious womanhood, and they try to redefine morality, love, marriage, and religious rights in unexpected ways. the third chapter, poetic risk, is a closer look at everyday landays (short verses of pashto poetry), which are sung by the pashtun women in the shelter. interestingly, anonymity (singing under a burqa), collective orality, and communitarian ownership behind the landay singing enable women to create alternative voices and freedom and to escape the patriarchal constraints as well as invoking themes of love, desire, departure, death, and abandonment. furthermore, it can tell about the possibilities of multiple subject relationships, which are beyond the consolidation and destabilization of the normative structure, standing along with bakhtin's idea of the dialogical self (1983). theoretically, this oral culture among the shelter women interrogates the normative assumption on the illiterate afghan women in the ways the poetry belongs to tradition, modernity and literature figures. while there is a dominant assumption that the post-taliban state affords new potentialities of selfhood to women, the fourth chapter, taliban's women, unveils the micro-histories of taliban women. the chapter dwells upon two questions: how does the taliban play a key role in shaping the life worlds of afghan women, and what changed in their lives after the fall of the taliban in 2001 and the installation of a secular democratic government? she argues that the taliban have succeeded in universalizing a certain type of public piety aimed primarily at afghan women rather than afghan men, as well as in articulating women's citizenship through historical models of chastity, motherhood, and wifely devotion. the fifth chapter, pedagogies of womanhood, explores the cultural paradox in the history of modern afghan womanhood in which modern and secular notions of wilful independence and freedom, and islamic and pashtun conceptions of family, honor, gender, and sexuality come to the fore. it alludes to the fact that the modern afghan woman of the 20th and 21st centuries is shaped by both gendered disciplinary and emancipatory mechanisms of the taliban and the state, respectively. the main mechanisms were pedagogical islamic texts, political and ethical ideas of the pan-islamic movement, and literacy and secularism campaigns in which vatan (homeland) is perceived as a female and millath (nation) as a male. what makes this section different is the attempt by ahsan-tirmizi to link a wide array of pashtun-based advice manuals 3 (adab treatises) with its local understanding of afghan muslims. finally, the author's response to her question, "what does the intellectual tradition of pious womanhood have to do with the self-conception of afghan women today?" is that the relationships of khana-yi-aman women and their daily negotiations are bounded with these didactic moral texts and the ideas they espoused. the sixth chapter, subject of honour, attempts to understand honor discourses on afghan women and its historical complexity with islam and pashtunwali, situated in the foucauldian understanding of subjecthood. ahsan-tirmizi reads promiscuity as "the capacity for action” or risk as “an emancipatory potential.” she investigates how afghan women manipulate honor codes through various strategic means, rather than reducing honor studies to ideals of honormodesty and honor-shame. given local notions of promiscuity, afghan women contest pashtunwali honorable subjectivity by pushing themselves into a marginal space, the khanayi-aman. in sum, the book is a contribution to scholarship on women who shape their own selfhoods differently and adds a new analytical category of promiscuity to the recent academic debates on piety, freedom, and subjecthood. commenting on previous studies of islam and the taliban in afghanistan, nile green observed that, "they lacked any firm footing in written or otherwise published sources by taliban actors, a problem compounded by the fact very few scholars have ever studied pashto" (green 2017: 25). ahsan-tirmizi’s work marks a break from this history. last but not least, pious peripheries can be seen as a theoretical extension of the discourse of piety and agency with which saba mahmood engaged. repeatedly, ahsan-tirmizi insists that "running away was not always an abandonment of tradition but rather an embrace of tradition but towards a different end" (5). mohammed salih is a phd student at the centre for the study of social systems (csss) at jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi. he focuses on socio-cultural anthropology and sociology, and is interested in social, ethical, sexual and political aspects of knowledge; religious education; gendered networks and dissemination; space and embodiment, mobility and aspiration, sex education and sex manuals in islam. his research loci is on the two central questions of what knowledge about gender and sexuality is in islam and muslim communities in the indian ocean region and how it is circulated, interpreted, contested and examined among the ordinary muslims. additionally, he is interested in how the notions of gender and sexuality are involved in knowledge-related islamic settings of south west india. works cited: bakhtin, mikhail mikhailovich. 1983. the dialogic imagination: four essays. austin: university of texas press. green, nile. 2017. afghanistan's islam from conversion to the taliban. california: university of california press. 4 mahmood, saba. 2005. politics of piety: the islamic revival and the feminist project. us: princeton university press. /© 2023 mohammed salih microsoft word wenzel review.docx 1 kishigami, nobuhiro. 2021. food sharing in human societies: anthropological perspectives, springer nature singapore, isbn: 9789811678103 in this relatively slim volume, nobuhiro kishigami provides a deep examination of an aspect of hunter-gatherer economic systems that is as critical to these systems as is the hunting and harvesting that provide the “stuff” that peoples like inuit, ache and aka rely on for cultural and nutritional sustenance. this volume is a product of solid scholarship and is an important contribution to a growing literature focused on food sharing. however, before taking an in-depth look at the volume’s substance, i should note that the books primary title, food sharing in human societies, suggests a breadth that encompasses food sharing under a range of societal and economic types. more accurately, however, food sharing is an expansive work focused on food practices by hunter-gatherer cultures. kishigami opens with a comprehensive overview of the theories and thinking about what sharing is and the how’s and why’s of the practice. it is followed by three chapters of detailed case studies (chapters two, three, and four). chapter five offers a broader and more comparative discussion about food sharing in terms of bio-physical and socio-cultural factors that are relevant to the theoretical approaches that have been applied in the case societies. it should be noted that two of the presented cases (from nunavik/northern québec and north alaska) are ones to which kishigami has directly contributed through his extensive field studies among the québec nunavimmiut and alaskan inupiat whalers, while those from greenland, the central african republic and paraguay rely on the theoretical approaches to food sharing taken in the original investigations. food sharing’s introductory chapter very usefully presents theoretical approaches to sharing as developed through two main theoretical lenses, behavioral ecology and what i term (to borrow from economic anthropology) as a substantivist approach, and how these have been analytically applied to explain why hunter-gatherers share. here, kishigami very usefully provides definitions of the terminology of sharing (importantly of such concepts as gifting and generalized reciprocity) and then presents the different explanations developed within these two theoretical approaches on what is essentially a generalized feature in hunter-gatherers economies. because interpretations of food sharing are frequently derived in specific research situations already framed by a particular theoretical approach, comparison between cases can be difficult and so this first chapter will be useful to some readers. this overview is followed by three chapters (two, three, four) of case studies, the focus of which is sharing as practiced by five societies living in very different ecological, political and economic environments. this approach allows the reader to comparatively evaluate the cases in terms of the specific environments that surround and influence each society. he then analyzes 2 each in terms of one or more of the modes of thought presented in the volume’s introductory chapter and that was analytically employed in the original studies from which the cases are drawn. kishigami concludes food sharing with a discussion of how particular hypotheses (such as resource abundance, camp population size, kinship relations and/or co-residential proximity, display and status, and tolerated theft to name a few) explain food sharing (or not) in the context of the various analytical approaches in which they are discussed. while this book is an excellent addition to a growing literature on food sharing, there are a few things that to me are somewhat problematic. one is the scope as suggested by the book’s title. food sharing, as already noted, focuses, except for what amounts to a few brief mentions, on hunter-gatherer societies; indeed, the preponderance of anthropological research on food sharing is especially focused on so-called subsistence economy cultures. a second is that there is some “repetitive-redundancy” as dr. kishigami returns in several places to the issue of reciprocity with regards to sharing. the conceptual and practical problem with the term, despite its long use in the literature, is already well-explained in his first chapter. last, and seminal to understanding what divides the two main theoretical approaches (behavioral ecology and societal substantivist) is an explanation of the unit of analysis which underlie and are seen as separating them. what is not discussed with clarity is that the behavioral ecology, rooted as it is in evolutionary theory, focuses on the actions and behaviors of individuals, while the substantivist lens centers on, if you will, the cultural ethos that makes food sharing a broader, normative socioeconomic feature of hunter-gatherers. these “complaints” aside, there are many more “likes” than can be accommodated in this review. an important one is that the case studies that are included in the substantive and the concluding chapters are not presented through a single theoretical lens. rather the cases are exposed to a range of hypotheses, allowing readers to weigh the explanatory power of one or more without necessarily having to refer to the original research (but that never hurts). another is the depth of the inupiat and nunavimmiut case studies. this is not surprising because, as noted above, the author has directly contributed to our knowledge of sharing in both these inuit situations. these examples underscore how sharing can be affected by a variety of situational factors – from the size of a package of energy to the structural relations within a group. for me, this depth brings out a complexity about sharing, namely that it is both a “grand” and a nuanced concept. (an important note: the rich akulivik example of nunavimmiut sharing is based almost exclusively on kishigami’s own research which to the best of my knowledge has to date only appeared in japanese.) this comparative style of presentation carries with it the possibility of discerning overlap between research approaches that mutes the split between a purely behavioral and an equally strict substantivist explanation. essentially what is seen through one lens as tolerated theft or status signaling is in the other a manifestation that those in need have a right to food (or other critical resource – for instance water). thus, an individual’s signaling or demand for a share can be accepted – at least until they are carried beyond the normative limits of cultural tolerance. kishigami does not always present the cases in this light, but the possibility of overlap between 3 demand by a needy person and the obligation of a food-holder may relate more to whether the analytical lens has a micro (on the individual) or macro (on the group) focus. in closing, kishigami does an admirable job in providing a very comprehensive and useful bibliography. for all the reasons noted above, plus more that i have not mentioned, food sharing in human societies: anthropological perspectives is an important volume and solid contribution to the literature on sharing that is useful to specialists and accessible to students. george w. wenzel department of geography mcgill university montréal, québec, canada h3a0b9 <george.wenzel@mcgill.ca> © 2023 george w. wenzel microsoft word rehnström review.docx 1 eds. by tyler bradway and elizabeth freeman, 2022, queer kinship: race, sex, belonging, form, durham: duke university press books (theory q), 360 pp. isbn: 9781478016021 keywords: queer kinship, queer theory, kinship theory, black kinship, indigenous kinship, trans kinship, kin in this volume edited by tyler bradway and elizabeth freeman, the authors build on and challenge kinship as it has been researched and theorized while arguing for the relevance of kinship research to queer, trans and critical race theories today. the various topics through which kinship is explored in this book also importantly encourage new routes for theorizing kinship, both as a concept and lived/sensed experience. the volume considers kinship’s linkages to issues that all too often have been obscured or overlooked by kinship researchers – issues such as colonialism, slavery and racialization as well as the linkages to nationalism. intersections of queer, black and indigenous lives and experiences are thus central to this volume, lives and experiences which have been invisible yet foundational for how kinship has been shaped and understood by dominant (white, colonial) narratives. the forms that the narratives in this volume take and analyse move between ethnography, fiction, history, imagination, memories, stories, and storytelling. while taking various routes, they unite through desire as a moment of departure from where kinship is explored. as bradway and freeman stress, kinship has always been connected to desire, and not always a desire to connect – at times a desire to disconnect (3). it is thus also about movements, how (black, indigenous, queer, trans) kinship moves between but also beyond time, space, place, bodies, selves, memories, violence, hopes and imaginations but also beyond kinship itself. the volume consists of 12 main chapters organised under three sections. the editors emphasize a fluidity to the chapters as they could easily be positioned within other sections. the fluidity also refers to the previously mentioned importance of form for this volume, form as both something kinship is analysed as and through. the whole book works to answer questions on 2 why kinship still matters and why now, questions which the introduction considers when laying the foundation for the upcoming chapters. in the introduction, we are presented with three key concepts – “kincoherence,” “kin-aesthetics” and “kinematics.” the essays give a “conceptual frame” to address “the kincoherence, kin-aesthetics and/or kinematics of queer kinship” (18). (kin)coherence/(k)incoherence helps to understand the “temporal dimension of kinship” – how kinship remains a “horizon of violence and possibility.” it works to trouble what kinship binds and unbinds (3, 11). kin aesthetics, in turn, is to understand processes of figuration and form; kinship as embodied and material, but always in transformation (4, 5). lastly, kinematics addresses kinship as movements – not only beyond the normative but “within, across, and between” configurations of kinship (13). the volume closes with an epilogue in the form of an interview with kath weston, author of “families we choose,” a significant work within queer kinship research. weston addresses queer kinship as embedded social practices, as transformations rather than structure or form. the interview spans between the then and there and the now and here of queer kinship to discussions on how queer kinship research opens up possibilities for academic routes that may not be obvious in their ties to kinship theory. the essays of part one of the volume, queering linages, address temporalities of kinship beyond linear genealogy. in judith butler’s essay, the presumed distinction between natural (blood) and fictive kinship ties is in question as butler focuses on belongings beyond bloodlines. specifically, the regulation of “race” through kinship and how this reproduces racialised violence through time. in brigitte fielder’s chapter that follows, which analyses queer genealogies of interracial kinship, “mixed-race self-begetting” is explored “as a queer act of self-reproduction.” the essay discusses the (queer) potential found in the aesthetic as well as the racial reproduction happening through the aesthetic (disputing a reduction of “race” to biological reproduction). in dilara çalışkan’s essay, temporality is approached through intergenerational memory across time and space among trans mothers and daughters in istanbul. in these mother-daughter bonds, memory is a tool for survival (in various ways) and also that which much shape these kinship bonds. part two of the volume, kinship, state, empire, works on the de/anticolonial, the beyond/outside of the colonial bondage – thus also contesting the eurocentric research. joseph m. pierce opens the section by exploring indigenous kinship through the concept of “kinstillations.” it is a call to return to indigenous ways of being “in good relations” – to the land, to spirits, and to ancestors across time. pierce emphasises indigenous kinship as something you do rather than have, as “a reaching” (98). kinstillations is like “reaching for the stars,” a simultaneous reach for the future and travel to 3 the past. from here we move to the topic of surrogacy in poulomi saha’s essay. saha analyses postcolonial india’s attempt to ban commercial surrogacy, queer kinship’s ties to the politics of the global neoliberal market, and the ways that surrogacy is being transformed within this market. the individual agency within surrogacy, saha argues, is transformed into a form of contract mediated by the form of family that deems feelings of generosity and gratitude as compensation for the surrogate. mark rifkin also addresses governmentality. in this chapter, rifkin addresses how indigenous social logics contest the equal sign between family and kinship uniformity. indigenous forms of relationality, rifkin argues, enable a move to queer non-neoliberal governance. in the following essay, aqdas aftab works with black trans-fiction to decolonise trans-interiority and find the “elsewheres” that support black trans lives. aftab takes the gaze from the fetishized (black, trans) body to the interior and the “ecstatic kinship” found within. here memory and imagination hold “utopic and ecstatic work” rather than the future (169). juliana demartini brito analyses kinship performances among activists taking part in the mass protests that followed the murder of black, lesbian politician marielle franco in brazil. the phrase used by activists, “marielle presente,” both speaks of the presence and absence of marielle – linking activists through time, grief, and desire as well as tradition and change. moving on to part three, kinship in the negative, a section that rethinks queer belonging and unbelonging by building on and expanding traditions of queer negativity and anti-social thesis. christopher chamberlin’s essay “akinship” (“a-kinship”, “akin-ship”) emphasises racial production as the very structural cause of kinship. heteronormativity takes part but kinship is “always the absolute repudiation of black kinship.” “akinship” speaks of the social impossibility of black kinship. the “negative” in the essay by leah claire allen and john s. garrison is towards the link between queer kinship and the “chosen family”. the authors do not contest lived experiences but how narratives of queer friendship have been absorbed by neoliberal ideals. natasha hurley, in turn, contests dominant narratives on childlessness. “kidless lit” speaks of other narratives and meanings found within our relating to “other people’s children.” kinship is here analysed through cross-generational relationships that make “kin not population” (referencing “making kin not population” from 2018, edited by adele e. clarke and donna haraway), thus moving beyond family/reproduction norms (251-253). the last essay by aobo dong returns to blood as kinship, shaped through martyrdom, oath, sacrifice, and violence among chinese blood brotherhoods. blood here produces kinship bonds through death (as survival and resistance) rather than birth. 4 this book moves the reader, not only along the routes the authors take but beyond these. even when walking along paths paved by many, we always walk with a different view as the “landscapes” we move through and within continue to change. for me, the major take from this volume is not necessarily the arguments (important and thought-provoking as they are, with their strengths as well as limitations). rather it is how it inspires the reader to not only think of kinship as a concept and what this concept does, but to think of kinship in terms of narratives and heritage – whether dominating, contested and/or possible. in times when the future may feel more uncertain and precarious than ever, it also reminds us of the potential there is in memories and imagination – that which is already here. kinship, to draw from çalışkan when analysing the notion of “home,” can help to find our archives “of feelings and emotional and temporal investments” (78). the book is primarily an important creative and analytic contribution to contemporary queer, trans, critical race and kinship theory. nevertheless, it is also of value for those who explore narratives and form as well as belonging and heritage “beyond” kinship relations. as weston illuminates, when exploring kinship, it can, if we are open to it, take us on unexpected routes. rebecka rehnström is a phd student at the university of st andrews. her research interests lie within feminist and queer anthropology with a specific focus on material and visual culture, lgbtq+, activism and performance. her current research is on queer urban future and heritage narratives among lbtq+ women and genderqueer people in scotland. © 2022 rebecka rehnström 1 elizabeth weiss and james w. springer, 2020. repatriation and erasing the past, gainesville: university of florida press, 278 pp., isbn: 9781683401575. keywords: nagpra, repatriation, reburial, human remains, heritage law. repatriation and erasing the past is a forthright condemnation of the ideology behind, and the enforcement of, the native american graves protection and repatriation act (nagpra). nagpra is the u.s. federal law that was passed in 1990 to execute the return of native american heritage and human remains from museums, universities, and research centers to their culturally-affiliated tribal communities. in this monograph, elizabeth weiss and james springer combine bioarchaeological and legal perspectives to examine the scientific and cultural loss behind the repatriation of native american artifacts and remains. therefore, from the beginning and in an explicit way, weiss and springer position themselves in the debate surrounding the appropriateness of repatriating culturally, historically, and scientifically valuable human remains and artifacts as anti-repatriationists. the book is divided into three sections, preceded by a brief introduction and followed by a conclusion. the first section adopts a scientific approach to debunk the rationale behind nagpra’s repatriation and reburial mandates. chapters 1 and 2 present the central argument that is often raised to halt repatriationist movements: the loss of valuable information for scientific purposes. chapters 3 and 4 dive into the historical, archaeological, and bioanthropological data that can be obtained from studying human remains. these chapters give an overview of the scientific methods of research used (1) to learn about different aspects of paleoindian lifestyles, such as diet, health, migration patterns, and culture, and (2) to discredit false narratives and misconceptions, including the original peopling of the americas, the pre-contact population size, and the violent behavioral trends among and between native american communities. 2 the second part of the book focuses on the legal side of repatriationist initiatives. chapter 5 summarizes the history of american indian law and reviews the outcomes of major repatriation court cases, including la jolla skeletons and the kennewick man cases. chapter 6 explores the legal issues surrounding genetic research on native american populations, which are illustrated by the havasupai lawsuit. the third and final section dissects the social, cultural, and legal problems caused by the imposition of repatriation. chapter 7 argues that nagpra gives native americans preferential treatment due to their race and religion. chapter 8 criticizes the validity, reliability, and admissibility of oral tradition as evidence in court. chapter 9 analyzes the traditional treatment of native american human remains to disprove the popular claim that immediate and undisturbed burial is necessary. chapter 10 shows the negative impact of the repatriationist ideology on anthropological research, which is materialized in the loss of collections, the inhibition of freedom of inquiry, and scholarly censorship. weiss and springer set two main goals for this book. their first objective is to place value on the scientific study of archaeological remains as the only systematic and factual way to understand the history of humanity and to reconstruct the past. the authors claim that it is important to study human remains scientifically in order to give voice to those who can no longer speak (p.57) and tell their stories in an accurate manner, so as to do justice to their lives and individualities (p.36, p.97). the second goal of this book is to openly criticize the postmodernist ideology that nagpra is built upon. they label nagpra as an anti-constitutional, racist, prejudiced, and antiscientific program and present arguments to prove their claims. firstly, weiss and springer argue that nagpra is anti-constitutional because it violates the first amendment of the u.s. constitution (pp.166-169), which dictates that laws cannot be based on religion. they claim that said policy attempts to incorporate traditional animistic beliefs into an established religion and native american views into political and judicial policies (p.192). for instance, they contend that the acceptance of oral tradition as judicial evidence proves that the legal system exerts religious and racial discrimination to favor native american communities over non-native american individuals (p.183). 3 in the same vein, weiss and springer argue that collectivism and racial favoritism are at the heart of nagrpa (p.170). according to the authors, nagpra is racist as it establishes federal-level discrimination based on race (p.130). it constructs an independent native american identity, based on “the old idea that indians are owed a special duty because of their independent status” (p.94) and the persecution and victimization they have endured (p.171). furthermore, they argue that identifying as native american automatically and unequivocally grants legal power over other american citizens and bestows them with special rights and opportunities (p.131). the favoring treatment of native americans over other communities is manifested in the advantages granted to native american groups in the various existing conservation and preservation laws. these include the right to be consulted before and during conducting research, the right to intervene in the administrative agency proceedings and court appeals (p.143), and the different handling that native american dna, tissues, and bones receive in comparison to other collections (p.203). in light of the above, the authors state that nagpra is an anti-scientific policy because it restricts academic freedom and promotes censorship (p.207). regarding the former, weiss and springer argue that the mindset that has been built around the enforcement of nagpra denies researchers the ability to decide what, where, when, and how to conduct research. since nagpra imposes collaboration and consultation between native americans and researchers, tribal organizations play an important role in deciding the topics that are put under examination and the methodology that is applied (p.160). researchers’ fear of hurting sensitivities, and therefore becoming canceled and making their original work unpublishable, prevents them from making strong inferences that may upset native american administrators and may lead to the termination of collaboration (p.206). they conclude that “[f]or research, interpretation, and publication to depend upon such sensitivity is to undermine the whole concept of objective knowledge and, indeed, of science itself” (p.218). likewise, they argue that imposing collaboration between native americans and researchers not only makes research more difficult, costly, and time-consuming but can be harmful to the pursuit of the truth. weiss and springer maintain that native american stakeholders are inclined to introduce subjective biases based on religious sentiments that weaken the factual, reliable, and impartial values of scientific data (pp.175-176, p.199, p.218). 4 finally, the authors say that nagpra is anti-scientific because repatriation and reburial of remains leads to the loss of data and the inability to restudy collections, test new hypotheses and retest old ones, obtain new data through the implementation of new technology, and train students in scientific endeavors (p.194). all in all, the most affected parties are the pursuit of objective knowledge and the truthful reconstruction of not only north american history but the history of humanity (p.92, p.219). in conclusion, repatriation and erasing the past has become one of the most controversial, criticized, and hatred-provoking publications in recent years in the field of anthropological studies. it is, indeed, an incendiary publication aimed at questioning repatriationist trends and inviting a re-evaluation of the community archaeology research model firmly established since the turn of the millennium. this book adopts an extreme attitude in favor of science, almost achieving the degree of scientific fundamentalism, to vehemently charge against what is assumed to be their opposite: the softening of human sciences through the inclusion of non-metric, non-replicable, non-verifiable information that relies on abstraction and subjectivity. the field of anthropology is struggling to find a fair balance between the human sciences and the humanities, or this may as well be a reactive turn to processualism. time will determine whether this is the beginning of a new, new archaeology. irene martí gil obtained her bachelor’s degree in archaeology from universitat autònoma de barcelona, having pursued an academic exchange at université paris-sorbonne iv and graduated from escuela de liderazgo universitario-universidad francisco de vitoria with a degree in liberal arts. she earned her master’s degree in cultural heritage from university college london in 2017 and her ph.d. in anthropology, with a minor in linguistics, from louisiana state university in 2023 (sponsored by fulbright). currently, she is focused on pursuing research on the topics of archaeological looting and antiquities trafficking from an interdisciplinary (legal, archaeological, ethnographic, and linguistic) perspective. © 2024 irene martí gil microsoft word nygren review.docx carl rommel, 2021, egypt’s football revolution: emotion, masculinity, and uneasy politics, university of texas press, 312pp., isbn 978-1-47732-317-5 keywords: politics, revolution, egypt, emotions, masculinity in egypt’s football revolution: emotion, masculinity, and uneasy politics, carl rommel lays out the recent history and rapid changes to the world of football in egypt. through detailed analysis of media, sports fans and revolutionary change, the reader follows the trajectory of the ‘national game’ from its peak of popular attraction to its fall into obscurity. with a focus on affect and emotions, this tale of football in egypt is also one that tells of how the masculine national subject is supposed to feel, act and react to events that bring people, places, old and new media together like no other. the unmistakable peak of football’s popularity in egypt came about in the late mubarak-era. rommel describes how a new professional system around football, largely based on public funding, was reported on through new media infrastructures and supported by pop cultural productions, a generation of talented football players and seemingly limitless footballing success, created a national ‘bubble’ of hope, joy, and celebratory victory in a time of deep neoliberal reforms and crony capitalism in an egypt that was otherwise characterized by a stand-still, frustration, boredom and increasing labor migration to the gulf. in an unforeseen frenzy, the egyptian national team won three african cup of nations titles consecutively in the end of the 00’s while the biggest national football clubs, the cairene al-ahly and al-zamalek claimed 5 out of 10 continental champions league titles in the same decade. rommel carefully examines how the football players of this age were crafted into national heroes and role models for an entire nation that came together in the love of the game. then president hosni mubarak and his sons made sure to attend the games and celebrate with the players, conflating an image of togetherness and nationalism that strengthened their claim to egypt and egyptians even as the nation went through broad-scale crises and collectively traumatic events. football as the ‘national game’ of egypt is uncontested for several reasons according to rommel. it is by far the most played game in the nation and by far the most watched and talked about, but its greatest potential is one of unifying the nation as such. the intense rivalry between the cairene clubs did not carry on into national team games. the supporters attending and watching the games did so across club loyalties, class, ethnic, generational and other boundaries. football was thus a national project, and invested in as such by the political regime. while football is the main theme of rommel’s monograph, its greatest analytical purchase is looking at politics (siyasa) through the lens of the national sport, or rather, the avoidance of seeming political (siyasi). at its most basic level, we learn that the concept of politics in the egyptian context is associated with a certain kind of use of power, promoting self-interest, corruption, violence and partisanship that pins one part of society against another, a destabilizing act loathed by all. successful and legitimate use of power on the other hand necessarily works on the part of everyone, a greater national interest and grants a kind of certainty and stability. as becomes evident in the first part of rommel’s work, such a nationalism around football was successfully constructed in the late mubarak years but came to an end as match results went the wrong way and violence in the aftermath of the play-off for the world cup in 2009 started off a conversation in egypt about the nature of football and fandom as something disrupting and prone to extremism (taꜥassub) and thus potentially political. by using such events as turning points, rommel manages to show how the unexpected is an integral part of the political and emotional in egypt that also meant the national football bubble always had the potential to burst the way it did. in the second part of the monograph we follow the struggles of the ultras, dedicated fan groups, of cairene al-ahly and al-zamalek in their relatively short-lived fame and national prowess. in a skillful and engaging manner, rommel portrays the ultras’ balancing act on the fine line between politics and nationalism as they engage in critique of the security state while carving out a space at their football stadiums for fun and enjoyment. as the 2011 revolution threw most things on their head, so the role of the ultras also changed. while being careful not to take sides in the revolution, as to not seem political, ultras members were prominent on the streets early on in the revolution and gained national recognition after a massacre at a football stadium in port said after which the ultras demanded justice for those who lost their lives, putting pressure on state institutions. however, while being the champions of the entire people at one point, the groups were later blamed for being partisan and violent and thus political and a threat to the national order. as the reader follows the aftermath of these rapid changes in the third part of the monograph, rommel expands on the politics of politics in egypt and the wider implications of the avoidance of seeming political. the reader learns how football relates to revolution and the potential for political change in a broader sense. in line with other anthropologists who have theorized the egyptian revolution, rommel reaffirms the sense that it was not mainly ideological but rather physical and emotional in the same sense as politics (siyasa) itself is put forth throughout the text. the focus on individual interlocutors, events, and large-scale processes in an interwoven manner adds richness to the texture of this excellent piece that aught to spark interest among sports fans and academics alike. victor nygren is a ph.d. student at stockholm university. his research interests lie within political anthropology with a specific focus on youth culture and the politics of enjoyment. his current research is on youth and urban enjoyment in ramallah, west bank, palestine. © 2023 victor nygren microsoft word moss final (revised).docx 1 primatology on display nicholas langlitz, 2020, chimpanzee culture wars: rethinking human nature alongside japanese, european, and american cultural primatologists, princeton university press, 407 pp., isbn 978-0-691-20427-7 chimpanzee culture wars delves into the culture of primatology research and the furious debate over whether chimpanzees have culture. langlitz has lifted the veil on primate research whose methods have appeared as the proverbial ‘black box’ to scientists outside the discipline. the research of primates has often appeared disparate and disguised by supposedly revolutionary discoveries about primate behaviors and carefree images of goodall and fossey interacting with their research subjects. langlitz’s primary focus of the ethnography compared and contrasted the differences in primate research between eastern and western cultures, and between the lab work and field work. ethnographically, langlitz has conveyed the methodological and logistical difficulties that primatologists face, revealing the tangible difficulties that primate researchers face in the lab and in the field, which minimizes the mystique of primate research and in turn makes the field more relatable. langlitz does not focus on whether or not non-human primates themselves have culture, but instead highlights the development of each area of primate research including cultural, epistemological, and ontological milieu surrounding researchers to better understand the viewpoint for each school of thought and how they arrive at differing theories and conclusions. langlitz offers a fresh perspective on the culture of science because both the epistemological and ontological issues of primate research and defining culture as a whole need to be continually examined and reevaluated. 2 the more historical divide in the field, between research performed in the west in europe and the united states and that performed in the east in japan, is expertly outlined by langlitz. the two observed cultures were drastically different during the genesis of primatology and resulted in a more empirical approach in the west whereas the east evolved from a more holistic approach that considered humans and non-human primates together. the japanese work has often been criticized for its use of direct human involvement in the behaviors of primates, whereas the westerners are criticized for not considering how their involvement influences primate behaviors. the divide is further emphasized by the interaction between lab and field research. westerners tend to keep lab and field research separate whereas the japanese have often sought to combine the two with varying degrees of success. the divide between lab and field work for western researchers is battled through epistemology and ontology. lab researchers focus on the psychology of primates whereas field researchers focus on the observed behaviors of primates and their interactions with each other and natural world. the field workers tend to argue for the possibility of primate culture because they observe in-person the diffusion of behaviors through geographic groups and through generations. lab researchers have typically fought against the idea of primate culture by setting boundaries that potentially separate humans from primates, but as these boundaries are falsified, new ones are established that prevent the possibility of primate culture (e.g., only humans use tools, only humans use language). langlitz’s rather humanistic approach to the examination of primate researcher culture will not agree with those who prefer more empirical forms of ethnographic research, but the approach was warranted given the nature of his research subjects and the ever-changing field of ethnographic research. this being said, the author controlled for variables, when possible, in order to make direct comparisons between observations. langlitz was fortunate in his ability to make direct comparisons between cultures and methodologies through the use of his contingency table (p. 9-12) by comparing euro-american researchers to japanese researchers and field workers to lab workers. the contingency tables allowed langlitz to make lateral comparisons between the researchers’ cultures and the researchers’ methods, which was reinforced by forward comparisons between langlitz’s take on his own field and the cultures he was studying. langlitz performed his study through second-order observations, defined as observing primatologists while they observed primates in both the lab and field. though langlitz’s research was primarily 3 concerned with such second-order observations, his analysis differed from haraway’s (p. 95) because langlitz considered first-order observations of the primates under study, which undoubtedly placed his interpretations within a more appropriate epistemological framework. this framework allowed langlitz to directly observe primate behaviors and the researchers’ interpretations of these behaviors and draw comparisons on how the scientific and geographical cultures have influenced the researchers’ interpretations of observed behaviors. in this regard, the expert convergence of firstand second-order observations in the field with higher theoretical concepts places langlitz akin to lévi-strauss’s bricoleur (1966). langlitz did not follow the malinowskian format of ethnography, and there is a general lack of experiential authority within the ethnographic portions of the literature, which is instead dominated by direct dialogue from langlitz’s research subjects (e.g., clifford 1983). the dialogic nature of langlitz’s presentation of the primate researchers’ cultures is necessary for his philosophical interpretations and historical background that interject frequently to provide context for the subjects’ point of view. it is recommended that readers be generally familiar with philosophical and socio-cultural paradigms before reading this book because it delves deeply into concepts of epistemology and ontology and their evolution throughout time. additionally, it is assumed that the dialogic approach used by the author was necessary as langlitz examined the culture of what could arguably be called his peers. langlitz also highlighted dialogue from interlocutors that frequently discussed the individual’s position or feelings towards their academic counterparts, superiors, and their perspective on the epistemological and ontological nature of their own unique culture within their respective fields. this approach presents a pseudo-polyphonic narrative that attempts to reach as close to the ‘native’s perspective’ as possible through the presentation of dialogue from multiple interlocutors throughout the cultural, epistemological, ontological, and hierarchical ranges of primate research, which address multiple aspects of these individuals’ perspectives. the last chapters of the book reaffirm the necessity for primate research and the continuous evaluation of the primate research paradigms and its researchers. it is in the last chapters that langlitz touches on the main reason why we perform these inane convoluted studies. what makes us human and what does it mean to be human? these questions become even more 4 important when assessed through langlitz’s solemn fatalist discussion of chimpanzees and in turn our own species. though “fatalism is a swear word by which hardly anyone is swearing” (p. 314), langlitz’s fatalism is not misguided. langlitz’s fatalism may take center stage in the anthropocene as sociopolitical clashes continue unabated, the destructive potential of homo sapiens has increased in recent history, and the looming environmental crisis continues to progressively worsen. primates have served as anthropologists’ proxies of early human behavior because they are our closest living relatives. the observations and interpretations presented by langlitz produce a relatively novel anthropological question: will the extinction of multiple primate species serve as a proxy for the study of our own demise? langlitz presented a good ethnographic study on the culture of primate researchers that is rich in philosophical discussion. the more philosophical approach of the author was necessary given the nature of the research, which examined not only human culture but the cultural relations between researchers and chimpanzees. this work will most likely become requisite for aspiring primatologists and primate behavioral psychologists because it requires researchers in both fields to address biases and shortcomings of their methodologies and epistemologies. additionally, the book provides another source for examining differences in nationalistic cultures within the sciences and how research is performed in reference to one’s own viewpoint. chimpanzee culture wars is an excellent text that will continue the discussion on chimpanzee culture, human culture, and what it means to be human for years to come. references lévi-strauss, claude. the savage mind. university of chicago press, 1966. clifford, james. "on ethnographic authority." representations 2 (1983): 118-146, https://doi.org/10.2307/2928386 benjamin moss is a doctoral student at louisiana state university. he received his master of arts degree in anthropology in 2020. his primary interests are in human skeletal biology with a focus on the human cranium, geometric morphometric analysis, and human evolution. 5 © 2021 microsoft word lancy review.docx morelli, camilla. 2023. children of the rainforest: shaping the future in amazonia. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press. isbn 9781978825215 children of the rainforest traces cultural change over several decades in small communities of matses speakers. the area encompasses the upper reaches of the amazon in peru and brazil. the matses have been buffeted by the usual outside forces affecting the indigenous peoples of amazonia, but morelli’s focus is on how change affects childhood and the reverse, how children contribute to change. she achieves a unique perspective having visited the matses community annually since 2010. her first-hand accounts are extended back in time through extensive ethnohistorical interviews with key informants.1 another characteristic of morelli’s work is the thoroughness with which she documents children’s perspectives using continuous observation, conversations, child-drawings and child-produced photographs and animation. through historical ethnography she documents three distinct phases in the nature of matses childhood. in the earliest period lasting into the 1960s, the matses depended entirely on nomadic foraging, subsisting through hunting and gathering. as is the case in most hunter and gatherer societies documented to date, children were intimately involved in subsistence practices from an early age. morelli notes that, “the ability to move confidently in the dangerous forest world, learning how to trek and hunt proficiently, is what turned boys into…men” (p. 21). during this period, children underwent several rites of passage, such as tattooing, to make them better adapted to the forest and more resistant to its harmful effects. this period also included inter-tribal raiding and attacks on the settlements by encroaching settlers. these were followed by punitive raids by the government. missionaries intervened and brokered a mass movement to forested areas adjacent to navigable rivers. the matses were encouraged to build permanent villages, and schools were established. this migration, in turn, led to a major generational shift. while the more mature members of the community continued to make their living from forest foraging, their children disdained the forest and, rather, embraced the riverine ecology, quickly becoming expert canoeists and fishers. they feel “passionately” about this environment which also serves as the primary “play space.” hence, they not only led the way in adapting to the river, but they also adopted fishing techniques that were previously unknown among the matses. as morelli notes, this pattern is at odds with weird (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) assumptions about children’s learning where children are introduced to and integrated into new environments by their parents. not only do matses children provide a significant addition to the family’s food supply, they contribute through working in the family’s garden, and looking after the home and caring for younger siblings. so, in many respects, the picture of indigenous childhood that morelli describes is quite typical and very widespread, but hers is the first study to discover and document a wholesale “conquest” of a new environment by children. 1 to the best of my knowledge, there are only three long-term studies of children and social change covering several decades. these include white’s study on java; greenfield and maynard’s work in chiapas, mexico and rogoff and colleagues’ study of a guatemalan village. another important finding is that, following relocation, children deliberately and consciously rejected hunting and gathering. morelli suggests that the transition to sedentary living and improved access to modern medical care led to a population spike which in turn led to over-use of the immediately adjacent forest. treks became much longer and she notes that when children consent to accompany their elders, they display boredom, fatigue, disorientation and the loss of forest knowledge and hunting skills. when interviewed, children emphatically express their negative attitudes towards the forest. elders, by contrast, express their preference for the forest while fishing from a canoe is “boring.” in the present (the focus of several chapters), morelli finds that children are, increasingly, oriented to modern lifestyles and urbanization. as distant as they are from any urban setting, matses children seek glimpses of the modern world like a miner panning for gold. as paloma, an informant expressed it, “i crave concrete.” as little as they may know of urban centers, their imagination fills in the gaps. these aspirations of modernity are not diminished by reality, as morelli notes that, “in the past five years, a growing number of teenagers…have started leaving the forest and moving to towns…to satisfy their craving for concrete” (p.6). they live a threadbare existence in the slums and may return, empty-handed and disillusioned. schooling has been a “broken promise” (p.64). but morelli makes it as a central theme of her book that indigenous children are not powerless victims of globalization but, through their voluntary actions, play a leading role in driving social change. this brief summary of children of the forest barely conveys the significance of this grand accomplishment. seldom has childhood been studied so thoroughly nor yielded so many original findings. this is a must read for anthropologists who study childhood and scholars across the spectrum interested in the process of social change. author bio: beginning in 1968 in liberia, david lancy has done extensive cross-cultural fieldwork and repeated surveys of the ethnographic record with children as the focus. in total, he has authored nine books and edited three. his current research interests center on the study of delayed personhood, the chore curriculum, children as a reserve labor force, children growing up in a neontocracy, how children acquire their culture, socio-historical analyses of schooling, and the culture of street kids. his distinctions include the utah state university career scholar award and carnegie award for teaching excellence. /© 2023 david lancy . microsoft word year-in-review 2021.doc 1 year in review beloved readers and authors, we are happy to, for the third time, reach out to you with a summary of the year that has passed, and present you with our plans for the future. for those unfamiliar with the anthropology book forum, it was founded by the american anthropological association as an experimental digital platform aimed at accelerating the scholarly book review process and expanding conversations around newly published work. as an open access journal, committed to a set of principles that aims to reduce barriers to accessibility, the forum publishes reviews in multiple formats weekly, every monday. based on the idea that book reviews are not just summaries of academic texts, but engagements with scholarship, ideas and authors, the forum seeks to facilitate connections and exchange between authors and readers within and outside of anthropology. with an online readership of around 3,000 per month, and a contributor base of 1300 and growing, we are constantly exploring and experimenting with new modes of engagement and new forms of written, audio and visual review formats. working with over 100 publishers around the world, we continuously seek to make available a broad range of texts relevant to anthropological audiences, broadly conceived. when we last wrote to you in our 2020 year in review, we were nearly a year into a global pandemic that has both amplified modes of connectivity while also exacerbating various kinds of exclusions within anthropology and academia more broadly. we wanted to take the opportunity to rethink our, albeit small, role in making anthropological scholarship more accessible – not as a short-term reaction to the conditions brought on by the pandemic – but as a long-term and ongoing project. we begin this review by looking back over the past year, before introducing some new options for interactive reviews and scholarly conversations in the year to come. looking back: 2021 year in review this has been an eventful year. we have finally moved to our new home, a site dedicated entirely to the forum. here, we have developed and expanded multiple ways to engage with recent scholarship and film other than through text alone. we have launched an option for authors to engage their readership through what we call author book talks, a format in which writers and researchers contextualize their work and the importance of their scholarly contribution in video or audio form. we have also sought to encourage video reviews where authors and reviewers alike can be ‘present,’ albeit virtually. moreover, we continue to provide audio versions of some reviews in order to enhance accessibility. the new website also includes an elaborated journal history and focus and scope sections, and we have started a contributor section where our reviewers are briefly presented to both acknowledge and convey the many voices that make up the forum. we hope these changes have contributed to making the forum a lively and interactive space for learning, discussing and communicating insights from anthropology and beyond. 2 additionally, our facebook page (launched in autumn 2019) has started to attract a large following. at the time of writing, we have over 2200 followers and growing. we find this useful as facebook allows us to share our reviews and available titles with readers who would otherwise most likely not locate us through our website alone. thus, this increase in our online presence is important to us and we are much appreciative to all those of our followers that share and engage with our posts. moreover, the number of academic presses that we work with continues to expand, now including several smaller independent publishing houses. this is important to us as we work to make the forum more inclusive, not only with regards to who reviews a book, but also to where books are published and which subjects they engage with. including a broader representation of titles from minority and womenowned publishers moreover allows for a much broader and stimulating discussion wherein multiple voices from different perspectives can be heard. the anthropology book forum will keep on working for an inclusive scholarly environment free of exclusive walls of different kinds, such as paywalls – hence our abiding efforts to maintain open access publishing. carrying on a concern we have maintained since 2019, we have worked to increase the number of archaeology titles reviewed in the forum – out of the 51 reviews published this year, nine are within the domain of archaeology. it is our ambition to continue the work to increase the number of archaeology titles reviewed to ensure a more equitable representation of the four fields, and encourage archeology students and scholars to check out our archaeological titles available for review. finally, ending our review of the last year on a proud note, we are excited to announce that we have published our first review of a non-english title, en bra plats att vara på (2016). it is our hope that we will be able to publish many more reviews of this kind to increase awareness and gain perspectives from outside the english language sphere – something we believe can be of great value for further broadening conversations relevant to anthropological audiences. looking forward: 2022 this year we have published both joint reviews as well as a review of a non-english title. this is a start. yet, we want more! we strongly encourage anyone interested to get in touch with ideas of books that would make a good combination for a joint review, or of titles that are published in languages other than english of which you could provide a review (in english). additionally, two formats that have been slow to develop, and which we would like to expand in the next year, are our author book talks and author interviews. we would especially welcome any graduate students seeking to interview authors regarding their recent work from their departments or from outside their university. additionally, we invite any publishers to reach out to authors they work with to convey this resource. if you would like to propose a book talk or interview, please get in touch! in continuing to offer a vibrant space for knowledge exchange, we are excited to announce two new aspects of the forum called conversations and trajectories: conversations: published on a rolling basis, this venue will feature informal conversations around a particular theme invoked by a recent publication, for instance, a new definition of a concept like kinship or a novel regional perspective. we invite proposals from individuals who are interested in taking the lead on putting together a conversation with at least five participants. trajectories: similar to a review article, trajectories are between 1500 and 3000 words and attempt to succinctly tease out major themes in recent scholarship within a topic or subfield. for instance, this review may focus on recently published titles relevant to biological 3 anthropology and suggest how these newly published texts are pushing the field in new directions, or perhaps, revisiting old debates. beginning in 2022, we will also work to offer expanded resources to students and early career scholars. namely, this will include opportunities for publishers to engage possible future authors via the anthropology book forum as a way to stimulate and assist early career scholars to learn the craft of effective book proposals and how to attract interest from academic publishing houses. these opportunities will be presented on the resources page of the site, which we hope to share with you shortly. additionally, we are working to make the new site more navigable and the process of locating reviews and available books easier. moreover, we acknowledge that ‘inclusivity’ and ‘accessibility’ can at worst be empty terms, and at best mean different things to different people. therefore, we would like to encourage readers, authors and publishers to engage with us and help us refine the forum to best serve the scholarly community. please share your thoughts with us here on what you like, or dislike, and if you have suggestions for what we could do to make the forum more inclusive, interactive and accessible for you – we are constantly working to improve! summing up last, but not least, we want to thank our readers, authors, contributors and the increasing number of publishers offering us their titles for review. we are confident that the forum will continue to grow during 2022 at its new home and that we will, with your help, continue to offer a useful and dynamic resource for knowledge exchange. your editors, rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp facebook book reviews books available for review © 2021 rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp 1 pop, cristina a. 2022. the cancer within: reproduction, cultural transformation, and health care in romania. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press, isbn: 9781978829589 cristina a. pop’s 2022 monograph, the cancer within: reproduction, cultural transformation and health care in romania, offers a contemporary anthropological investigation into sexual and reproductive health care in postcommunist romania, where prevalence of cervical cancer in the population is disproportionately high compared to their european counterparts. at first glance, the cancer within merely offers an anthropological analysis which deepens historical background and cultural nuance to better interpret the epidemiological rates and trends of cervical cancer in romania. yet more than simply adding context to incidence, the findings expose and explore romanian citizens’ present day reckoning with the exigent legacy of communism’s brutal pronatalist and patriarchal sexual and reproductive health care regimes (1946-1989). using history as the point of entry, pop situates romanian cervical cancer incidence and its prevention efforts (i.e., human papilloma virus [hpv] vaccination) as an ultimate manifestation of the cobbled transition to a postcommunist medical system that “aligns the state and the market, public and private health care providers, policy makers, and ordinary women” (7). the central argument of the book posits that contemporary resistance to cervical cancer prevention efforts are less to do with cancer itself and are more a product of “systemic contingencies” of changing political, structural, and moral forces on the historical and personal unfolding of romanian’s reproductive lives. structurally, the book is divided into two parts, each punctuated by an interlude that summarizes government-led or ngo-driven developments (e.g., free mobile clinics) toward – albeit ineffectual – cervical cancer prophylaxis 2 part one, “women’s, men’s and god’s will,” centers pop’s interlocuters (ordinary romanians who are subject to preventive care campaigns) and the everyday moralities that govern their sexual and reproductive lives. chapter 1, “we all descend from communism,” considers the historical trauma arising from forces that shaped romanian women’s reproductive health under communist rule. using “reproductive life history,” pop excavates invasive pronatalist policies that repressed female sexuality (e.g., banning contraceptives, prohibiting abortion, imposing taxes on childless couples) but aggressively endorsed motherhood (e.g., subjecting women to mandatory pelvic exams, bodily surveillance during pregnancy, termination of midwifery in favor of statesanctioned male ob-gyn doctors). alongside the legacy of repressive regimes, chapter 1 also sheds light on the informal tactics that women have always used (e.g., “back-alley” abortions”) to manage fertility. chapter 2, “reproductive invisibility,” locates men as subjects of changing approaches to reproduction. by cross-referencing men’s and women’s private accounts of men’s roles with state propaganda about gender expectations, chapter 2 suggests that the cervical cancer crisis is enabled in part by extant patriarchal relations. contemporary hpv prevention campaigns “invisibilize” the biological and moral role of men in hpv transmission, thereby exculpating male sexuality from the physical and social consequences born to women. chapter 3, “beyond rationalities,” takes up god’s will as an actor within the sexual and reproductive lives of women. in the absence of support from the state or their male partners, women mobilize “lived religion” (mcguire, 2008) – everyday adaptations of institutional religious beliefs and practices – as a decision-making resource to generate nonsecular rationales for sexual and reproductive health management, including abortion as contraception and refusal of prophylactic biomedical care. part two, “medicine and its moralities,” scales up to spotlight the structural forces that shape the provision of services in the context of “postcommunist restructuring of state medicine, privatization of medical care, and the (re)emergence of inequitable forms of care” (17). chapter 4, “dismantling medicine,” investigates the ways different generations of romanian women experience and conceptualize strategic changes of state-subsidized medicine toward new regimes of private care; and how their informal tactics to access – or reject – sexual and reproductive care simultaneously change considering these transformations. chapter 4 works to make sense of why women often deny free hpv prevention, and why such refusal is a consummate projection of romanians’ rebuff of the former “communist state’s centralized paternalism” and the current “postcommunist state’s centrifugal fragility” (109). chapter 5, “the other hospital,” exposes 3 romanians’ ambivalence and anxieties about unprecedented proliferation of health care options. in learning to navigate novel medical systems, romanians both argue against and fantasize about the proverbial “other hospital,” whether the unfamiliar-yet-excellent private clinic, or the legibleyet-substandard public one. finally, chapter 6, “locating corruption,” submits that pervasive preoccupation with the moralities of sexual purity via hpv vaccination are in fact a function of the anxieties produced by the transition from state to private medicine. hpv vaccination programs, which promise to “inoculate” the individual body against the impurity of disease, provide romanians with a platform to express their conflicting views about “corruption” in the social body. as such, mothers who divest from preventive vaccination on behalf of their daughters may do so to resist corruption writ large. to close, pop offers a conclusive chapter, “the space between informed and non-informed refusal,” which summarizes how romanians conscript agency by staking claim to the space between informed and non-informed refusal; that dismissing preventive care is less about lack of knowledge or awareness of cancer risk and more about privileging a set of culturally and historically situated rationalities about their sexual reproductive lives. in the end, in the wake of patriarchal pronatalism and amid newfound democracy, for romanian women it is ultimately “control over one’s body that outweighs health” (91). the cancer within is published as a volume within rutgers university press’ series titled “medical anthropology: health inequality and social justice” (ed. lenore manderson). to that end, the monograph aims to – and succeeds in demonstrating – the effective use of ethnography to interrogate a medical issue that lays bare the sociocultural mechanisms at play in a particular place and time, which produce and sustain inequality or injustice. pop achieves this aim through her well-articulated use of canonical sociocultural theory. to diagnose the etiology of traumatic state intervention into women’s reproductive lives and its resultant medical mistrust and divestment, pop deftly assesses cancer’s conditions of possibility (kant [1781] 2018), communism’s hauntology (derrida 1994] 2006), and genealogical history of emerging forms of medical care (foucault 1977). the ethnography is also made effectual by its robust plurality of evidence, including pop’s own first-person accounts. as a girl coming of age during communism and a woman receiving sexual and reproductive care after its fall, pop turns the autoethnographic gaze upon herself to impart her own experiences of menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth in romania. pop’s personal voice adds a compelling layer of vulnerability (behar 1996) as well as validity and confirmability to her study. the applied contributions of the book advise policy experts to 4 strategize for a healthier future by unequivocally confronting the reproductive vulnerabilities of the past, for both women and men. to advance this application, a greater ethnographic understanding of romanian policy makers, health care providers, public health specialists, hospital administrators, and politicians – whose perspectives are largely absent from the book – would be needed. future investigation into public and private actors who deliver sexual and reproductive care would enhance the actionable insights derived from citizen/patient interlocuters in the cancer within. the central thrust of the theoretical, ethnographic, and practical arguments of the cancer within culminate in an urgent call to holistically address romania’s cervical cancer crisis: the country’s cancerous present cannot be understood – nor improved upon for the future – without confronting the embodied legacy of its communist past. works cited: behar, ruth. 1996. the vulnerable observer. anthropology that breaks your heart. boston: beacon press. foucault, michel. 1977. discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. new york: vintage books. derrida, jacques. (1994). 2006. specters of marx: the state of the debt, the work of mourning, and the new international. new york: routledge. kant, immanuel. (1781). 2018. the critique of pure reason. translated by j.m.d. meiklejohn. overland park, ks: digireads.com publishing. mcguire, meredith. (2008). lived religion: faith and practice in everyday life. oxford: oxford university press. nina j. francis-levin (she/her) is a national institutes of health t32 postdoctoral fellow in the division of metabolism, endocrinology, and diabetes at the university of michigan. her interdisciplinary research centers on issues at the crux of oncology and reproductive medicine – known together as oncofertility. francis-levin's most recent ethnographic project examines the 5 ways in which lgbtq+ adolescents and young adults with cancer re-negotiate body image, gender identity, sexuality, and notions of kinship in light of a cancer diagnosis. © 2023 nina j. francis-levin 1 zeitlyn, david. 2022. an anthropological toolkit: sixty useful concepts. new york: berghahn books, 150 pg., isbn 978-1-80073-470-8 david zeitlyn’s an anthropological toolkit: sixty useful concepts is the focused-yet-broadranging piece that is keenly needed by the discipline right now. in a tight 138 pages, zeitlyn stays true to the title, providing a short overview of sixty concepts that define anthropological thinking and praxis. it thus begs the questions: useful for whom? useful for what? the opening and closing concepts discussed in the book direct our attention to why this piece is critical at this moment in time. zeitlyn opens with a discussion of agnosia. while typically referencing the failure to recognize what is in front of you, he extends the concept to the use of social theory. as zeitlyn notes, in every choice, analysis, decision and reflection, we embed theories of the world and how it works. as our sphere of influence now extends far beyond the college classroom, an articulate and clear recognition of how we use theory is perhaps more important. today, 94% of us-based anthropologists work outside academia, one step removed from the ongoing and intense discussions about social theory and explanatory models. among practitioners with advanced degrees, many leave academia precisely because of social theory. they seek out career paths that allow them to engage deeply with methods and change-making, paths that can be increasingly difficult to pursue on increasingly rare tenure lines. the consequence is that many (although certainly not all) applied anthropologists are well-trained in and focus on methods the action part of our disciplines but may have less engagement with or exposure to social theory. and that’s a problem. in our inability or refusal to engage with theory, we miss opportunities to inform the critical topics shaping our world. from the structuring of ai https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalmatrix?queryparams=19-3091&iotype=o 2 to the shaping of risk analyses to crafting key communications on health or politics, the theory agnosia that dominates applied anthropology research can have profound implications for society. zeitlyn’s book provides an easy pathway back to theory for those in applied spaces. from a different perspective, anthropology faculty face an increasingly complicated classroom situation. with growing political oversight of and interventions into what can be taught, faculty can inadvertently find themselves on the wrong side of administrators, students, alumni and politicians by merely teaching the history of social theory. the teaching of theory on campus these days is a kind of wicked problem zeitlyn’s final entry “where the dynamic and behavioral complexities are high; where different groups of key decision makers hold different assumptions, values and beliefs, and where component problems cannot be solved in isolation from one another” (pg. 121). while we can and should continue to resist the efforts of non-experts to define our disciplines, we can simultaneously find new ways to cover that ground. zeitlyn’s “eclectic approach” of abstracting core concepts from the disciplinary schools that birthed and advanced them is one intriguing solution. this eclecticism is one of the most intriguing decisions zeitlyn made in writing the book. eschewing the traditional “grand theory” approach, he arranged the concepts alphabetically, thus leveling the conceptual playing field and positing the equal utility of each term within the right contexts. thus affordances, emic and mosaics are of similar value to isolarion and nonergodicity. moreover, by divorcing the concepts from theoretical schools, he bypasses the tribalism that can mar the actual practice of our work. no single school owns the concepts of exaptation or insaturation or positioning, and by refusing to align them to a specific master narrative, he enables practitioners to more easily play with and consume the ideas distinct from their “branding.” i suspect the book is particularly good for those who have some grounding in social theory. that said, it could pose more challenges for those unfamiliar with or long removed from the foundational questions of the discipline. knowing that faithfulness is a way of contextualizing the value of information for a given purpose is important, but knowing how to act upon that and apply that within a specific data scenario may be more difficult. moreover, i wonder how many practitioners will recognize the similarities between epiphanies and life writing, and the very 3 popular method of “journey mapping” that dominates so much of tech research. that final translational act could be a step too far for some, but would bring forward the full brilliance of the book. zeitlyn provides two broader tools beyond the concepts themselves. the first is a hesse net that traces the relationships between terms. this is a lovely way to visualize how these concepts cluster, and how they often provide variations on a broader theme. to extend his toolkit metaphor, it is akin to an organizational framework that clusters wrenches from screwdrivers from saws and other cutting tools. in teaching the book, i would consider a map that aligns concepts that live in tension. from an applied perspective, tension can be an easier framework for assessing the boundaries of a topic. moreover, novel interpretations of data often come from the application of concepts from disparate spaces, versus “more of the same.” helping practitioners to understand how to mix and match these concepts would be a powerful extension of the toolkit. second, zeitlyn includes a coda a finished text example of applying these concepts to his own fieldwork. for those of us familiar with ethnographies, it is easy to dissect how his use of mosaics, partiality, exemplars, and faithfulness shaped the text. for practitioners with limited or no background in this space, i would likely break this down in three steps: first, present the collected data; second, show how different concepts apply to the data; and third, explore why a particular set of concepts yields a better interpretation. to extend zeitlyn’s “toolkit” metaphor, this would be how to use the tools to build a particular thing. overall, the book is a timely offering for elevating and enhancing the value of anthropological thinking, and enabling practitioners to re-engage with the depth of the discipline. highly recommended. kate sieck (ba uchicago; ma soas; phd emoryu) is an anthropologist whose career has traversed academia, public sector, and private sector roles. she spent nearly 10 years teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in cultural anthro, medical anthro, and research methods. in 2010, she transitioned into industry, leading a research team in marketing and consulting. today, she serves as the senior manager in the human-centered ai division at toyota research 4 institute, a private r&d lab for toyota motor corp. in addition, she is a co-chair for the equity council within epic, as well as leading courses on "using theory in research" for anthropologists practicing outside academia. © 2023 kate sieck microsoft word shumar review edited.docx wright, s., carney, s., krejsler, j. b., nielsen, g. b., ørberg, j. w. (2020). enacting the university: danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective. springer nature b. v. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1921-4 the anthropology of higher education is a small area in the subfield of the anthropology of education. while most anthropologists who work in education are doing research in k-12 institutions or informal educational contexts, there is a highly specialized group of anthropologists working in higher education. nevertheless, enacting the university: danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective by susan wright, stephen carney, john benedicto krejsler, gritt bykærholm nielson, and jacob williams ørberg is a very important book. it makes important theoretical and methodological contributions to social and cultural anthropology more broadly. and while it is looking at the university in one european country, the implications of this work are important for everyone who works in higher education globally. this review will focus on two main contributions. the first is a contribution to thinking about ethnography. second, the volume makes important contributions to our thinking about institutions in a globalized and neoliberalized world and the ways the larger forces intersect with the activities of people within them. enacting the university: danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective is not a traditional ethnography. it is not the sole researcher engaging in participant observation with a specific group of people. rather it is a team of researchers who are looking at a small set of large institutions (danish universities) as they sit within a national and international context. anthropologists tend not to see ethnography as a method but rather something like a stance toward the other. this perspective on ethnography offers the ethnographer a “tool-kit” of methods, rather than simply relying on participant observation. in fact, the focus on ethnography as a method in other fields has led to some prominent critiques in anthropology (ingold 2014, herzfeld, 2001). but even as a stance toward the other, traditionally, anthropology has thought of that other in fairly simple terms. and when one begins to think of the other as “danish universities,” this raises a whole host of new problems. these are problems that some anthropologists have been trying to address (holmes & marcus 2008, marcus 2011, riles 2000, strathern 2004). in a global world, ethnography often needs to be practiced in teams, and those teams need to be able to echo the kinds of collaborations that one sees in other institutions and organization in the global economy (marcus 2011). following riles (2000), anthropologists are not outside of the global networks they study but are themselves part of these complex institutions and networks where there is no outside. wright and her team very much take this principle of being a team within the network to heart. and to understand danish university reform ethnographically, the team takes on the different levels of analysis woven together with wright’s introduction and conclusion. in this way, they are able to look at interactions and discourses at the macro level of the oecd, eu, and danish government, as well as at the levels of university leaders, university faculty and researchers and students. this leads directly to some of the theoretical contributions the book makes to the study of universities and large-scale institutions within a global context. in the opening chapter and the conclusion, wright explains the two senses of the term “enacting.” drawing on the perspective that developed in british cultural studies and the birmingham school, enactment on the one hand is the enactment of laws and the ways that power frames the field withing with actors interact. the second sense of enactment is the more on the ground struggles and practices of individuals who are engaged in a range of practices, from interpreting how to best follow the law to active resistance and attempts at rearticulation. and even among the elite policy makers and the university leaders, there is not a single vision, but rather a set of ideas that people interpret differently. using a number of theoretical tools from stuart hall, norman fairclough, michel foucault, anna tsing, and many others, the teams look at the ways that the transformation of the danish university, has been partial, met with resistance, but ultimately the university is in the process of change. wright shows that within the oecd, at the most global level, and the eu and danish government, there was a shared sense that universities needed to be aligned so as to become more competitive in a global knowledge economy. but even at the highest levels, wright shows, through detailed ethnographic work, that change was not a coordinated elite plan, but rather a shared view of the world among a fairly small group of elites. one of the ideologies among elites is a different sense of freedom. wright shows us how the idea of freedom among the politicians and policy makers is not the traditional notion of academic freedom, but rather seeing the university as an individual and free agent capable of making contractual relations with other for-profit players in the economy providing the knowledge and technologies that the market demands. wright and ørberg show that the process of articulating the relationship of political leadership to organizations in the society went through a series of changes. and as universities went through those changes, they became freer, but at the same time more beholden to the state, because as free actors they needed to earn their keep rather than just relying on an assumed budget from the state. at no point in the work do we have a simplistic view of the powerful dominating or the less powerful simply being dominated. but the overall effect of the changes in legislation in denmark has been the transformation, and perhaps what i would call the destruction of the modern research university as originally envisioned by the humboldt tradition. indeed, if the modern university was founded on an idealistic contract with the state where the individual and society is called upward through and unfettered pursuit of knowledge, the new contract is one that is one where all are called to help produce profit for the knowledge economy, the new definition of well-being. the book moves from this larger view through each of the levels of the university. carney looks at how university rectors have dealt with the new legislation and the new pressures on them to, like a corporation, make their institutions leaner and more accountable to the goals of supporting the knowledge economy. in important ways these university leaders become more like corporate ceos and begin after the 2003 university law to try to make quick and sweeping changes to the structure of the university and the makeup of the faculty. using a foucauldian model, carney discusses the ways leadership uses a discursive model for articulating what is normative within the university. academic decisions shift to financial ones as new priorities are articulated at different levels. and while the first wave of reforms and reform leaders were resisted, and several of them replaced by leaders who pursued the agenda more softly, the overall effect of these efforts have been to change the university and its orientation to teaching and knowledge in significant ways. as wright showed in the early chapters of the book, “freedom” and “democracy” were floating signifiers. policy makers and politicians used the slippage in these terms to move from a traditional notion of academic freedom to a free institution, free to offer its services in the global information marketplace. and so, the university is freed on the one hand as an economic actor. but on the other hand, it gave the state more control over the university by using an accountability discourse and seeing accountability in terms of being an economic service to the public. krejsler, like carney, shows that the discursive play around key signifiers is both a mechanism to control behavior, but at the same time can be invoked as a strategy of resistance on the part of academic faculty. and further, krejsler shows that faculty’s attitude toward the changes in the university vary by field and type of institution. the success in slowing down the process of instrumentality also varies by institution as well, with the older more established universities being able to more successfully deploy an humboldtian discourse surrounding the status of the university. in different ways, much of the discussion is about how academics are positioned by the knowledge economy discourse, and how they responded by attempting to position themselves within the humboldtian, academic freedom, discourse. in my own work, i suggested that university students in the united states, struggling for the rights to be part of the process of knowledge production in the 1960s and 1970s, ultimately lost that battle, but in the process gained consumer rights. and this shift in freedom and rights was part of the larger american transformation of the university. in a somewhat similar way, but in a very different context, nielson talks about the struggles over imagination of the student in the danish context. she uses the notion of “figures,” a concept articulated by several anthropologists, to talk about the ways that university students have changed over time and particularly from the 1960s to the present. for nielson, a figure is both a product of imagination, but also a social category that has been forged from the empirical context in which students find themselves. for example, the current notion of the student as consumer is both a product of social imagination, but students are also literally engaged in consumer behaviors and activities in relationship to the new marketized university. nielson captures the ways that student have moved from struggling to have claim in the production of knowledge within the university, to a more issue-oriented approach to their relationship to knowledge within and without the university. and while students have moved to a more “consumer rights” position, they also remain a political force in the ways, as she points out, that hardt and negri (2004) might see political struggle. enacting the university gives us a lot of detail at a number of different levels of the changes going on in europe and denmark. but the book has implications for these processes that universities are facing around the world. and while the particulars networks and institutions vary in different locations, the increasing focus globally on an instrumental rationality to evaluate universities is almost universal. rider (2009:87) drawing on the vision of humboldt and the sociologist robert merton, suggests there is real value in the autonomy of science. scientific discovery needs to be separate from the particular instrumental goals of various actors. this is true for the good of society, so that science does not get adopted for nefarious purposes. but it is also true, that scientific discovery, even discovery that is useful for the economy, cannot always be preplanned. otherwise, it would not be discovery. the processes that wright, carney, krejsler, nielson, and ørberg discuss are ultimately detrimental to universities as institutions, and to society at large. hardt m. & negri a. (2004). multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire. penguin press. herzfeld, m. (2001). anthropology: theoretical practice in culture and society. malden: blackwell publishers. holmes, d. r. and marcus, g. e. (2008). collaboration today and the re-imagination of the classic scene of the fieldwork encounter, collaborative anthropologies volume 1: 81-101. ingold, t. (2014). that’s enough about ethnography! in hau: journal of ethnographic theory, 4(1): 383-395. marcus, g. e. (2011). ‘notes from within a laboratory for the reinvention of anthropological method. in ethnographic practice in the present, edited by marit melhuus, john p. mitchell, and helena wulff, 69 79. new york: berghahn books. rider, s. (2009). the future of the european university: liberal democracy or authoritarian capitalism? culture unbound, volume 1: 83–104. hosted by linköping university electronic press: http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se riles, a. (2000). the network inside out. ann arbor: university of michigan press. strathern, m. (2004). partial connections, updated edition. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield publishers. wesley shumar is an anthropologist and professor of communication at drexel university with research experience in higher education, mathematics education, online learning, and social learning theory. in higher education he is author of college for sale: a critique of the commodification of higher education, falmer press, 1997. hi is co-editor, along with joyce canaan of structure and agency in the neoliberal university, routledge, 2008, as well as coeditor along with søren s. e. bengtsen and sarah robinson of the university becoming: perspectives from philosophy and social theory, springer, 2021. © 2023 wesley shumar microsoft word bahceci review with edits.docx antonius c. g. m. robben and alexander laban hinton, 2023, perpetrators encountering humanity’s dark side, stanford: stanford university press, 253 pp., isbn 9781503634282. in perpetrators encountering humanity’s dark side, two veteran anthropologists provide the discipline with a set of practical lessons for conducting fieldwork with interlocutors who have participated in mass atrocities. these lessons are based on the “practical wisdom” – what the authors also term as phronesis by borrowing from ancient greek (p. 5) – that they have developed through their decades of research in argentina and cambodia, where two politically different kinds of authoritarian regimes unleashed programmes of mass violence on their populations in the 1970s. the book begins with a desire to address “anthropology’s lack of methodological reflection on encounters with perpetrators of mass violence in the field,” but is far more than a methods guide. the book is in part ethnographic self-analysis and in part a socratic dialogue involving the authors. it begins with theoretical reflections on what perpetration means (introduction), and continues to examine the problems that ethnographers face when conducting research with agents of violence (part i, including chapters 1 and 2), the marks that these violent interlocutors leave on the researchers (part ii including chapters 3 and 4), and the problem of ethnographically writing about difficult and violent subjects (part iii including chapters 5 and 6). each part is introduced by interludes which set out the themes examined in the subsequent chapters. in the introduction, the authors make a case for preserving “perpetrator” as a concept because of the “analytical affordances” (p. 6) which it provides. building on uğur ümit üngör and kjell anderson’s framework which differentiates between “architects,” “organizers” and “killers” of mass violence, robben and hinton come up with the analytical category of “perpetrator-facilitator” in order to empirically probe the multifaceted issues of “agency, motivation, and dehumanization” (p. 9) provoked by the actual perpetrators that they encountered in their fields. meditating in a dialogue with his co-author on the indeterminacy of the term “perpetrator,” robben urges researchers to use the term to refer to anyone that participated in a mass atrocity “at whichever organizational and operational level,” and continues to recognise that “there are no universal criteria [for analytically applying the term]. researchers need to weigh each and every case” (p. 12). in the dialogue, hinton further advises researchers to examine processes and “be very careful with typologies, even as they can, when used with care (as üngör and anderson do), be useful analytical containers and facilitate research” (p. 13). such dialogues between the authors occur throughout the book, and they encourage the reader to be an active participant in an ongoing exchange between the authors. in part i, the authors reflect on their field encounters with perpetrators in cambodia and argentina to raise two major issues. in chapter 1, hinton states that his early research in cambodia had a “dramatic optics” that preconceived encounter with khmer rouge perpetrators in a particularly “spectacular” way: “what, if anything, is an interview with a perpetrator other than spectacular? it is an encounter structured around the extraordinary: the ultimate transgression, the killing of another human being” (p. 48). however, the interviews that hinton later managed to arrange were anything but spectacular: “almost everyone, especially those who did the physical killing, tried to downplay their involvement even when they partly acknowledged their role… everyone wanted to be exceptional, not spectacular, although many were quite willing to tell spectacular dk perpetrator stories” (p. 54). this mismatch between his preconceptions and subsequent field encounters leads hinton to conclude that “the first step to interviewing perpetrators… is to set aside our spectacular optics to the best of our ability” (p. 59). this call for approaching perpetrators as humans – instead of simple monsters – who provide avenues into understanding humanity’s dark side comes with the risk of misunderstanding and understating their culpability. after all, many perpetrators try to justify, relativise, or contextualise their actions and seek to persuade the interviewer into their particular worldview. in chapter 2, robben addresses this repeatedly observed tendency of perpetrators through what he terms the problem of “ethnographic seduction.” this refers to the interviewed perpetrators’ attempts “to protect a positive selfimage, avoid compromising issues, and make ethnographers accept their [shallow] discourse as the truth” (p. 79). robben had repeatedly faced this risk of being “led astray” when he interviewed argentinian officers involved in enforced disappearances. however, by reflecting on minute dynamics of the interview situation, he devised strategies for recognising and avoiding it. most crucially, robben learned to -and urges others to do tooconduct a “reflexive examination of the unconscious emotional dynamics” which play during and after these interviews (p.79). these warnings serve towards achieving an optimal researcher disposition that permits approaching perpetrators with affective and cognitive “empathy” but -most importantlywithout compassion. this state of “empathy without compassion” is for robben the best way of empirically grasping and anthropologically analysing perpetrators. in part ii the authors reflect on the traces that their violent interlocutors have left on their own psyches; more specifically, they focus on their own dreams and nightmares. in chapter 4, robben focuses on several of his dreams to examine unresolved personal histories that unconsciously informed his research in argentina and his ambivalent emotions towards his interlocutors. having entered psychoanalysis during his fieldwork in argentina, albeit remaining unconvinced of its claims, robben nevertheless concludes that his relationship with his father – and his father’s brother who went missing during world war ii – defined his relationship with argentinian officers to whom he transferred his ambivalent relationship and conflicts with his father (p. 116). the “practical wisdom” he urges others is an awareness of “the psychodynamics that influences the interaction with perpetrators, and emotional reactions to the often evasive accounts of violence and terror” (p. 129). while robben’s experiences imply the possibility of healthy separation, hinton argues for the inevitability of contagion and abjection. analysing a dream involving khmer rouge’s infamous s-21 killing centre, subsequently turned into a museum, hinton eventually confesses: i don’t mean to engage in a self-pitying exercise. i have never written about these issues and never considered doing so until tony suggested we co-write this book and include a section on dreaming. but it is something that needs to be acknowledged. there is a psychological cost to studying the ruins of perpetration. it leads to a direct confrontation with death and horror. it dirties you and makes you abject. perpetrator research invites the “black sun” (p. 144). confronting this abjection directly provides one path to regaining a sense of self, and this also leads to part iii’s concern with ethics of representation and writing about perpetration. in chapter 5, robben demonstrates the importance of providing polyphonic accounts of events and actors and avoiding writing styles that flatten the “paradoxical” social status of perpetrators. this is a challenge because it again risks relativising and understating culpability in violence; for robben, the solution lies in establishing a “proper distance” in narration that explicitly condemns perpetrators’ action while seeking to empathetically understand their violence (p. 185-188). for hinton, the solution resides in carefully “curating” material to enable representation of characters and situations without an overbearing academic analysis that “freezes” its subjects (p. 191). in chapter 6, hinton finds resolution in writing an “ethnodrama” that “includes elements of dramatic structure and uses language and narrative structure to raise questions and evoke ambiguities often glossed over in expository writing” (p. 193). indeed, the main issue for hinton is learning to write without reliance on academic “banisters” that limit movement (p. 198). these “banisters” are particularly unhelpful when addressing subjects as difficult as perpetration, for “the first lesson of perpetrator research” – that researchers should always beware that the metaphorical figure of medusa is always present in the room during perpetrator research requires ample room for movement to be properly applied. in overall, perpetrators encountering humanity’s dark side provides a therapeutic and rewarding read for anthropologists and social scientists who have come into contact with agents of violence through their research, as well as for those who expect to do so. these lessons are most immediately useful for those studying transitional contexts where perpetrators are more immediately detectable as social actors through local categories: both cambodia and argentina were undergoing turbulent periods of coming to terms with their violent pasts at the time of the authors’ research. in other contexts, such as my doctoral field site in cyprus, perpetrators of ethnic violence are rarely pointed out as such, and thus they remain more evasive than in many other comparable contexts. there is no indication in the book how robben and hinton’s “practical wisdoms” can be applied in contexts where overt denial is the norm among suspected perpetrators, and where an increasingly pervasive indifference defines the social relations with past violence. these issues do not diminish the “practical wisdoms” outlined in the book, as they explicitly call for application in other contexts, and provide fascinating points for further thinking and praxis. sergen bahceci completed a phd in anthropology at the london school of economics in february 2023 with a thesis titled sediments of violence: history, subjectivity, and mourning in northern cyprus. his doctoral research was funded by an economic and social research council 1+3 studentship. he currently works as a researcher at the university of oxford’s centre for criminology for a project examining everyday experiences of in/security in an english town. © 2023 sergen bahceci microsoft word 539-article text-1739-2-2-20220815.docx 1 stone, glenn davis. the agricultural dilemma. 1st edition. new york, ny: routledge, 2022. since the mid-19th century (stone pegs the key year as 1840), a nexus of self-serving scientists, government, and industry have embraced a neo-malthusian mantra that the only way to prevent starvation in the face of a rising global population is by industrializing agriculture to increase the food supply. in the agricultural dilemma: how not to feed the world, glenn davis stone thoroughly and amply demonstrates that they are wrong. the tension between social scientists and neo-malthusians is an old one: geographer carl sauer warned the rockefeller foundation against its mexican agricultural program (map) in the early 1940s (jennings 1988) and the international rice research institute (irri) marginalized social science during the green revolution of the 1960s (oasa 1981). however, as stone notes, until now publications scientifically demonstrating the fallacies of neo-malthusianism have been academic, limiting their audience – and the impact of their message. stone’s new accessibly (and occasionally irreverently) written book aims to correct that; although academically rigorous, its message is concise and streamlined and it can be easily understood by non-academics. stone presents his argument by describing three types of agriculture: malthusian, industrialized, and intensive. malthusian agriculture conforms to malthus’ (incorrect) assumption that the only way to increase the food supply is by bringing more land under the plow. industrialized agriculture, the focus of most of the book, is “the result of [subsidized] industry appropriating processes within farm production and selling them back as inputs” to overproduce food (p. 14). this is the core of stone’s argument, and most of the book is devoted to amply supporting it with evidence. he shows that, even as neo-malthusians called for industrializing agriculture as the only way to stem hunger, they were struggling with problematic surpluses due to industrialized agriculture. stone refers to advocates of industrialized agriculture as neo-malthusians because they recognize that increased 2 yields are possible but retain malthus’ belief that the population will grow unchecked and inevitably outstrip the food supply. the third type of agriculture – intensive – relies on skilled labor, knowledge, and innovation to increase agricultural productivity when needed – and only when needed – due to population pressure with limited reliance on external inputs and markets. “malthus had gotten it not just wrong, but backward,” writes stone, citing the work of agricultural economist ester boserup (p. 204). in intensive farming systems, population pressure drives agriculture, not the other way around. after laying out his theoretical framework in the first chapter, stone situates malthus’ theory about population and food supply in malthus social location as a cleric born into the british gentry in the late 17th century (chapter two). ignorant of agriculture, malthus formed his conclusions after observing the poor among his parishioners in an area of concentrated poverty due to british social policies of the time. the next four chapters form the heart of the book, laying out stone’s theory of industrial agriculture in (chapter 3), and supporting it with data from three cases: fertilizer (chapter 4), hybrid corn (chapter 5), and the green revolution (chapter 6). stone ends with a chapter on intensive agriculture, showing there is an alternative option to industrial agriculture that already provides an estimated 50% to 75% of the world’s food (p. 211). in many ways, the book’s content stems from its purpose as a theoretical refutation of neomalthusianism claims. as stone notes more than once, any criticism of industrial agriculture is met by accusations of romanticism and condemning millions to starvation. here, stone hits back directly, attacking his opponents on their weakest point: while neo-malthusians claim to work in the interests of farmers and the hungry, stone shows they are in fact acting to benefit themselves while harming farmers (especially poor farmers), without addressing hunger. the book is tightly focused around this point. romanticism has played a role in consumer food movements skeptical of industrialization in the u.s. (dupuis 2015), but stone’s critique of industrial agriculture comes entirely from natural and social scientific research. stone is thorough in demonstrating that the very justification for industrialized agriculture – its necessity to “feed the world” – is false. in fact, stone shows that industrializing agriculture did not increase yields beyond the pre-industrial growth it was already experiencing; some increases in productions of specific crops (like wheat) are due to farmers responding to government policies incentivizing growing wheat and taking land 3 out of other crops; modern famines are due to social factors rather than failure to grow sufficient food; industrial agriculture forces farmers onto a technological treadmill that disproportionately benefits the wealthiest farmers while causing widespread deskilling; and the same governments that promote industrialized agriculture struggle to store or utilize the oversupply of food it produces. although he did not neglect to examine systems of oppression like racism and classism, stone could have gone further in analyzing their role. he reliably notes when neo-malthusians express overt racism, eugenics, and anti-semitism, but he does not systematically examine the role of racism in population anxieties as other scholars have done (park and pellow 2011; wilde 2019), nor does he examine the role of racism when it is not expressed overtly. given the number of quotes he shares by white, middleand upper-class americans who describe farmers – especially farmers in the global south who stone demonstrates are skilled, knowledgeable, and innovative – as backward, stagnant, ignorant, and in need of instruction from themselves, it would be illuminating to read an analysis of the more covert role of classism and racism in the campaign to industrialize agriculture. altogether, the agricultural dilemma is an excellent addition to the literature that synthesizes a staggering amount of research by scholars like robert netting, james scott, jack kloppenburg, jan douwe van der ploeg, nick cullather, and stone himself. the book can bring social science to both academic and non-academic audiences alike in an important public debate that has marginalized social science since at least the 1940s. jill richardson is a phd candidate in sociology at university of wisconsin-madison. she is an environmental sociologist who engages a broad range of theoretical perspectives that emphasize approaches to building relationships of mutual respect, sharing knowledge, and building trust to manage natural resources equitably and sustainably. she expects to graduate in may 2023. references: dupuis, e. melanie. dangerous digestion: the politics of american dietary advice, 2015. jennings, bruce h. foundations of international agricultural research: science and politics in mexican agriculture. westview press, 1988. 4 oasa, edmund k. “the international rice research institute and the green revolution : a case study on the politics of agricultural research,” 1981. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/10099. park, lisa sun-hee, and david pellow. the slums of aspen: immigrants vs. the environment in america’s eden. new york: nyu press, 2011. wilde. birth control battles. first edition. oakland, california: university of california press, 2019. © 2022 jill richardson microsoft word moon-little revised v2 corrections 2.docx heidi e. fjeld, 2022, the return of polyandry: kinship and marriage in central tibet, new york: berghahn books, 232 pp., isbn 978-1-80073-607-8 why did the people of panam, in western tibet, opt for polyandry (zasum) over one-to-one marriage in the early 1990s? heidi fjeld's intriguing historical ethnography tackles this question and examines the role of polyandry in the himalayas. i suspect most anthropologists of my generation (those trained in the 2010s) only encounter polyandry as a fleeting example of the possibilities afforded by kinship, or as a counterpoint to more normative marriage practices. this book provides a sympathetic and attentive account of the lives of tibetans, many of whom shared polyandrous marriages, against a backdrop of rapidly changing rural life. fjeld’s monograph comes from a rare position. she was one of the few foreign researchers who received permission from the people’s republic of china (henceforth prc) to conduct fieldwork in tibet in the early 2000s. as her field site, she chose the wheat and barley growing panam. the short explanation for the return of polyandry lies in land reforms. when prc-mandated collectivist farming ended in panam in 1980, animals and land were redistributed. households that received large parcels of land had no wish for them to be divided up in the following generations. marrying sets of brothers to inward-coming brides proved a convenient solution. if newly formed households wished to continue to prosper, land needed to stay in large enough parcels to remain profitable to farm. at the same time, fjeld makes clear that polyandry was much more than a response to a materialist problem. by mobilising the concept of the “house,” fjeld combines the domains of economics, kinship, and ritual. households of various kinds take center stage in this book, such that a case could be made that this is a book about house or households, as opposed to polyandry. house-related terms appear over a thousand times in the ensuing pages. fjeld builds on claude levi-strauss’ famous formulation of house societies (sociétés à maison) and engages with scholars who pushed the concept further, especially janet carsten and stephen hugh-jones’ reinterpretation. any suggestion that polyandry might be synonymous with matriarchy is quickly allayed by fjeld. working through the monograph, the reader encounters a dozen or so sociological concepts stemming from the latin pater that are focused on male descent. an abbreviated list includes “patri-dominated” (54), “patrifocal,” “patrilineal,” “patri-ideology” (15), “patrilocal,” and “patrimonies.” polyandry thus remains firmly within the patriarchy. chapter one sketches out the core concerns of the book and introduces life in the village of sharlung. the specificity of polyandry lends itself to regional comparison, and fjeld brings in relevant contrasts like nancy levine's work on polyandry in humla, a region in western nepal. reading through this chapter, one gets a sense of the temporalities associated with different policies under the people's republic of china. because of the political sensitivity of tibet, some readers might be surprised not to find more explicit anthropology of the state throughout the monograph. instead fjeld keeps the state subtle present while focusing on tibetan understandings of social change within panam and family histories. chapter two begins with a consideration of the relationship between flesh and bone. fjeld’s discussion of tibetan kinship idioms around rü (bones) reminds anthropologists of the breadth of theories of relatedness, and why kinship used to be so central to the discipline. fjeld then provides an orderly overview of notions of belonging within panam households, such as adoption, and, of course, marriage. “brothers,” as one elderly woman told fjeld, “like to stay together” (65). this is one of the many social explanations in panam for polyandry. fjeld discusses sibling relationships and the significance of age rank among brothers in her third chapter, fraternal relations. she addresses the practicalities of marital sex from the brothers’ perspective. expectations around who sleeps where ensure that conjugal relations are structured and therefore discrete. polyandry, as fjeld repeatedly stresses, takes careful work. it requires structures and rhythms that can be easily read by the participants. in chapter four, female roles, fjeld tries to balance competing concerns regarding agency. how did women in panam see their lives, and how should they be represented? fjeld acknowledges that scholars have often highlighted tibetan women’s independence. but fjeld rejects the analytic of ‘the tibetan woman’ as both homogenising and essentialising. in many ways, this is the standout chapter in the monograph as we hear the voices of the nama, the women who entered into polyandry. several nama stated that rural life was more desirable than becoming urban migrants. entering polyandrous marriages made rural life work. caring for multiple husbands was difficult, but it brought stability. fjeld’s positionality shines through in this chapter, both as a female researcher studying women’s lives and as a mother undertaking ethnographic research. for example, fjeld makes transparent how certain conversations around sex unfolded. should nama visit both brothers in one night, or space out these relations? opinions in panam varied. but sex is not everything. the tibetan women interviewed put great emphasis on sharing affection between each husband, regardless of the wife’s preferences between the brothers. chapter five, the house as ritual space, puts cosmology at the forefront. fjeld guides the readers around the division of domestic spaces, such as the lha khang, a house for deities beneath the roof. the chapter stresses the need for separation to allow relations to flourish and to mediate pollution and misfortune. fjeld also expands on notions of landscape, locating panam within wider tibetan conceptions of space. chapter six engages with the pioneering work of tibetan anthropologist ugen gombo on social stratification. when analysing descent group relations in 1970s central tibet, gombo saw a strong correlation between decent groups, economic status, and ritual status. he argued these relations were akin to the practise of caste in india, which, even in the late 1970s, was often theorised as a fundamentally hindu institution. fjeld found similar caste-like relations among the buddhists of panam two decades later. however, in contrast to gombo, she noticed that ritual stratifications appeared to survive chinese state measures that increased economic equality. in other words, increased economic equality did not lead to ritual equality. some communities in panam were said to endure drip (ritual pollution), not just in their work but in their bones. fjeld goes on to lay out the ways gifting, patronage, and notions of pollution shaped local hierarchies. for some readers, fjeld’s theoretical style might seem determinedly canonical. more contemporary buzzwords like “affect theory” are not featured. neither are accounts of humananimal relations. however, subsections on polyandrous masculinities (74) and a counter-example of the refusal of gender norms by a tibetan called phuntsok (108), chime well with current trends. for theory, fjeld turns to the foundational francophone anthropologists: robert hertz, marcel mauss, lévi-strauss, and louis dumont. values are ranked, and categories are defined. siblingship, and its related political ideal fraternity, are often treated as synonymous with equality in european thought. fjeld, using dumont’s value theory, demonstrates how in polyandrous marriages the eldest husband encompasses his younger siblings and their wife. hierarchy and oppositions feature prominently throughout the monograph. fjeld, however, is no way beholden to the views of her anthropological ancestors. for instance, she chides lévi-strauss for his insistence that polyandry is a last resort for communities (11). fjeld’s monograph shows this is patently untrue. similarly, fjeld rejects the evolutionist ideas in lévi-strauss’ original formulation of house societies. the reappearance of polyandry in the 1990s emphatically proves this point too. all that said, it might be hard to take much theory from this well measured book to other projects, unless, that is, one follows fjeld’s subtly revised concept of households. this revised concept, however, could enrich other studies of domesticity, kinship, and polyandry. the return of polyandry: kinship and marriage in central tibet is a classic ethnography, both in structure and in its concerns. at a time when many classic texts are being questioned, and rightly so, this accessible monograph will hopefully feature on many undergraduate reading lists. it so vividly shows why kinship has so long preoccupied anthropologists. edward moon-little is a social anthropologist trained at the university of cambridge. he was previously a convenor of grammars of marriage and desire, a research network at the centre for research in the arts, humanities and social sciences (crassh), at the university of cambridge. moon-little studies kingship in manipur and is currently a fellow at the highland institute, a nongovernmental research institute in nagaland, northeast india. he is also a member of five-year research project, india's politics in its vernaculars, hosted at king’s college london. © 2023 moon-little microsoft word towards an anthropology of data (3).docx 1 anthropology against, of, and with data practices douglas-jones, rachel, antonia walford & nick seaver, eds. 2021. towards an anthropology of data. chichester: wiley/rai, pp. 180, isbn 978-1-119-816768. keywords: data practices, datafication, ethnography, methodology, theory the past years have seen a surge in anthropological studies of data. for someone who is relatively new to the topic, rachel douglas-jones, antonia walford and nick seaver’s edited collection, towards an anthropology of data, provided a most helpful sample of how inquiry into data can contribute to the discipline in original ways. the introduction underscores how the study of data requires that we revisit classic anthropological concepts – e.g., kinship, value, and personhood – while productively challenging our ways of understanding them. the editors put this succinctly: “discourses, practices, and imaginaries of data are configuring and inflecting the familiar in unfamiliar or surprising ways” (10). data, therefore, offers “a generative site of anthropological theory building” (10). the tension between the old and the new is recurring. this contrast is also reflected in how data is sometimes spoken of emically: it is informed by ideologies of objectivity while simultaneously pointing at immense complexity; it draws on familiar modes of quantification whilst also harbouring revolutionary potentials. in the meantime, the uses that people make of data to re-apprehend themselves and their worlds turn data into a thoroughly relational and socially constituted phenomenon. qualitative methods can indeed be seen as a counterpart to data and thus encourage a disposition against datafication. yet, the nine essays that follow seek to treat data primarily as something that can provoke conceptual re-theorization, asking what it does not merely what is built into it. 2 the first essay by vijayanka nair examines india’s aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identification system. through the processes whereby enrolees become data, aadhaar re-stages a tension between individuality and dividuality; biometric technologies serve as “tools for a purifying ritual” (35) indifferent to collective identities, meanwhile becoming enmeshed with familiar sociality and yielding new modes of belonging. the next essay attends to spatializing techniques in analyses of cultural data. by drawing on fieldwork with developers of music recommender systems, nick seaver elicits data’s “reality-producing effects” (45) irrespective of its representational accuracy. at stake here are representations of culture as mappable space, which limn “genre” and “taste” through their spatial location. an interlocutor’s contention that “[e]verything lies in space” (58) becomes the basis for discussing euclidean imaginaries among social theorists, for instance in notions such as fields of power and analogies between proximity and similarity. the third case study on the datafication of nature at a natural history museum in berlin centers on how data becomes enmeshed with temporalizing projects. tahani nadim demonstrates how attempts to speed up the process of taxonomic research in the face of rapid biodiversity loss brings into view not only various scales and (dis)connections, but likewise natural history’s relation to imperial formations. the essay unveils “the sociocultural and historical specificities and contingencies within data” (73) by tapping into a number of tensions at stake in digital salvage taxonomy: between the big and the small, taxonomic and relational precision, and decontextualization and recontextualization, among others, showing how these often go handin-hand. a.r.e. taylor’s essay also deals with temporality, albeit by looking at cold war, nuclear bunkers repurposed as data storage sites for cloud computing providers. through a tour at a uk-based bunker, the author explores how “future-proofing” involves the construction of certain temporal imaginaries. for bunkered data storage to become meaningful for clients, companies need to dismantle visions of “data transcendence” (90) and instead enact the materiality and fragility of data by grounding the cloud. along the way, companies conjure and concretize both a sense of resilience and future threat. next, cori hayden reflects on social media in connection to old and resurgent debates around crowd formations, emotional contagion, and social dissolution. clouds crowd not only by virtue of the size, scope, or scale of data practices, but also modes of connection: “the forms of similarity and even ‘susceptibility’ through which data points, people, ideas, suggestions, are both generated and brought into contact with each other” (101). by critically examining 3 gustave le bon’s problematic anxiety over the power of crowds, hayden interrogates classic distinctions between correlation and causation, message and medium, and input and environmental surround. hannah knox explores how “the hack” can serve as a model for doing anthropology. drawing on fieldwork among citizens in manchester who try to make sense of data produced by sensors and monitors, the essay moves beyond distinctions between data as “socially constructed representations” and “direct signs of an underlying reality” (109). the citizens’ uses of data did “not so much reveal truths as reveal ambivalences” that generated new questions and social relations. knox’s is an anthropology with data practices -an exercise in learning from data practitioners in seeing otherwise and forging new relations. the following essay by antonia walford works with two sets of comparison to elicit how data is often defined by its potential, “valued as a form of social relation that has not happened yet” (128). a first comparison, between data processing among scientists in the brazilian amazon and ova donations in the united kingdom, helps to challenge understandings of data as extraction, instead framing data processing as a form of reproductive labour. a second comparison, between big data infrastructures and genomics, serves to interrogate the idea of “openness” in open data. together, these comparisons encourage a critical engagement not with the way data is reductive but with data as potential. sarah blacker’s study explores indigenous data compositions that can be policy-relevant without becoming subsumed by western science. through a “‘three-track’ methodology” (142), first nation communities presented data about environmental contamination produced by the oil industry in alberta, bringing their knowledge into conversation with dominant data paradigms by translating the former “just enough to enable recognition” (147). the essay demonstrates how one might develop methodologies that push beyond normative modes of data production. the last essay by rachel douglas-jones examines how bodies of data are thought of as a means to knowledge about physical bodies and bodies politic. concerned with the exhortation “getting to know your data self,” the essay draws out “often tacit assumptions about where data comes from, where it goes, how it is ‘us’ (or not us),” including how it “is thought to be or stand in for larger wholes” (160). in the examples, the data sought for self-knowledge differs; the use and movement of data provides it with new meanings. a short afterword by bill maurer makes use of the analogy between data and money to highlight data’s transformative potential, from which its value often derives. fittingly, towards an anthropology of data concludes with the 4 suggestion that we “bring the data forward, switch figure and ground” (174), so as to, perhaps, “set in motion alternative values” (175). the continuity of older methods of quantification suggest that data might not be so revolutionary after all. even so, the essays variously demonstrate how new data practices transform what counts as data, which does indeed point at certain kinds of change. and while data practices do reproduce older forms of listing, specifying, and counting, it is difficult to tell, without situated ethnographic inquiry, what exact forms governance and power take in diverse settings. anthropologists seeking generative approaches to data will find in this collection a broad and inspiring array of examples. chakad ojani received his phd in social anthropology from the university of manchester. his doctoral research was an ethnographic study of fog capture in coastal peru. chakad is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the jagiellonian university in kraków, where he is undertaking a project on outer space infrastructures and imaginaries in sweden. © 2022 chakad ojani microsoft word howard campbell juárez review.docx howard campbell, downtown juárez: underworlds of violence and abuse. austin, university of texas press, 2021. isbn 1477323899. $35 paper. howard campbell knows ciudad juárez. for over thirty years he has talked to residents while exploring streets, neighborhoods, bars and businesses. as meticulously presented in downtown juárez, campbell’s ethnographic labor has yielded insightful perspectives different than other, more generalized and/or sensationalized accounts. with a population of approximately 1.5 million, more wealthy sections of juárez can be found in the part of town where urban development appears much like comparable southwestern u.s. cities. to the west lay a vast landscape of working class, crowded colonias populares with improvised access to infrastructure, basic amenities and green space. east and southeastern juárez is similar with only basic provision for city services while at the same time home to several corporate maquiladoras. it is within this notorious landscape that savage killers have enacted the abuse and murder of thousands of women over the past three decades. amidst many differing scholarly approaches and interpretations of the border metropolis, campbell specifically seeks to identify the “conditions that lead to violence in central juárez” (1). his methodology is largely qualitative, pursuing what he terms a “wandering approach to fieldwork” (17). from this, downtown juárez features seventeen chapters which detail the history and present environment of the central city--especially its main streets, key bars and particular hotels in which prostitution and drug dealing takes place. from this, the author’s intrepid work features detailed ethnographic discussion of human smugglers, dope peddlers and sex workers. through it all, campbell maintains that “multiple interconnected forces of synergistic violence…afflict [these largely] poor people in central juárez to the point at which they become “normalized” and are reproduced in the abuse of others” (18). campbell stakes his claim “in some of juárez’s darkest corners” and, like many, finds neoliberalism, criminality, corruption, misogyny, u.s. failed immigration policy, the war on drugs and maquiladora economic development responsible, in part, for “everyday violence” in juárez.” yet he goes further in asserting that “common people” are also to blame for “the madness…not just as mere victims but as perpetrators (22)” echoing primo levi, campbell writes that “the people guilty of committing vile and sustaining a criminal order are often ‘just poor devils like ourselves’” (22). elsewhere, levi is again referenced—this time regarding his concept of the “gray zone” where a “dialectical relationship” between those who are both victims and victimizers is often known to exist (116). tracing the complex origins of violence and criminality, campbell proclaims, “i cast the net of responsibility more widely than most scholars and observers of juárez, while examining the specific social forces, cultural milieus, and circumstances that connect perpetrators and victims” (29). like many, he also finds that borderland “moral breakdown and normalized violence is aided and abetted by government corruption at the top of the mexican political system and by the vast social cruelty of uneven, neoliberal economic and political developments largely constructed by us capitalists, us gun smugglers, powerful politicians and bureaucrats” (29). such abuses of social power then “trickle down” the social ladder in such a powerful way that “the moral depravity and violence that has swept juárez cut across all lines of class, gender, ethnicity, race, and nationality” (29). not seeking to “blame the victims yet again, [o]r recreates a ‘culture of poverty’ theory,’” campbell’s street ethnography effectively analyzes the many “violent human manifestations” conditioned by “inequitable circumstances” in juárez (30). for readers wishing to gain a in-depth sense what life is like in central juárez, campbell is an intrepid guide. his careful engagement transports us to often foreboding places where we gain intimate access to first-person impressions, conversations and interviews. over his thirty years exploring the city, campbell has talked to a lot of people and witnessed significant change. his portraiture detailing raw life experience is typically tragic and sad. yet there is a persistent resilience present in the people he writes about. one such character is paloma who is one of the author’s main contacts and whose life story (so far) is recounted in the last chapter of downtown juárez. born to a teenage mother and raised by her grandparents in parral, chihuahua, paloma married young, began raising two boys and soon moved to juárez with her abusive husband with whom she soon separated. needing to earn money as now a single mother, she found employment in the clubs and bars of central juárez. under the tutelage of older, often unscrupulous businesswomen in the district, paloma soon turned to sex work. ruthlessly managed by local bar owner/pimp/gangster “felina,” paloma labored as a “bar girl” earning between $15 and $20 dollars a night. one thing led to another and before long, paloma found herself involved in a wide variety of shady activities including smuggling, forgery, various con games and perhaps even child kidnapping and organ theft. not surprisingly, paloma’s employer was abusive and often put her life at risk amidst the many shadowy characters that populated the central juárez lowlife. she also tried employment at a low paying maquiladora job for two years before earning money just across the border as a janitor, a cashier, an elder care facilitator and even as a cook at a hooters in el paso (173-190). in 2009, paloma was nearly killed when a truck swerved off the road in the industrial park area near avenida juan gabriel (juárez’s iconic native son). somehow, she survived after many months confined to bed rest. left with a nearly incapacitated left arm and serious back injuries, she slowly managed to get the medical help she needed—earning from her neighbors a new nickname “the transformer.” having recovered, we learn that paloma’s journey is not over--nor are the many challenges and indignities she continues to face as a woman living in juárez. in reflecting on paloma and his other interviewees, campbell writes, “these stories and the thousands of others told by poor women [and men] exemplify the interlocking social forces contributing to juárez’s high rate of violence against the lower social classes; poverty, low-wage labor, deficient protection from corrupt police, widespread organized criminal groups that act with impunity, and the near impossibility of finding refuge in the united states” (193). added to paloma’s story is added the recent history of “more than ten thousand who have been murdered or have “disappeared” in juárez over the past ten years. thousands of women have been raped. thousands more were injured, and their relatives and loved ones irreparably damaged. thousands of children have been orphaned (195).” in downtown juárez we read, “[t]he collective result is a cheapening and coarsening of life, a desensitization of the public toward reports of and the normalization and naturalization of violence by its perpetrators” (195). clearly revealed and compellingly told in campbell’s engrossing study, “practically…every woman…and many men, have their own personal stories of betrayal, mistreatment and trauma” in juárez (195). andrew grant wood rutland professor of american history/history of the americas university of tulsa /© 2024 andrew grant wood microsoft word husain review final.docx 1 alimia, sanaa. 2022. refugee cities: how afghans changed urban pakistan. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 248pp. isbn: 9781512822793 keywords: pakistan, afghanistan, migration, development alimia has provided a book that is long overdue, on a topic that has been chronically understudied. refugee cities: how afghans changed urban pakistan provides detailed ethnographic accounts of afghans living in the coastal mega city of karachi and the border city of peshawar to construct how their lives have been shaped – and more importantly are shaping – urban pakistan today. the author frames these as “micro histories” (xv) and follows the lives of key contributors to construct afghan narratives. the book is divided into three parts. the first details the history of british colonial policies bleeding into the pakistani state, the second provides ethnographic accounts of afghan lives in karachi and peshawar, and the third is a continuation of the author’s previous work on the mobility of the border through the united nations-funded proof of registration (por) cards issued to afghans in pakistan (alimia 2019). the first chapter detailing the background and history of pak-afghan relations dating to colonial times – though very well done – is the buffer before the more exciting ethnographic work that follows. the author does not bring anything entirely new to that discussion, and most readers familiar on the topic will already be quite aware of colonial policies shaping current pakistani laws. there could have been a more direct linkage to how the frontier crimes regulation (fcr) of 1901 shaped exclusion of pakhtuns in the border area, or how the durand line is a meaningless border for the afghan government. this chapter could have further benefitted from an ethnographic entry about how interlocutors felt about the durand line and movement across it, rather than summarising official government policies that are more readily accessible online. 2 however, as alimia points out, “…borders are not just ‘there’ as premade lines on a map, rather borders (and thereby sovereignty) get made through acts of “border performativity.”” (30). border performativity is brilliantly exemplified through por cards discussed in-depth in chapter 5. chapters 2 and 3 focus on karachi, with the second chapter discussing the settlement of “campe-marwarid” and its issues with water. camp-e-marwarid is on the far outskirts of the city on the super highway, another 21 kilometres further beyond the major area and transit point of sohrab goth, which for most karachiites lies at the city limits. the chapter explicates quite well karachi’s status as a city with a phenomenally high inflow of migrants, following all the way from the british raj’s expansion of the city as a seaport, the creation of pakistan, and the waves of afghan migrations that occurred after political strife in afghanistan in the 1970s and later 80s. it also demonstrates how successive governments have been unable to solve ethnic strife in the city – and have instead instigated them for political gain. as one of alimia’s interlocutors mentions, it was after the 1985 and 1986 riots that afghans were further pushed out of sohrab goth to camp-emarwarid. in fact, we learn that camp-e-marwarid was set aside for afghans in the 1980s, and pakistanis came later (44). alimia posits as well then that the building of camp-e-marwarid is the “…evidence of an early, purposeful attempt to spatially separate noncitizen refugees from citizens and enact a form of social exclusion” (44), keeping separate afghans from pakistani pakhtuns. camp-e-marwarid for most of its existence has received little to no infrastructural support from the government, and hence basic services are virtually non-existent. chapter 3 is similar to the earlier chapter in terms of the lack of state planning leading to residents to fend entirely for themselves. it also touches upon how both afghans and pakistanis in this area embark upon the process of “place-making in the city” (81) together. focusing on the informal settlement of “ishtiaq goth,” it narrates the story of how a few residents of influence (through some political capital) acting as landlords were focused on and brought into a formal urban governance structure. it also demonstrates the value to the same residents of influence in keeping such settlements entirely informal. this is first done through giving pieces of land and basic structures for free for a fixed period of time, and then encouraging residents to improve and expand the structure. after that capital investment by incumbent residents, the landlords would begin charging rent. the continuation of such informal settlements ultimately were favourable for 3 landlords, who have now entrapped residents. hence, exploitation of afghans happens not only by the pakistani state, but by citizens as well. as alimia notes, “[b]oth citizens and noncitizens rely on similar horizontal social networks, vertical patronage networks, and piecemeal forms of community mobilization to survive and improve their lives” (80). a central argument of the book is in the fourth chapter on peshawar, which says that “…the state is effectively relying on the informal sphere for managing populations it does not want to directly govern” (108). alimia writes that this is true for both karachi and peshawar, with the only difference being between the power brokers in the two cities due to “historical differences in land ownership and governance practices” (ibid). chapter 4 is an excellent read in terms of the hayatabad gul kalay comparison, two settlements located on the outskirts of the main city and both built in the 1970s. hayatabad is a planned neighbourhood in peshawar that has benefited tremendously from cheap afghan labour, and is home to some of the wealthiest residents of the city. gul kalay is an informal settlement that faces problems similar to camp-e-marwarid and ishtiaq goth, with the added focus that local law-enforcement believes that the settlement harbours terrorists and conduct raids after a terrorist attack in peshawar. these raids result in young men being picked up, and residents living under a constant state of surveillance. at some points in the ethnographic work in karachi and peshawar, it feels more so that afghans are adjusting themselves to the two cities, instead of moulding it. where this becomes an imposed reality versus fashioning new lives is a tension that the text takes note of as well. alimia writes that she, “was struck by the similarities in ‘afghan’ and ‘pakistani’ neighbourhoods. […] in most aspects of everyday life, there appeared to be a shared precarious existence for those of comparable class standings; and it was this class status that determined the conditions of life for citizens and refugees alike” (66). what is important perhaps is keeping in mind that afghan lives in pakistan are socially (if not politically as well) a fluid and reciprocal relationship, given the changing frames of migrants and refugees imposed upon them. as the book illustrates, they are both those categories and neither, and this constant limbo should make readers and policymakers appreciate the complex continuation of the soviet invasion of afghanistan and the global war on terror (gwot). 4 there is a bit more detail to the colonial and contemporary history of peshawar than there is for karachi, and readers could have benefitted from having more background to the political and social background of the city. surprisingly as well, there is no fieldwork conducted in quetta, which after peshawar has the largest afghan population in pakistan. in the third section the monograph shifts its focus towards the building of the modern nation state and pakistan’s attempts at pushing out afghans. following torpey (2000), the author notes that the modern nation state is built on having control over mobility and keeping its borders in check, managed by documents and surveillance. afghans in pakistan have been given a plethora of documents by pakistan to account for this control, as the opening vignette of this chapter demonstrates. the latest in this series is the por, which in theory allows afghans to legally reside temporarily in pakistan. however, alimia demonstrates that the por has become a border that has followed afghans in pakistan, and possession of the card leads to active discrimination at the hands of locals and law enforcement, including cases for deportation. in the conclusion and epilogue there is a good overview of international and national policies on the status of refugees and migrants. in some ways this is well-placed, given how the majority of the text speaks to the fragmented and difficult existence of afghans in pakistan and therefore the reader can see the disjuncture between policy and deliverance. however, bringing back a discussion of the policies seems futile, given the disjuncture that remains. the monograph is sublime in how it works from the ground up to create a picture of the functioning of the pakistani state, and any stakeholder who works in or around the status of afghans in pakistan would greatly benefit from it. the language is quite accessible, and this would also be an excellent text to incorporate in a political science and anthropology of development or migration class at any stage of an undergraduate or graduate-level course. beyond the academy and stakeholders, this book will be quite contently read, and would be a wonderful entry-point to more anthropological studies. citations 5 sanaa alimia. 2019. “performing the afghanistan-pakistan border through refugee id cards,” in geopolitics, 24(2), 391–425. torpey, john. 2000. the invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship, and the state. cambridge: cambridge university press. saeed husain is an anthropologist researching the intersections of violence and mobility with a focus on citizen-state relationships. he holds an mphil in social anthropological research from the university of cambridge, where he researched how young pakhtun males in karachi, pakistan, navigate life under general ethnic stigmatization as terrorists promoted by and through the security state. © 2023 saeed husain toward an anthropology of evil? review by tom clark william c. olsen and thomas j. csordas, 2019, engaging evil: a moral anthropology. berghahn books, 306 pp, isbn 978-1-78920213-7 the social sciences have remained stubbornly resistant to the direct study of evil in society. according to edwin lemert (1997), there are at least two reasons for this. firstly, the abrahamic heritage of the term would appear to confine it to a very particular ethnocentric history and this is not seen to be a concern of contemporary social science. secondly, there is something of an inherent tension between the moral engagement necessary to study evil, and the theoretical indifference that is required by disciplines that want to retain a sense of objectivity. however, this apparent indifference to evil is despite its continuing and varied realization within the human world. among many instances, it can be found in narratives of structural violence, political ideology, religious practice, administrative neglect, individual pathology, criminal behavior, and folklore and superstition. although anthropology has a direct interest in many of these areas, it too has generally remained quiet about the subject of evil. while david parkin’s anthropology of evil (1985) and paul clough and jon mitchell’s the power of good and evil (2001) will be familiar to some, they are two of only a handful of texts that have attempted to explore how anthropology might approach the topic. in their own way, both examine whether evil is relative to a very particular (western) moral ideology, or whether it has a wider, more universal appeal. the central point of discussion 1 is the extent to which it is possible to gloss over the linguistic and behavioral particulars of different cultures and infer a shared moral sense of evil. or, would such an inference be necessarily meaningless without context? perhaps worse for the anthropologist, would such a use of evil be yet another example of a culturally-defined imposition on the ‘exotic other’? in their very welcome edited collection of essays, engaging evil: a moral anthropology, william olsen and thomas csordas argue that evil is an existential feature of human relations. indeed, they highlight that an analysis of the ethical properties of society that only considers how people strive to do the right thing will lack the depth required to comprehend the moral frameworks that underpin the whole of a society, and the human world more generally. for olsen and csordas, evil is a malevolent destructiveness that can be active or passive in nature, and directed at an interpersonal or collective level. it has a descriptive reality in that people use evil in ways that go beyond violence, criminality, and hatred on one hand, and suffering, anguish, and loss on the other. it can, of course, also be more supernatural in nature. but what these evils share is a perceived attack on the ontological security of the human world, and that attack threatens to overwhelm the very notion of society completely. in taking this argument, olsen and csordas attempt to rearticulate a vision for an anthropology of evil and in doing so they reflect some of the major concerns first explored in parkin’s initial collection. using evil as an analytical category could necessitate the very real possibility of moral universalism, but as the chapter by csordas goes on to point out, this doesn’t mean rejecting the apparent tolerance brought by cultural relativism either. this, he suggests, is because‘[e]vil or its cognates are broadly identifiable across cultures’ (p 38). to these ends, the chapters of engaging evil are variously directed toward exploring the relationship between anthropology and evil and the resulting collection offers some thoughtful analysis about the nature of evil more generally. organized into three thematic sections evil and anthropology, evil and suffering, and, evil and violence the chapters are diverse in focus, but retain an emphasis on exploring evil in situ. collectively, they offer insights from anthropology, textual analysis, literary and cinematic criticism, bioarchaeology and the occasional visit to the 2 psychoanalyst’s chair. the chapters are also global in nature with focus given to, among others, trinidad, niger, indonesia, and even the old kent road (london). to be clear, not all the authors in this volume accept the use of evil as an analytical category, and some are overtly skeptical of both the moral universalism and the abrahamic heritage that might otherwise be implied by its invocation. this is, perhaps, given the most sustained attention in the chapter by byron good. he highlights that just because people use something akin to evil to understand the human world, it does not mean that we should accept its existence or use it as an analytical frame of reference. he points out that evil is not simply underwritten on cultural lines, but individual ones too and if western audiences cannot agree on what is evil, what hope is there for anthropological agreement? ventura perez’s discussion of the body, bioculture, and violence in mexico similarly ruminates on the consequences of locating a pathological evil within an individual or society ‘gone wrong.’ to do so, he notes, risks ignoring ‘the complexity of structural systems, culture, and history of the communities in which these acts are produced’ (p 247). nerina weiss’ exploration of the experience of torture is a similar reminder that it can be dangerous to see perpetrators as monstrous or somehow spectacular they have everyday lives and their experiences are part of much wider political systems. in such cases, evil might obscure more than it illuminates. some of the chapters are, perhaps, more agnostic on the use of evil for anthropological purposes and instead seek to document cases of its realization. adeline masquelier, for example, demonstrates some of the intricacies of evil in cases of spirit possession in secondary school girls in niger. simon coleman also provides an informative description of how nigerian migrants who worship at two pentecostal churches in london variously use evil to navigate their religious and migrant identities. elsewhere, julie peteet examines how evil in palestine and israel is a politically motivated strategy of calibrated excess that features structural and physical violence, experiential suffering, and administrative indifference. evil is not the stuff of a magical realm, but instead results from the desire for colonial dominance and subjugation. however, some authors are more actively receptive to the potential of a shared anthropology of evil. in examining the conceptual resemblances in buddhism and christian soteriology, 3 gananath obeyesekere explores how radical evil might be said to exist in the buddhist storytelling of sri-lanka and elsewhere. andrew beatty similarly offers an interesting account of how the problem of evil might be reinterpreted in the local context of two contrasting indonesian societies: java and nias. unsurprisingly perhaps, william olsen also finds evil intentions in explanations of asram sudden infant death within asante culture. the final chapter of the book is given to david parkin, who once again reiterates his belief that all societies experience seemingly unspeakable horrors of destructive human behavior. evil however it is actually expressed then works as a process that moves from experiential horror, to one that is identified through words, and then realized within actions. he goes on to remind us that only by recognizing evil as a process will we be able to provide explanations for the inequalities and depredations that drive the resentment, hatred, and neglect necessary for such destructiveness to occur. indeed, the value of the collection lies in both its breadth and its focus. unlike its predecessor the anthropology of evil which was uneven in style and substance olsen and csordas’s text offers a sustained examination of what an anthropology of evil might look like. to this end, it explores both the diverse realization of evil, and the potential consequences of using evil as an analytical category for anthropological work. in doing so, it makes a convincing case for a situational understanding of evil that moves beyond rigid binaries of universalism and relativism to show how evil is identified, negotiated, and managed in context. while such a use of evil for the purposes of anthropology might still be a step too far for many, the text is a stark reminder of the destructive potential of humanity, our collective need to come to try and come to terms with the consequences of that destructiveness, and, perhaps, a shared desire to do something about it. works cited: clough, paul and jon mitchell. 2001. powers of good and evil: social transformation and popular belief. oxford: berghahn books. lemert, edwin. 1997. the trouble with evil. new york: suny. parkin, david (ed.). 1985. an anthropology of evil. oxford: basil blackwell. 4 tom clark is lecturer in research methods at the university of sheffield. he is the new coauthor of ‘bryman’s social research methods’ (6th ed). © 2021 tom clark 5 1 medical imperialism: examining dimoia's account of the proliferation of western medicine in modern south korean history review by: bryce anderson june 7, 2021 dimoia, j. (2013). reconstructing bodies: biomedicine, health, and nation-building in south korea since 1945. stanford, california: stanford university press. john p. dimoia critically assesses how medicine in korea has historically navigated the complexities of imperialism and social change. employing the term fragments to represent the various elements from which medical discourse in south korea has been assembled from, dimoia contends that historically occupied south korea has a bifurcated medical epistemology and ontology. assembling the book as case studies, dimoia reveals how the dichotomy of western and korean medicine has infiltrated various areas of health and medicine, including public health and epidemics, embodiment, reproductive behaviors, biological sampling and reconstructive surgeries. beginning at the point in time of japanese occupation of korea (1910-1945), dimoia explains that the presence of medical pluralism in korean society--mainly, the dichotomy between korean traditional medicine (influenced by traditional chinese medicine) and western biomedicine (influenced by american and japanese imperialism) -was cause for a range of confusion. the ambivalence created by this categorical confusion (2), has resulted in the unequal power relationship between korean traditional medicine and western biomedicine. for example, dimoia argues that the reason that traditional korean medicine was suppressed with the new licensing system was the japanese colonizers' eagerness to bring medical modernity to their colony (5). moreover, upon the end of japanese occupation, the american military adopted a deeply ambivalent attitude towards traditional practitioners of korean medicine (52), consequently replicating many of the choices made under japanese colonialism (66). in providing an example of how medical knowledge and information is disseminated and proliferated, dimoia demonstrates ideas about medicine and health originated from institutions in larger korean cities, and consequently must travel through a difficult course to reach the outer limits of the country. for example, his framing of the ‘minnesota project’: a collaborative relationship between america and korea that saw american medical technology and methods (i.e. surgery) be implemented in major hospitals in seoul, the korean capital. as dimoia carefully highlights, this new medical technology did not immediately take hold and ‘convince’ citizens of its use, and proliferate throughout korea; rather, it gradually made its way through 2 public acceptance, beginning in inner cities such as seoul, and eventually reaching outside to rural areas (albeit much later). along the way, us medicine was constantly under scrutiny and suspicion, however, it did eventually gain wide acceptance and usage. dimoia is able to capture the tension of the challenges that western biomedicine has brought to the 'korean body' through exploring medical transitions such as the proliferation of plastic surgeries and reproductive technologies. akin to the aforementioned dichotomy between biomedicine and korean medicine, this is another instance of ambivalence that characterizes medical imperialism. for example, dimoia examines how reconstructive surgeries intersect with western influence, including the controversy and ambivalence that this brought to the ethics of changing eye-lid size. furthermore, reproductive technologies brought by imperial powers such as america were experimented on korean citizens, mainly women, leading to the exploitation of korean bodies under a colonial regime. while dimoia masterfully crafts the japanese imperial project, there is less here on the significant role played by the us in this regard. for example, dimoia does make a point to acknowledge that the american military held an ambivalent attitude towards practitioners of korean medicine. but could perhaps benefit from a more thorough unpacking of the motivations and goals of america proliferating power and knowledge throughout the korean peninsula. in spite of this, dimoia’s book is an important study on how the imperial and colonial power of japan have intersected with the korean medical system. it is a clear demonstration of the networks of actors using the less powerful for their own personal and industrial gain. it is an argument against the natural proliferation of western biomedicine, and an important framework of medical imperialism that has great use for further colonial studies. furthermore, dimoia’s contention that the korean state has performed its own internal colonization, in 'leaving rural villagers (the “traditional”) behind for a new type of favored citizen: an ideal much cleaner, healthier, and disciplined' (226) is noteworthy. in sum, dimoia’s analysis provides important evidence to show that medical imperialism does not happen along a linear trajectory; rather, it intersects with historical context, cultural ideas about the body, international relations, and forms of identity. given the pandemic of 2020 and the resulting homogenizing medical approaches, this contribution to understanding medicine as serving imperialism has lasting significance. bryce anderson is a canadian phd student based at dalhousie university. his research focus on suicide, and more broadly health and the history of medicine, with a focus on south korea. © 2021 bryce anderson microsoft word valente review .docx 1 ana ramos-zayas, 2020, parenting empires: class, whiteness, and the moral economy of privilege in latin america, durham, nc: duke university press, 296pp., isbn: 978-1-47800821-7 keywords: moral economy; parenting and childcare; latin america; us empire; studying up ramos-zayas’ (2020) ethnography parenting empires examines upper class parenting practices in brazil and puerto rico. she argues that us forms of hemispheric control are entrenched in everyday parental routines and aspirations. these include parents’ affective and aesthetic practices, as well as moral understandings of anti-consumption and anti-materialism. as agents of empire, upper class parents reinforce and replicate us projects of austerity, as well as ideas about crisis and corruption, throughout latin america. this ethnography adds to scholarship addressing the rise of right-wing authoritarian governments in brazil as well as the expansion of neoliberal austerity projects in puerto rico. one of the interesting aspects of ramos-zayas’ work concerns her quite unconventional methodology. the ethnography compares two very different political and geographic spaces, though ramos-zayas draws interesting connections between both. the author situates puerto rico geographically as a state that is part of the caribbean, and consciously inserts this territory into latin america theory more broadly, rather than the us-based literature. as such, this becomes a south-south comparative study that nevertheless maintains the issue of us hemispheric control in the americas as a backdrop for its argument. thinking more on the methodology used by the author, this book is both a case of the anthropologist studying “at home” and studying “the other,” in terms of place and positionality. though ramos-zayas grew up in a neighborhood of puerto rico that was not surrounded by the 2 affluent people she studies, her degree and appointment as professor at an acclaimed university in the us moved her close to the elite status of her interlocutors. on the other hand, ramos-zayas had little previous experience living in rio de janeiro or familiarity with wealthy parents of the city. the author’s experience of “studying up” (nader 1974) is not only marked by a simultaneous sense of ease and aversion, but also leads to some choices ramos-zayas labels as “un/ethical” (gaztambide-fernández 2015). ramos-zayas navigates the contradictions and challenges of writing critically about a group that can easily be identified. though she utilizes pseudonyms in an attempt to guarantee the anonymity of her subjects, she does not change the names of the neighborhoods of her research. despite acknowledging that “everyone knows everyone” in these urban centers, and the fact that it is likely that her interlocutors will read this ethnography, ramoszayas argues that the choice to be un/ethical helps one to articulate structural critique, rather than focus on individual choices. she thus moves away from trying to evaluate behaviors that might nevertheless be quite charitable or nice. a few of the key concepts put forth by the author includes one contained in the title of the book, parenting empires, as well child-centered nodules of urbanism, and interiority currency. i spell these out as they also inform the structure of the book. ramos-zayas theorizes that practices by elite parents in latin america intersect with “national and hemispheric ideas of empire and sovereignty” (4). the author is careful not to solely implicate parents and their children in this project. rather, by utilizing theories from the field of moral economy, ramos-zayas demonstrates how personal moral values of the elite, which are expressed in anxieties around parenting, intersect with political, economic, and historic practices. these moral understandings align with draconian austerity measures and create the conditions for socioeconomic inequality in both puerto rico and brazil. for example, a critique of welfare practices is justified through discourse regarding responsible citizenship, and manifest in ideas of proper parenting. she names this phenomenon parenting empires in the introduction (chapter one) and discusses it further in the epilogue. the first section of the ethnography, which includes chapter two and three, focuses on situating child-centered nodules of urbanism historically and geographically in both ipanema and el condado. these are affluent beachfront neighborhoods in the city of rio de janeiro and san juan, respectively. she then positions these spaces politically and economically in brazil and puerto 3 rico. child-centered nodules of urbanism refers to the neighborhood-based social locations where ramos-zayas conducted a significant portion of her research. these are sites where adults come together and socialize over caring for children, and thus spaces where ramos-zayas could observe parents discuss their affective dispositions, such as those concerning safety, distinction, work, or language. these are also spaces where elite ideologies acquire materiality, further legitimizing, and even providing moral grounding for, segregationist practices. some of these public spaces became privatized, or were heavily surveilled and policed, thus generating the conditions of exclusion that mark upper class sociability and subjectivities. the author ultimately analyzes how ideas about healthy living, for example, are associated to particular geographies and produced in the landscape in similar ways in both puerto rico and brazil. interior currency is a theoretical framework that organizes the second section of ramos-zayas’ ethnography (chapters four and five). unlike the author’s original expectations, the parents she studied frowned upon superfluous displays of wealth and did not associate affluence with the cultivation of a certain body type, consumption habit, or even aesthetic. it was quite the opposite, and the parents often worried about their children’s excessive consumption of material goods. the parents nevertheless maintained a concern with cultivating their inner worlds, a shift that made class privilege even more conspicuous. the author analyzes various forms of neoliberal personhood cultivated by her interlocutors to justify and sustain their white privilege. in this sense, ramos-zayas argues that structures of power become legible and codified in the realm of affects and sentiments and expressed particularly around parenting. according to the parents, the cultivation of inner currency requires constant work on the self but is attainable to anyone willing to invest in its practice. these include religious and psychological practices, decisions about schooling, choices regarding the languages spoken at home, ideas that link masculinity and parenting, or even existentialist journeys with therapists, gurus, life coaches or in meditation centers. ramos-zayas demonstrates that personal fulfillment is entangled with expectations about forms of neighborhood governance and dictates how relationships across class and race should be conducted. the third and final portion of the book focuses on extended family and domestic workers (chapter six and seven, respectively) enlisted in child-centered care. ramos-zayas argues that it is in these 4 relationships that one can see a focus on austerity and rhetoric of corruption in the everyday. for example, it is in criticizing and reflecting on relationships with extended family, particularly grandparents and their consumption and materialist practices, that the parents in ramos-zayas’ ethnography forge austerity subjectivities. such subjectivities also obscure relationships of oppression and inequality. this could be seen in ideas around domestic work and the role domestic workers play in child rearing, expressed, for example, as rules about intimacy. overall, this is an ethnography that adds to current literature on latin america analyzing the rise of the far right by turning to the ways in which the elite justify white privilege and the implementation of austerity measures in the continent through ideas around parenting. it also provides a critical analysis of upper-class parents and their everyday lives, demonstrating how moral ideas about child-rearing and consumption are utilized to justify and solidify deep seeded racial, gendered, and class inequality in both puerto rico and brazil. references: gaztambide-fernández, rubén a. 2015. “elite entanglements and the demand for a radically un/ethical position: the case of wienie night.” international journal of qualitative studies in education, 8 (9): 1129–47. nader, laura. 1974. “up the anthropologist—perspectives gained from studying up.” in reinventing anthropology, edited by dell hymes, 284–311. new york: vintage books. juliana b. valente is a doctoral student in cultural anthropology at the cuny graduate center. she researches the use of ids by youth convicted of committing crimes in the state of são paulo/brazil, thinking through how the brazilian state attempts to disseminate equal rights bureaucratically. she holds a ma in social anthropology from the state university of campinas (unicamp) and a ba in sociology and education from vassar college. ©2023 juliana b. valente refugee youth seeking social belonging in the context of australian multiculturalism review by fulya pinar moran, laura. 2020. belonging and becoming in a multicultural world: refugee youth and the pursuit of identity. rutgers university press. keywords: migration, multiculturalism, identity, youth, australia. laura moran presents an analysis of how young migrant and refugee people in brisbane, australia, make and represent their identities as they seek to belong in friend groups and networks. moran demonstrates how the multiculturalist framework in australia exposes refugee and migrant youth to a variety of conflicting expectations about self-representation. more specifically, while these young people are often expected to adapt and integrate into australian society, their identities are highly racialized and fixed as outsiders with an emphasis on tolerance. young refugees in brisbane, then, absorb, negotiate, and respond to the competing messages about integration and tolerance and forge a sense of who they are and where they belong. asserting that children and youth are at the center of transnational migration and multiculturalist inclusion, moran seeks to depict a comprehensive picture of how young refugees, as both outsiders and insiders of the australian society, form their identities and notions of belonging. throughout the book, moran provides examples of how young migrants and refugees display various forms of "dynamic responsiveness" (p. 17) by engaging with the conflicting expectations and demands imposed on their lives through a level of awareness about the wider sociopolitical context of australian multiculturalism. making use of these examples, moran argues that young refugees and migrants negotiate their belonging and identities through not only reacting against overt racism but also navigating multiculturalist discourses (p. 18). in doing so, she contributes to scholarship on youth as global social actors (p. 19), identity (p. 22), and migration and belonging (p. 24). not surprisingly, moran benefits extensively from pierre bourdieu's theories on social power and its impacts on agency in the book. in chapter one, moran provides the methodological and theoretical foundations of the book. she conducted ethnographic research with refugee and migrant youth over a four-year period, during which she served as an after-school program coordinator for a non-profit community center in the suburbs of brisbane. through her employment, she designed and implemented a program that students from various backgrounds could attend. as a program coordinator, she met thirtynine "key research participants," thirty-seven of whom were from refugee backgrounds (p. 15). her key research participants were aged nine to twenty years and mainly came from sudan and 1 burma. moran provides detailed background information on the key research participants in the book's appendix (pp. 151 158). to balance her role as researcher and as a program coordinator, she made deliberate decisions not to cross the line between a research site and a place where students come to relax and receive mentorship (p. 11-12). moran also paid special attention to the power dynamics and chose not to seek extensive information from her informants about their refugee status or journey to australia (p.13). throughout the book, moran demonstrates her conscious efforts to engage with self-reflexivity, balance potential power dynamics, and reveal shifts and transformations in her research questions. the book's second chapter provides information on the relation between australian immigration policies and the multicultural context. in this chapter, moran introduces how notions of integration and tolerance emerge out of a locus of whiteness, explaining how these notions are not diversions from nationalism and racism but instead rely on them (pp. 34 38). moran argues that the reflections of colonial and anti-immigrant histories of australia can be observed in the everyday lives of young refugees. in the australian social policies, whiteness has represented power and a requirement for national belonging, both in the context of colonialism and "white australia policy" during australia's federation in 1901 (28 – 34). in the everyday encounters of young refugees with others in the contemporary multiculturalist context, integration and tolerance are often displayed through acts of downplaying the impact of race, stressing the antiracist rhetoric, and mainstreaming diversity (p. 41). moran untangles the conceptual framework and theoretical background of the book in the third chapter. she argues that the ways in which young people talk about race and ethnicity are often in line with how race has been governed in the australian context (p. 49). analyzing identity as socially oriented assertions of sameness and difference from what is understood in the broader social context (p. 51), moran conceptualizes young people's practices of navigating the concepts of racial "hybridity" and "essentialism" as forms of symbolic (or) multicultural capital (pp. 5361). through making use of these concepts, young refugees dynamically respond to the multicultural rhetoric and subtly claim belonging or not-belonging (pp. 63-64). the fourth chapter examines how justifications of engaging with certain social relations – such as friendship, dating, and fighting – serve as platforms for young refugees and migrants to emphasize or refuse racial and ethnic identities and social belonging (pp. 65-66). actively stressing "choice" in some social settings and subtly stressing "circumstances" in others while explaining why they were drawn towards social relations with certain racial and ethnic identities, these young people were able to navigate in between downplaying and embracing their own identities and differences (pp. 67-77). this way, they engaged with the ideals of both integration (through demonstrating plasticity and "hybridity" of identities) and tolerance (through expressing rigidity and "essentialism" towards identities), responding to and emphasizing their inclusion and exclusion in the australian multicultural context. chapter five focuses on the more self-conscious and explicit ways in which young people projected and performed their identities. claiming that young people's performances occur not only locally but also globally in the contemporary world (p. 91), moran analyzes how young refugees interacted with and around the global web of music and technology with specific examples on their engagement with the american hip-hop culture (pp. 96-99). she argues that in 2 their performances, the participants of her research often portrayed their ethnic identities and social belonging in primarily essentialized and racialized ways through claiming "authenticity," exclusion, and resilience (pp. 108-113). demonstrating what they did not belong to and where they were excluded from served as an opportunity for them to claim a space of belonging to their local communities, australian society, and the global networks of resistance (p. 108). moran connects these performances of young people with their awareness of and play around race/racism in the multicultural australian and global contexts. in chapter six, moran looks at how young migrants and refugees discussed their racial and ethnic identities while engaging with the formal political realm. she demonstrates that the young people were aware of how they were framed and managed, and they often challenged the dichotomous ways they were understood in the australian context (pp. 117-120). she shows how young refugees often emphasized racial difference and collective belonging, displaying forms of disregard towards the importance of citizenship, national identity, and static racial categories. in so doing, moran argues, young refugees find their own ways to reframe and manipulate the multiculturalist emphasis on their status as outsiders (pp. 122-135). moran links these navigations of her research collaborators with the interrelatedness between their senses of inclusion/exclusion and the broader socio-political discourses surrounding their lives (p. 137). the last chapter presents both a summary of the main themes of the book and a discussion on the potential for refugee and migrant youth inclusion in multicultural societies. considering that the search for identity-making and belonging for youth occur as "dynamic responses" to the public discourses on their lives, moran suggests that we need to conceptualize the reframing of multiculturalist messages by the youth as forms of participation in the politics of belonging (p. 144). doing so would allow for multiple forms of inclusion in multiethnic societies needed by the youth (pp. 147-150). instead of measuring the successes and failures of the multicultural ideals by expecting refugee youth to prove their integration to society and participation in the tolerance rhetoric, the book points out the importance of understanding the perspectives and frames of youth as forms of participation. the book is exceptionally legible and accessible, is written clearly and concisely, and is available as an open access volume. it will appeal to scholars and students across disciplines – such as education, anthropology, sociology, geography, ethnic studies, political science, social work, and public administration – as well as to a general public that is interested in human rights, migration, youth, race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism. fulya pinar is a phd candidate in the department of anthropology at rutgers, the state university of new jersey. her dissertation is on alternative economies, care practices, and sustainable futures built and imagined by refugee women in turkey. © 2021 fulya pinar 3 microsoft word schwarz review.docx 1 eds. by david pollack, anne tobbe bader, and justin n. carlson, 2021, the falls of the ohio river: archaeology of native american settlement. gainesville: university of florida press. 297 pp. isbn: 9781683402039. key words: falls of the ohio river, landscape archaeology, prehistoric settlement patterns, cultural resource management, national historic preservation act, persistent place, fort ancient the publication of the edited volume the falls of the ohio river: archaeology of native american settlement provides a welcome addition to the literature on north american prehistoric archaeology. the volume was edited by david pollack, anne tobbe bader, and justin n. carlson and was published by the university of florida press. eleven chapters focus exclusively on the archaeology of a particular region, that of the falls of the ohio river at louisville. the study also encompasses the surrounding region of northern kentucky and southern indiana. the approach taken by the editors foregrounds the volume in a landscape archaeology of this particularly rich and varied region of eastern north america. most impressive is that many of these researchers have worked extensively and in some cases exclusively in cultural resource management (crm), which, at its best, is becoming increasingly recast as public archaeology. so, while the academic bona fides of these contributors and contributions are many, the insights gained are very much built on the backs of archaeological work necessitated by the national historic preservation act (nhpa), and by public-facing archaeological institutes, such as the kentucky archaeological survey, the glenn a. black laboratory of archaeology at indiana university, and the anthropology laboratory at indiana state university. this is an impressive confluence of researchers, research trends, and findings and advances integrative landscape archaeology of this very important region. 2 following an introduction that describes the unique physical environment of the falls of the ohio, the chapters are organized by time period and cover broad ranges of topics such as settlement and burial patterning, trophy taking, subsistence, and use of plants by native american populations. the editors do a wonderful job of summing up what has been learned in a concluding chapter, which focuses on the perspective of landscape archaeology. the reader will learn a great many things by engaging with this book. as a researcher who occasionally works in this region, i was struck by how much the state of knowledge has advanced recently. i provide a brief summary and comments on the chapters. the first contribution, by c. russell stafford, focuses on several important early archaic kirk-related sites, investigations of which were occasioned by the caesars archaeological project. the nhpa necessitated these investigations prior to the construction of a casino. stafford details the finds of hundreds of kirk corner notched and other early archaic projectile points, and a significant area for exploitation of regional cherts. also, the geomorphology of this section of the ohio river valley is well described and explained. chapters 3-8 make up what for me is the heart of the volume, the analysis of middle and late archaic cultures in the falls region. readers are treated to in-depth explorations of middle archaic lifeways (carlson et al.), the late middle/early late archaic scottsburg phase, newly defined by bader, and descriptions of a well-excavated buried site at riverpark, where a stratified burial series was documented (duane b. simpson and stephen t. mocas). particularly, i found the attention to diachronic analysis by simpson and mocas to be worthwhile. rick burdin discusses evidence for late archaic-period increased sedentism at the falls of ohio. his review of pit house architecture and signaling through use of bone pins and bannerstones is noteworthy in how he ties disparate material culture media to larger trends. the exploration of trophy taking of skulls and forelimbs by christopher w. schmidt is exemplary in marrying primary osteological studies to concerns with societal violence, raiding, belief in the afterlife, and the spiritual power of human remains. mocas and simpson’s reprise is a broad review of the terminal late archaic transition (1600 bc-800 bc), a critical period in the development of sedentism, recurrent conflicts, and conspicuous consumption. they discuss the riverton and buck creek phases from the perspective of the knob creek site and provide a great deal of perspective on these developments. after reading these chapters, my knowledge of middle and late archaic cultures is much improved. 3 the woodland period (800 bc-ad 900) receives the least comprehensive treatment of any period. mocas’ chapter though does a good job of summarizing what is known from several major excavations. the data primarily deal with settlement patterns, subsistence, and material culture. very little information is presented on use of mounds or other mortuary facilities or the construction of earthworks, because very little investigation of these phenomena has taken place. jack rossen and jocelyn c. turner put together a fine chapter on plant exploitation by native americans in the falls region. their contribution is a synthesis of what they see as four eras of native plant use in the falls region. i found the sequencing of these eras and the developments they describe to be compelling. they cover topics such as the domestication of native oily-starchy seed plants and the later introduction of tropical cultigens. also, i appreciated the discussion of use of wetland plants, an under-studied topic in archaeology of the midcontinent, and in crm archaeology, nearly ignored. but, it was the discussion of the introduction of maize and the falls region as a boundary zone between different regional maize cultivars, which i found to be the most fascinating. cheryl ann munson and robert g. mccullough provide an intriguing study of the mississippian period (ad 900-1650) in the falls region. they start the chapter with a regional discussion, and then focus in on the prather mound center. they do discuss connections with earlier woodland period and incipient mississippian cultures, and make some intriguing points about this hard to understand transition. the authors conclude that the falls region was a frontier mississippian outpost between fort ancient settlements further east and the angel polity to the west. michael w. french and david pollack wrote a quite useful study of mississippian and fort ancient cultural identity and interaction. this piece segues nicely with themes engaged with in the previous chapter by munson and mccullough. they examine material culture and subsistence markers of ethnicity among the falls region mississippian settlements and nearby fort ancient peoples. on the basis of this review, french and pollack make credible inferences that, post-ad 1300, fort ancient peoples lived in the falls region mississippian settlement of eva bandman. we can only lament that the untimely passing of michael french cut short such fascinating work, but pollack and others carry on. the concluding essay by bader, pollack, and carlson, with the addition of richard w. jefferies, summarizes these fine contributions. they focus on cultural landscapes, persistent places and 4 historicity. particularly, the importance of the persistent place, a term of art recently in archaeology, is quite evident in the falls region. the environmental richness and diversity of the region is one reason for persistence. also, the falls is one of the few areas of easy crossing of the ohio river, by buffalo, other game, and also by humans, but it is also a barrier to navigation. these facts indicate that is was, alternately, a region of passage, interchange, and settlement throughout prehistory. the combination of ecological richness, diversity, and this interchange means it was a favored locale for long-term sedentary residence. the unity of themes and the synthesis presented in the book regarding landscapes, persistent places, etc., speaks of the integrative value that sustained study of a singular region can bring to our understanding of the effect the natural world has had on the history and evolution of human cultures. i feel that the only missing pieces to this edited volume are chapters on the paleoindian period and the historic period, but these omissions are understandable given the strength and consistency of each of the volume’s chapters. kevin r. schwarz is an anthropological archaeologist who has worked in mesoamerica and the eastern woodlands of north america. he holds a doctorate in anthropology from southern illinois university at carbondale. he works for the cultural resource management firm, asc group, inc., and is based in columbus, ohio. his research interests include cultural landscapes, settlement and household archaeology, and cultural resource management. © 2023 kevin r. schwarz microsoft word o'hare review.docx 1 davis, heather m. 2022. plastic matter. durham: duke university press, pp. 176, isbn 9781-4780-1775-2 in uruguay, milk comes in polyethylene sachets. it wasn’t always thus: glass bottles were the standard fare for most dairy producers, including the much-loved national dairy cooperative conaprole, until the 1990s. the switch to plastic was arrived at after a long period of research and had its supporters and detractors, with the respective camps associated with modernity and tradition. when the decision was made, the accumulation and dispersal of these lightweight plastic sachets in the environment became a symbol of plastic pollution, sparking a novel extended producer responsibility (epr) scheme whereby school students would return the empty bags to their classrooms and conaprole would ensure that they were collected and recycled into black bin bags that were provided to schools. although this scheme has been disbanded, the plastic milk sachet is now firmly ensconced in uruguay’s consumer culture, as i found out by the negative reaction when i suggested to conaprole directors that they might trial a return to glass bottles in a pilot electric milk float. it was thus with excitement that i read in the preface to heather davis’s plastic matter that her own grandfather had, whilst working at dupont, been involved in the development of the plastic milk sachet, part of what she calls her “complicated inheritances.” as she writes, “the initial milk bag had no corresponding container” and her grandmother disliked them, since she had to “keep the bags in a bowl or transfer the milk to a pitcher” where they would “flop around and spill everywhere” (viii). eventually, writes davis, “a corresponding plastic pitcher, made from a harder and more durable plastic, was developed to go along with the milk bags” (viii). the example of the milk sachet highlights some of the characteristics of plastic products: as they replace traditional materials, they initially encounter resistance, and one of the ways that they overcome this resistance is by combining with more plastic. got a problem with plastic? i’ve got the solution: more plastic! the milk sachet corresponds to what davis calls the “circular operations of plastic matter” (12), where petrochemicals are often called upon to protect us from themselves, whether synthetic suits for oil workers or plastic linings for landfill. 2 in this short but theoretically stimulating book, davis explores how plastic indexes and alters how humans relate to our environment, ourselves, and other species. the key concepts that underpin the books are helpfully encapsulated in its four substantive chapters: plasticity, synthetic universality, plastic media, and queer kin. plasticity precedes plastic or in davis’s words, “the orientation to matter as plastic emerged long before plastic itself” (25). from at least plato onwards, matter has been portrayed by some as passive substance to be moulded by hand and by mind; by the sculptor, the artist, the mason. fast forward to the mid-twentieth century and the early experiments with synthesising natural materials (cellulose et al.) have given way to the rapid proliferation of the synthetic polymers that came to be known as plastics. spurred by the intensive military research that took place on both sides during wwii, by the mid-1950s the german company i.g. farber began “synthesizing a new polymer almost every day for ten years” (29). if the properties of natural materials had to be accounted for before being given a form, synthetic polymers held open the tantalising possibility that these could be united, that plastics could be given a property that suited its purpose. they could be heavy or light, strong or weak, opaque or translucent, as the circumstance required. this is not, however, quite the same as claiming, as davis does, that with plastics form and substance are created simultaneously (29). anyone familiar with the plastics industry knows that the nurdle or pellet (substance) precedes the form that it is then given through blowing, extrusion, or injection techniques. davis must know this too, but there is very little information about the manufacture of plastics in this book. davis writes that “synthetics appear virtually out of thin air, or from the imaginations of chemical engineers, forgetting or rendering invisible the infrastructures, ideologies, labor, and materials essential to their production” (47), attributes of what she calls plastic’s “synthetic universality.” yet if one task of the critical plastics scholar is to reveal some of these alienated facets of the material, we could have perhaps expected to find more about plastic’s labour regimes and infrastructures in this book. in fairness, that is clearly not where davis’s main interest lies, which is instead centred not only on plastic matter but on plastic time: the ways that plastic connects us with both our planetary ancestors and future generations. another circular feature of plastic then is that it returns, however altered, to its original form – (techno)fossil – and in this sense, davis asserts, “plastic has the ability to take us back and forward in time, millions of years, to be a vector of time travel” (55). before the digital revolution and indeed as part of it, plastics have also 3 enabled us to freeze a moment in time through their deployment in visual media, the “films” that we watch indexing the (celluloid) plastic film that was essential for the capture and preservation of the image. this benevolent use gives way in davis’s telling to what she calls “petro-time,” a piling up of pasts through photography but also the way that the toxic legacy of petrochemical production cannot neatly be inserted into a chronological frame. in places like rochester, former headquarters of kodak, past environmental crimes such as groundwater pollution continue to unpredictably haunt the lives of its now predominantly black residents. chemical exposure can remain as latent harm, surfacing only in later generations, its origins diffuse and difficult to trace. kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and is unlikely to be settling any medical bills. davis’s final substantive chapter turns to queer theory – she opens with the memorable vignette of a norwegian fisherman who caught a cod that had swallowed a dildo – to suggest that we might think of plastics and the bacteria that break them down as “queer kin.” this is an intriguing thesis that posits an alliance between queer unreproductive futures, and the negative impacts that (petro)chemicals are thought to be having on fertility. many of the anxieties about threats to reproduction, davis notes, are tied up with “the perceived threat to traditional masculinity” and heteronormativity (88). nevertheless, an alliance between toxic plastics producers and the lgbtqia+ community is a queer one indeed, and davis acknowledges the challenge of celebrating queer body formations whilst also holding petrochemical companies responsible for the harms that they disproportionally visit upon black, indigenous, and poor bodies. there is a hint of search for redemption in davis’s final chapter: perhaps by hacking heteronormative reproductive futures plastics might at least spite the patriarchal system that spawned them? there are of course more conventional redemptive features of plastics, yet few are to be found in this book because there is little about human attachment to plastics in everyday life, about the “social life of plastic” in appadurai’s sense. for davis, plastics maintain themselves “stubbornly apart from the relations of the world” until they are eventually “marked by the passage of time, by the inquisitive gestures of animals, by the roots of plants and the digestive capacities of microbes” (55). yet whilst it is true that synthetics do not “tell the stories of the earth” (ibid) as rocks do, they can tell stories of humanity large and small. individually, a bottle might bear the trace of being chewed, a jacket worn down by the elements, a plastic bag the imprint of fingers that have shared its load. future generations will decide the lesson to be 4 drawn from the story of how plastics found their way into every surface of the earth, our food chain, and our blood streams. yet the story of plastics, as this timely book indicates, cannot be told without reference to wonton chemical engineering, prolific production and disposal, a belief in the superiority of the synthetic, and a resultant accumulation without metabolization. patrick o'hare is a senior researcher and ukri future leaders fellow in the department of social anthropology at the university of st andrews. he is also a fellow of the royal society of arts (frsa) and a member of the editorial board of ‘worldwide waste: journal of interdisciplinary studies’. he received his phd in social anthropology at the university of cambridge (2017), has held research positions at the universities of cambridge, manchester, and surrey, and has conducted research in uruguay, mexico, argentina, and the uk on themes relating to labour, waste, cardboard publishing, and plastics. © 2022 patrick o’hare microsoft word lópez review.docx 1 casper bruun jensen & atsuro morita, eds. 2019. multiple nature-cultures, diverse anthropologies. new york: berghahn books. isbn: 9781789205398 keywords: nature, culture, multispecies, anthropology, ontology the eight chapters in this volume trace their shared origins to a panel convened by casper bruun jensen and atsuro morita at the joint 50th anniversary conference of the japanese society of cultural anthropology (jasca) and congress of the international union of anthropological and ethnological sciences (iuaes) held in chiba, japan in may 2014. having attended this conference myself as a phd student, multiple nature-cultures, diverse anthropologies is a welcome distillation of several panels’ stimulating discussions on nature and the ontological turn. the introduction by jensen and morita frame the volume’s key themes: the diverse forms relations between nature and culture take around the world, and how these multiple “nature-cultures” have been studied. the editors highlight how “minor” and “major” anthropological traditions have influenced, challenged, and become entangled with one another around such questions, recently culminating in the 21st century, multidisciplinary ontological turn within anthropology and science and technology studies (sts). jensen and morita notably insist this cross-pollination is not new: citing examples from japan and the introduction of novel concepts imported from french social theory – such as “nature” and the “social” – we find that such conceptual frictions (tsing 2005) generated new terms and concepts as early as the 20th century, when the first japanese equivocation to western “nature,” shizen, first appeared. with this vivid example, readers are primed to journey through intersecting anthropological, philosophical, and scientific traditions, and the new configurations of nature, culture, and modernity they generate, in the following chapters. 2 in chapter 1, marylin strathern calls for a re-examination of the very notion of relations, showing how euro-american 17th century philosophy and science (biology, naturalism, genetics) led to transformations in understandings of kinship, in particular the shift to viewing entities as having external relations. this new understanding of kinship, strathern argues, naturalized the western ontological separation between nature and culture; indeed, the very emergence of terms and concepts like “identity” and “relation” may have also helped naturalize relations between entities as primarily external, obscuring possible internal connections, or relations inseparable from identity. in chapter 2, naoki kasuga compares time as conceived in the fijian viti kabani (fiji company) native movement and truth claims in physics, to show how ontologies of time are central to the production of past, present, and future realities. blending ethnography of the viti kabani temporality known as “his time,” or “new time” – predictions made by the movement’s leader who died in 1946 – and a deep understanding of theoretical physics, kasuga shows how temporal symmetry, consistency, and universality can be achieved through experimental, or alternative, ontologies of time. in doing so, kasuga reveals fascinating possibilities for thinking with and beyond the limits of our ontological boundaries, and how different disciplines (anthropology, physics) might productively challenge each other. chapters 3 and 4 continue the conversation between anthropology and the natural sciences, specifically the production of evidence in environmental science. in chapter 3, martin skrydstrup examines how different understandings of nature can co-exist within the production of scientific knowledge. skrydstrup’s ethnography of a greenlandic ice drilling research station reveals how climatologists operated within a naturalist cosmology while also enacting a reflective layer of multiple natures (“versions” versus “layers” of nature) (p. 50). skyrdstrup’s chapter highlights not only how proof is produced in the service of a “new nature” for “the global politics of the anthropocene” (p. 61), but how acknowledging scientific conceptions of multiple nature could shift relations between anthropologists and scientific interlocutors in exciting directions. antonia walford also examines scientific practices and practitioners in chapter 4. focusing on the work of scientists and technicians at the large-scale biosphere experiment in amazonia (lba), whose aim is to gather data on the role of the amazon forest in the global carbon cycle, walford’s study centers “raw data” by exploring not only how observational scientific data is composed, but how it is “also itself a relation of sorts,” specifically the relation between what is “fact” and what is 3 “error” (p. 66). walford argues that we should see relational work applied to the stabilization of data not as the establishment of facts, but establishment of specific kinds of relations – indeed, both certainty and uncertainty are forms of relationality. chapters 5 and 6 shift the focus to animal bodies. in chapter 5, heather anne swanson raises further questions (cf: chapter 2) about the directly observable in anthropology. what happens when we shift our ethnographic starting point from human to more-than-human assemblages? how can we expand our understanding of what constitutes ethnography to study these? swanson compellingly argues that the way anthropologists use the “technologies and infrastructures” (p.87) of other disciplines – such as archives, museums, and libraries – could be expanded to include scientific laboratories and tools. by “swapping a salmon scale for the old newspaper clipping” (p.88), swanson shows there are many ways of learning about animal sociality and histories, if we are willing to experiment with the “minor methods” offered by multispecies anthropology. in chapter 6, kazuyoshi sugawara further explores and theorizes the production of “animal borders” – both the boundary between humans and non-humans, and between humans and particular animals – amongst the g|ui bushmen of the central kalahari desert in botswana. building on merleau-ponty’s ([1945] 2002) notion of phenomenological positivism, sugawara critically approaches human-animal dualism, arguing conceptions of human-animal relationships are based on worldly, bodily experience (p.100). sugawara also highlights the work of japanese anthropologists and primatologist junichiro itani (1926-2001), showing that anthropological experiments in “animal borders” are not new; rather, we find further evidence of interdisciplinary efforts to theorize beyond objectivist, naturalist binaries within “minor traditions.” chapters 7 and 8 round out the volume with a return to the theme of multiple ontologies. in chapter 7, casper bruun jensen and atsuro morita trace divergent but co-existing ontologies of water infrastructure in thailand. following andrew pickering, the authors examine the entanglement of amphibious (hindu-buddhist and thai agricultural) and terrestrial (western scientific) delta ontologies and infrastructure. the authors compellingly show that western scientific and southeast asian cosmological orders – different approaches to the relations between land and water – have produced the delta as a layered infrastructural landscape, an “ontological palimpsest…part terrestrial, part amphibious, neither quite nature nor quite culture” (p. 129). 4 finally, the eighth chapter by andrew pickering concludes the volume (there is no stand-alone conclusion). pickering revisits the development of the ontological turn in anthropology and the need to take different worlds seriously, rather than “conjur[e] them away” as social constructivist perspectives once did (p. 135). pickering shows how a “performative idiom” rather than a western scientific “representational idiom” – for “representations are sharp edged things that evoke a sharpedged nature to go along with them” (ibid.) – helps reveal the world as composed by performative, dynamic actors, “endlessly becoming in decentered and emergent dances of agency” (p. 137). another intriguing concept offered is “islands of stability” (139), configurations where our relations to nature are reliable and regulated. pickering notes such “islands” are not exclusive to western science; indeed, they are central to human experience, and enacted throughout the world. recognizing these multiple islands, we may create further space for taking other worlds seriously and reflect on our own ways of thinking and acting in modernity (145). overall, this slim volume covers impressive ground in just 161 pages. the editors have gathered eight highly engaging chapters, each forefronting the strengths of ethnographic methods, anthropological theory, and sts to challenge and expand our disciplinary approaches to diverse nature(s), culture(s), and ontology(ies). several texts also provide highly accessible introductions to current conversations on these nuanced topics, which are of rapidly growing interest to scholars inside and outside the discipline of anthropology. in short, this book is a shining example of how minor anthropologies can (and have) transformed the ontological terrain of dominant traditions, in exciting and necessary ways. works cited: merleau-ponty, maurice [1945] 2002. phenomenology of perception. trans. colin smith. london: routledge. tsing, anna l. friction: an ethnography of global connection. princeton, nj: princeton university press. elisa maria lópez received her phd in cultural anthropology from uppsala university (2021). her doctoral research examined the production of space, society, and inequality in the swedish ore fields, sweden’s largest mining region and indigenous sámi reindeer herding homeland. she is currently a postdoctoral researcher at kth royal institute of technology school of architecture in stockholm, sweden. 5 © 2023 elisa maria lópez to see or not the see the soy review by annika rabo kregg hetherington, 2020, the government of beans: regulating life in the age of monocrops, durham and london: duke university press, 286 pp., isbn 978-1-4780-0689-3 keywords: soy cultivation, paraguay, monoculture, activism, agribiopolitics “the soy is everywhere – you just can’t see it” (p 70). this is one of the many sentences i have underlined in my copy of this cleverly crafted book. it is geographically grounded in eastern paraguay, but with links and ramifications across the globe. soy is, indeed, everywhere. it is utilized for human consumption in many different edible and non-edible products, and today the vast majority of soy is used for animal fodder. in many parts of the world, people thus eat ‘refined’ soya when they eat meat. more than 300 million tons were produced in 2019 making it the sixth most important staple crops in the world on a list headed by maize. and like maize, traces of soy can be found in human meat eaters and vegetarians alike. brazil is the largest producer of soya, followed by the usa. paraguay is only the sixth on that list, but considering the comparatively small size of the country, the bean is now very important for the national economy. in the book soy appears, disappears and reappears in different guises supported by some actors and resisted by others. “la soja mata – soy kills” is a recurring expression and theme in the book. increased meat consumption, the increased soy cultivation, and deforestation of the amazonas are deeply connected. forests are cut down to provide space for grazing animals and soy cultivation. the soy is processed and given to domesticated animals also outside south america to maximize their growth, thus maximizing profits. soy contributes to the killing of trees, and to the thousands of animal and plant species which live in, off, and among the tropical forests. soy also kills humans through the careless or illegal use of pesticides and other chemical products which have become an integral part of their cultivation. the book can thus be read as a history of the contemporary victory of monocrops where nature has been thoroughly commodified exemplified through the case of paraguay. it can also be read as a narrative of how small farmers and day laborers in the eastern part of the country have economically suffered and been exposed to serious health hazards, and even death, due to the introduction and expansion of soy cultivation. migration, uprooting and settlement along the often porous national border, as discussed by hetherington, is intimately linked to the presence or absence of the paraguayan state, and that deeply affects different and differentiated citizens. he also describes and analyzes the in the end futile efforts of using law and legal means to curtail the advance of the literally toxic development of a monocrop like soy. the book can hence also be read as a condensed narrative of paraguay’s development since late 19th century. the book starts with a massacre in northeast paraguay in 2012. riot police had arrived to evict landless campesinos trying to lay claim to land. the ensuing fight resulted in eleven dead peasants and six dead policemen. this took place not under a dictatorship, but during the presidency of bishop fernando luga who had come to power through the support of rural and urban people, parties and organizations struggling for land reforms and rural welfare. some of these supporters were appointed by the new president to set new environmental policies in place to, among other things, eliminate the health hazards caused by chemicals in agriculture and particularly in the cultivation of soya. heatherington refers to this new group of officials as the government of beans. it was a short-lived experiment and only a few days after the massacre, the president was removed from office and the reforms were halted. through the book this critical event is made legible not by following a conventional chronologically ordered narrative, but by intricately weaving layer upon layer of interpretations in short chapters in the three parts of the book. soy was introduced in the early 1920s by pedro nicolás ciancio. he insisted that the bean would cure rural hunger, give income to poor campesinos and earn the nation much needed export income. he was not successful, but like soy itself he appears in different guises in the book. ciancio was both a medical doctor and an agronomist combining a concern for the health and control of both humans and plants. this is a central nexus in the book. in the last century pervasive ideas of economically, physically and culturally improving the human stock through investment in improved agriculture have locked plants and humans in a dance macabre threatening and even destroying both. heatherington critiques foucault and those concerned with governmentality for privileging humans over other life forms. we must, he argues, pay attention also to the agriin biopolitics to understand the emergence of monocultures and its devastating impact on all forms of life. only in the 1970s did soy had its dramatic breakthrough in paraguay, and then almost by accident. from the 1940s us-supported agricultural programs impacted greatly on paraguay and twenty years later the forested eastern part of the country had been transformed. landless campesinos had been resettled and given land for cultivation in return for support to the regime. cotton was deemed particularly suitable for such small family farms. concomitantly wheat was introduced and cultivated on larger farms often run by europeans from agricultural colonies on the brazilian side of the border. it was the commercial growing of wheat which paved way for the soy. farmers found that it was an excellent nitrogen fixing summer crop supporting the wheat grown in the winter. but when global demands for soy increased dramatically it became the main concern of these farmers. these farms expanded across vast areas often encircling, or pushing, out the smaller cotton farmers who came to see soy as their enemy. ultimately “soy won” (p. 155). but hetherington does not cast the bean as a villain and cotton as the conquered hero. cotton also relied on toxic chemicals and conquered other life forms by depleting the soil and polluting the water. but while labor intensive cotton opened economic opportunities for landless campesinos, the highly mechanized soy cultivation instead pushes rural people into poverty. this well-written and important book is simultaneously a political and economic history of paraguay, particularly its eastern part, and a depiction of a short historical period of radical politics on the part of the state. but perhaps first and foremost it is an exploration of how to anthropologically engage in understanding, explaining and writing about the age of monocrops. it is mercifully devoid of academic jargon and hetherington combines rich ethnography based on long-term field engagement with innovative writing and analytical openness. the issues presented and the conflicts laid bare are not resolved. instead, the political and economic the agribiopolitical placement of plants and people, shift and change, forcing the reader to be attentive to the complexity of these relations. annika rabo emeritus professor in social anthropology at stockholm university with a particular interest in agriculture and seeds. © 2021 annika rabo microsoft word moore review.docx 1 2021. sacred matter: animacy and authority in the americas. eds. by steve kosiba, john wayne janusk, and thomas b.d. cummins. dumbarton oaks research library and collections, washington d.c., 474 pg, isbn 9780884024668 this volume explores objects, ontologies, and authority in indigenous and pre-columbian america. originating as a 2016 dumbarton oaks conference, the contributions are by outstanding scholars who combine insights and evidence that deepen our understanding of sacred matter, a broadly relevant theme. in an elegant essay, kosiba frames the central issues: “how is authority claimed and constituted in social contexts where things and places are persons who can explicitly play social roles, have voices, influence decisions, demand recognition, and instill order? in such settings, how do humans of different social stations, subject positions, or backgrounds […] perceive or engage with these things in distinctive ways?” (p. 3). the chapters occupy a continuum between case studies and essays, the latter in the sense of ‘testing’ or ‘assaying’ key concepts and approaches. cummins proposes “to demonstrate by various different, some radically different, examples the cultural variations and historically contingencies behind a seemingly universal notion of animation or transubstantiation” (p. 170). drawing on information from spanish, andean, and mesoamerican empires and from other groups such as the jama-coaque of ecuador and the muisca of colombia, cummins argues that a simple dichotomy between “western’ vs. ‘indigenous’ is analytically inadequate. his survey of keros, illustrated manuscripts, clay figurines, tombs, and other objects suggests that “ontologies and animism are ever changing categories and that just as those of one culture can be radically different from another, they can have unexpected common ground” (p. 199). 2 the case studies are fascinating. based on research among the kuikuro, fausto discusses the “intimate articulation between shamanism and political power through ritual” as “expressed through the double image of a tree (the humiria) and an animal (the jaguar)” (p. 39). conklin draws on decades of ethnographic research with the wari’of western rondônia, brazil, whose traditional funerary practices included ritual cannibalism of loved ones, a practice outlawed since the mid-1950s and replaced by burial. however the wari’ continue the practice of burning “the deceased person’s home, possessions, and other things associated with their life history and relationships.” in the weeks after death, the scope of wari’ bereavement moves outward— forestpaths are re-routed, fields the deceased once tilled are burned and uprooted—not because they are tainted or haunted, “but because they resonate with traces of past relations that must be set aside and transformed to clear the way for other, future-oriented, revitalizing relations” (p. 108). archaeological studies document significant variations in past cultural practices. for example, macanany summarizes maya ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources to identify concepts of ensoulment and soul loss as reflected in tombs, caches, and other structured archaeological deposits that express the “durability of the soul and how it could be regenerated within the body of a descendent” (p. 99). in northern yucatan, mayan ontologies inform hutson and colleagues’ discussion of late pre-classic ucanha, where excavations identified a structure “as a mat house, the spatial locus of leadership” not simply a passive or inert display of a leader’s power, but also “the ensouled house” that defines “social boundaries that give the house a role as a protector” (p. 317). joyce explores “the animation, feeding, and de-animation” of public buildings during the late formative period (700 bce-300 ce) in three regions in oaxaca, concluding that “animating practices associated with public building varied greatly”—associated with elite buildings in the valley of oaxaca, engaged with by elites and non-elites in the lower rio verde valley, but apparently absent in the mixteca (p. 328). turning to south america, curatola petrocchi considers inka sacred shrines, emphasizing their audial qualities where architecture and water management created “sacred sites, wherein the sonic 3 aural elements vivified, strengthened, and charged the visual elements with meaning, gave their visitors an intense and direct sensorial experience of the empire’s majesty, its mythical past, and its historical memory that was both emotive and cognitive” (p. 291-93). in a brilliant essay, janusek describes the site of tiwanaku as “a vibrant city and cyclical, periodic gatherings in 500 – 800 ce,” and an “ecoregime” connecting distant peaks, water sources, and sacred spaces (p. 234). tiwanaku’s plazas and temples were occupied by animate stone monoliths, “who did not just stand within particular monumental enclosures; those enclosures were built to provide an appropriate home for specific ancestral monolithic personages” (p. 255). weismantel discusses the “lithic-human relationship” in her study of the lanzón, the pivotal and oldest stelae at chavín de huántar, the central andean ceremonial center and pilgrimage site. despite the archaeological debates that swirl around chavín de huántar, the lanzón occupies a rare point of agreement: “this granite prism is the earliest and most significant of all chavín’s monoliths,” perhaps worshipped before the rest of the old temple was constructed (p. 213). although its carving is relatively crude compared to later chavín stelae, it is the lanzón’s placement and presence as a geomorph that elicited fear and respect among people in the volatile andes, “who appear to have embraced uncertainty at every scale” (p.229). in a complex and richly illustrated essay, hamann discusses the resonances of objects, actions, symbols, and meanings revolving about the sacred bundle of huitzilopochtli which guided the mexica from aztlán to the future site of tenochtitlan. although the original text has vanished, it was partially record in the boturini and aubin codices and discussed in inquisitorial testimonies. “symmetry and centrality were important compositional features of a number of mesoamerican manuscripts,” but the huitzilopochtli bundle is animated by being carried from place to place, its story “fundamentally one of movement” (pp. 144, 135). and thus, the codex boturini is “not simply a story about a sacred bundle…,” hamann argues, “the codex boturini is itself a sacred bundle” (p. 147). loren discusses interactions between native americans and franciscans in northern new spain (i.e., western louisiana and eastern texas). “just as native americans sought treatment from [the franciscan] father solis, spanish and mestizo settlers also visited curandero/as and priests,” 4 suggesting that “the presumed boundary between native american and catholic bodily healing and ontologies…were more fluid in every day lived practice,” an “ambivalence found in the intersection of magic, medicine, and religion [that] has left a residue in the archaeological record. small objects, such as crucifixes, amulets and even eggshells were used in practices of bodily and spiritual healing” (p. 358). giraldo provides a distinct perspective on the interaction between places, objects, and peoples among kogi and arhuaco religious specialists (mamas), based on his archaeological and ethnographic work in the sierra nevada de santa marta and his experience accompanying a group of mamas on an international tour sponsored by the colombian government. as the mamas conducted rituals in cambodia, laos, ghana, peru, and bolivia, giraldo observed “that divination for the kogi and arhuaco is an extremely powerful tool, that at least in theory, allows them to effectively communicate with practically any other-than-human entity anywhere in the world, assuring the commensurability of other indigenous and nonindigenous peoples, places, objects, and practices with their own ontological scheme of things” (p. 413). mannheim discusses ontological principles in southern quechua, his goal being “to identify interdependencies among social practices, regardless of whether they are social (e.g., a particular kind of kinship system), material (e.g., settlement patterns), linguistic (e.g., the structure of grammatical person), or cognitive (spatial orientation)” (pp. 371-72), considering four specific ranges of practice—properties of the world, frame of reference, agency, and causal structures— “that truly form the world in which quechua speakers and english speakers live, and they are different worlds, as sapir proposed” (p. 373). allen provides an elegant final essay, interspersing insightful comments on different aspects of this volume with ethnographic gems from her extensive experience in the andes. in sum, this collection is invaluable for scholars interested in sacred matter(s) in the americas and beyond. dr. jerry moore is an archaeologist, writer and professor who has conducted archaeological research in peru, mexico, and southern california. he specializes in prehistoric cultural landscapes and built environments, archaeology of andean south america, and archaeology of 5 western north america. moore has edited and authored numerous articles and books, including “architecture and power in the prehispanic andes: the archaeology of public buildings” (cambridge university press, 1996), “visions of culture: an introduction to anthropological theories and theorists” (altamira/rowman and littlefield press 5th edition, 2019), “cultural landscapes in the prehispanic andes: archaeologies of place” (university press of florida, 2005), “the prehistory of south america: ancient cultural diversity on the least known continent” (university press of colorado, 2014), and "ancient andean houses: making/inhabiting/studying" (university press of florida, 2021). © 2022 jerry moore microsoft word dowler review.docx 1 dewan, camelia. 2021. misreading the bengal delta: climate change, development, and livelihoods in coastal bangladesh. seattle: university of washington press. “climate change is a fact” (p. 74). so begins anthropologist camelia dewan’s conversation with a western development professional called mr. jones, who works for a prominent aquaculture organization in coastal bangladesh. mr. jones goes on, presenting his views on how bangladeshis can best adapt. he explains that farmers should shift from cultivating rice – a cherished staple – to producing commodities for global export, like prawns. dewan reports feeling stunned by this vision. her own research with fishers and farmers in bangladesh revealed myriad social, ecological, and embodied harms wrought by export-oriented saline aquaculture. she had become acquainted with grassroots activists, who were working to limit the expansion of prawn cultivation. mr. jones dismissed such concerns. in his view, the shift to saline aquaculture is “inevitable” (p. 74). ethnography is arguably at its best when it challenges entrenched senses of inevitability and creates openings toward other ways of seeing and acting in the world. misreading the bengal delta accomplishes this feat admirably. dewan’s account is a rich and nuanced portrayal of how climate change and development practitioners like mr. jones translate climate change into practice, and the effects that these translations have on local communities. she convincingly argues that in their search for climate adaptation solutions donors and practitioners undertake “climate reductive translations” (p. 15), which simplify and de-politicize the complex social, political, and natural ecologies of deltaic bangladesh. in doing so, many of the climate change adaptation initiatives they promote may in fact exacerbate climate-related vulnerability. in stark contrast to such simplifications, dewan’s account is thick with historical, sociocultural, political, and environmental context. adopting a decolonial approach, she links her critique of present-day climate adaptation to longer genealogies of colonial and capitalist extraction from land, water, and people in bangladesh. in this way, the ethnography provides an 2 altogether different vision of what it means to encounter and respond to socio-ecological change in bangladesh. chapter 1, which explores histories of embankment construction, builds an informative foundation for the book as a whole. dewan traces continuities between colonial and national land reclamation schemes, embankment-building, and present-day climate and development initiatives. large tracts of the delta were first reclaimed by the east india company in their efforts to expand arable, taxable land. at that time, some forms of flooding were still considered beneficial for farming. monsoon floods, for example, bring vital fresh water and rich deposits of silt to fields and thus increase the fertility of the soil. for this reason, embankments were usually temporary. over time, however, floods became portrayed as damaging, and the british raj erected permanent, impenetrable embankments. after independence and partition, the shift to permanent embankments continued. in the 1960s, dutch-style “polders” were introduced as a part of the usaid and world bank-funded coastal embankment project. such infrastructures were ill-suited to the flow of water and sedimentary dynamics in the delta. over time, these infrastructures led to the siltation of water bodies and raised the water level outside embanked areas, resulting in waterlogging. despite the deleterious effects of these embankments, similar infrastructures are today advanced as effective means of climate adaptation. in chapter 2, dewan presents a fascinating account of heterogenous “development assemblages” comprised of ngos, donors, state units, and other non-state actors. dewan finds that development practitioners generally follow an official script about climate change when undertaking projects, even though informal “hidden transcripts” (p. 62) reveal more critical opinions. these critical views rarely find expression in international and anglophone circles, partly because they tend to be voiced in bangla rather than in english. apart from this, critiques can lead to loss of employment and even blacklisting. again, however, dewan deftly displays that there is nothing “inevitable” about how climate change and adaptation unfolds in bangladesh; rather, “[i]t is the composition of brokers and donors in these assemblages, their various institutional agendas and mandates, that shape whether the final interventions fit the needs of the populations they are seeking to assist” (73). indeed, some local development practitioners creatively draw on what one interlocutor calls the “spice” of climate change (55) to access funding for drinking water projects, latrines, and the excavation of channels that have silted up. such 3 projects appear to be more effective because they address the situated concerns of coastal communities. chapters 3 and 4 develop intimate portraits of socio-ecological change in the delta. as described above, chapter 3 explores the effects of saline aquaculture. many foreign development practitioners laud saline aquaculture as a climate solution, but dewan’s account shows how exportoriented aquaculture has emerged out of dynamics of agrarian dispossession and the privatization of commonly held water bodies. as a result, saline aquaculture often leads to a loss of food sovereignty and profound emotional suffering for poor and landless communities. chapter 4 is noteworthy for its original approach to agrarian ecologies. in this chapter, dewan employs a multispecies approach that is attentive to the entanglements of people, rice, and soil, as well as earthworms, cows, manure, microbes, and micronutrients. she explores the ambivalence that farmers feel about the introduction of capital-intensive agricultural technologies, such as high-yield varieties of rice and agrochemicals such as pesticide and fertilizer. while these post-green revolution technologies have led to greater outputs, farmers mourn what they refer to as a loss of shakti in their food and soil. shakti refers to life force, strength, soil fertility, and energy (pp. 100-108). while indigenous varieties of rice are said to possess abundant shakti, high-yield varieties lack shakti, and agrochemical fertilizers are said to “suck the earth dry” (p. 109). dewan reads shakti in material terms, positing that its loss may be equivalent to a loss of micronutrients in the soil and food. this approach is intriguing and marks a departure from most accounts of shakti, which emphasize its symbolic importance, especially in hindu contexts. as dewan mentions in an endnote, shakti also refers to primordial cosmic energy and is worshipped by many hindus as the mother goddess (p. 175). dewan’s work mostly focuses on secular meanings of the term shakti, but her discussion of spirituality in this chapter points to the fact that coastal bangladeshi worlds are not just inhabited by multiple species; they also involve engagements with divine and spiritual agencies. like so much of everyday life in the delta, these dynamics are elided by contemporary climate change and development discourse and practice. misreading the bengal delta is a brilliant and urgent ethnography. dewan is a sensitive ethnographer, whose care and dedication to the people and ecologies of bangladesh come across strongly in the text. the book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners alike, especially those whose work relates to environmental and/or climate justice. though the regional focus is south 4 asia, the book’s conceptual and theoretical contributions are of much broader relevance, and the text would also make a valuable addition to graduate and undergraduate courses in anthropology, environmental studies, and development studies. calynn dowler is an assistant professor of religious studies at vanderbilt university. her research explores religious and ethical relationships with water in the sundarbans delta of west bengal, india. she completed her phd in anthropology at boston university in 2022. © 2023 calynn dowler 1 wright, s., carney, s., krejsler, j. b., nielsen, g. b., ørberg, j. w. (2020). enacting the university: danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective. springer nature b. v. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1921-4 the anthropology of higher education is a small area in the subfield of the anthropology of education. while most anthropologists who work in education are doing research in k-12 institutions or informal educational contexts, there is a highly specialized group of anthropologists working in higher education. nevertheless, enacting the university: danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective by susan wright, stephen carney, john benedicto krejsler, gritt bykærholm nielson, and jacob williams ørberg is a very important book. it makes important theoretical and methodological contributions to social and cultural anthropology more broadly. and while it is looking at the university in one european country, the implications of this work are important for everyone who works in higher education globally. this review will focus on two main contributions. the first is a contribution to thinking about ethnography. second, the volume makes important contributions to our thinking about institutions in a globalized and neoliberalized world and the ways the larger forces intersect with the activities of people within them. enacting the university: danish university reform in an ethnographic perspective is not a traditional ethnography. it is not the sole researcher engaging in participant observation with a specific group of people. rather it is a team of researchers who are looking at a small set of large institutions (danish universities) as they sit within a national and international context. anthropologists tend not to see ethnography as a method but rather something like a stance toward the other. this perspective on ethnography offers the ethnographer a “tool-kit” of methods, rather than simply relying on participant observation. in fact, the focus on ethnography as a method in other fields has led to some prominent critiques in anthropology (ingold 2014, herzfeld, 2001). 2 but even as a stance toward the other, traditionally, anthropology has thought of that other in fairly simple terms. and when one begins to think of the other as “danish universities,” this raises a whole host of new problems. these are problems that some anthropologists have been trying to address (holmes & marcus 2008, marcus 2011, riles 2000, strathern 2004). in a global world, ethnography often needs to be practiced in teams, and those teams need to be able to echo the kinds of collaborations that one sees in other institutions and organization in the global economy (marcus 2011). following riles (2000), anthropologists are not outside of the global networks they study but are themselves part of these complex institutions and networks where there is no outside. wright and her team very much take this principle of being a team within the network to heart. and to understand danish university reform ethnographically, the team takes on the different levels of analysis woven together with wright’s introduction and conclusion. in this way, they are able to look at interactions and discourses at the macro level of the oecd, eu, and danish government, as well as at the levels of university leaders, university faculty and researchers and students. this leads directly to some of the theoretical contributions the book makes to the study of universities and large-scale institutions within a global context. in the opening chapter and the conclusion, wright explains the two senses of the term “enacting.” drawing on the perspective that developed in british cultural studies and the birmingham school, enactment on the one hand is the enactment of laws and the ways that power frames the field withing with actors interact. the second sense of enactment is the more on the ground struggles and practices of individuals who are engaged in a range of practices, from interpreting how to best follow the law to active resistance and attempts at rearticulation. and even among the elite policy makers and the university leaders, there is not a single vision, but rather a set of ideas that people interpret differently. using a number of theoretical tools from stuart hall, norman fairclough, michel foucault, anna tsing, and many others, the teams look at the ways that the transformation of the danish university, has been partial, met with resistance, but ultimately the university is in the process of change. wright shows that within the oecd, at the most global level, and the eu and danish government, there was a shared sense that universities needed to be aligned so as to become more competitive 3 in a global knowledge economy. but even at the highest levels, wright shows, through detailed ethnographic work, that change was not a coordinated elite plan, but rather a shared view of the world among a fairly small group of elites. one of the ideologies among elites is a different sense of freedom. wright shows us how the idea of freedom among the politicians and policy makers is not the traditional notion of academic freedom, but rather seeing the university as an individual and free agent capable of making contractual relations with other for-profit players in the economy providing the knowledge and technologies that the market demands. wright and ørberg show that the process of articulating the relationship of political leadership to organizations in the society went through a series of changes. and as universities went through those changes, they became freer, but at the same time more beholden to the state, because as free actors they needed to earn their keep rather than just relying on an assumed budget from the state. at no point in the work do we have a simplistic view of the powerful dominating or the less powerful simply being dominated. but the overall effect of the changes in legislation in denmark has been the transformation, and perhaps what i would call the destruction of the modern research university as originally envisioned by the humboldt tradition. indeed, if the modern university was founded on an idealistic contract with the state where the individual and society is called upward through and unfettered pursuit of knowledge, the new contract is one that is one where all are called to help produce profit for the knowledge economy, the new definition of well-being. the book moves from this larger view through each of the levels of the university. carney looks at how university rectors have dealt with the new legislation and the new pressures on them to, like a corporation, make their institutions leaner and more accountable to the goals of supporting the knowledge economy. in important ways these university leaders become more like corporate ceos and begin after the 2003 university law to try to make quick and sweeping changes to the structure of the university and the makeup of the faculty. using a foucauldian model, carney discusses the ways leadership uses a discursive model for articulating what is normative within the university. academic decisions shift to financial ones as new priorities are articulated at different levels. and while the first wave of reforms and reform leaders were resisted, and several of them replaced by leaders who pursued the agenda more softly, the overall effect of these efforts have been to change the university and its orientation to teaching and knowledge in significant ways. 4 as wright showed in the early chapters of the book, “freedom” and “democracy” were floating signifiers. policy makers and politicians used the slippage in these terms to move from a traditional notion of academic freedom to a free institution, free to offer its services in the global information marketplace. and so, the university is freed on the one hand as an economic actor. but on the other hand, it gave the state more control over the university by using an accountability discourse and seeing accountability in terms of being an economic service to the public. krejsler, like carney, shows that the discursive play around key signifiers is both a mechanism to control behavior, but at the same time can be invoked as a strategy of resistance on the part of academic faculty. and further, krejsler shows that faculty’s attitude toward the changes in the university vary by field and type of institution. the success in slowing down the process of instrumentality also varies by institution as well, with the older more established universities being able to more successfully deploy an humboldtian discourse surrounding the status of the university. in different ways, much of the discussion is about how academics are positioned by the knowledge economy discourse, and how they responded by attempting to position themselves within the humboldtian, academic freedom, discourse. in my own work, i suggested that university students in the united states, struggling for the rights to be part of the process of knowledge production in the 1960s and 1970s, ultimately lost that battle, but in the process gained consumer rights. and this shift in freedom and rights was part of the larger american transformation of the university. in a somewhat similar way, but in a very different context, nielson talks about the struggles over imagination of the student in the danish context. she uses the notion of “figures,” a concept articulated by several anthropologists, to talk about the ways that university students have changed over time and particularly from the 1960s to the present. for nielson, a figure is both a product of imagination, but also a social category that has been forged from the empirical context in which students find themselves. for example, the current notion of the student as consumer is both a product of social imagination, but students are also literally engaged in consumer behaviors and activities in relationship to the new marketized university. nielson captures the ways that student have moved from struggling to have claim in the production of knowledge within the university, to a more issue-oriented approach to their relationship to knowledge within and without the university. and while students have moved to a 5 more “consumer rights” position, they also remain a political force in the ways, as she points out, that hardt and negri (2004) might see political struggle. enacting the university gives us a lot of detail at a number of different levels of the changes going on in europe and denmark. but the book has implications for these processes that universities are facing around the world. and while the particulars networks and institutions vary in different locations, the increasing focus globally on an instrumental rationality to evaluate universities is almost universal. rider (2009:87) drawing on the vision of humboldt and the sociologist robert merton, suggests there is real value in the autonomy of science. scientific discovery needs to be separate from the particular instrumental goals of various actors. this is true for the good of society, so that science does not get adopted for nefarious purposes. but it is also true, that scientific discovery, even discovery that is useful for the economy, cannot always be preplanned. otherwise, it would not be discovery. the processes that wright, carney, krejsler, nielson, and ørberg discuss are ultimately detrimental to universities as institutions, and to society at large. hardt m. & negri a. (2004). multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire. penguin press. herzfeld, m. (2001). anthropology: theoretical practice in culture and society. malden: blackwell publishers. holmes, d. r. and marcus, g. e. (2008). collaboration today and the re-imagination of the classic scene of the fieldwork encounter, collaborative anthropologies volume 1: 81-101. ingold, t. (2014). that’s enough about ethnography! in hau: journal of ethnographic theory, 4(1): 383-395. marcus, g. e. (2011). ‘notes from within a laboratory for the reinvention of anthropological method. in ethnographic practice in the present, edited by marit melhuus, john p. mitchell, and helena wulff, 69 79. new york: berghahn books. rider, s. (2009). the future of the european university: liberal democracy or authoritarian capitalism? culture unbound, volume 1: 83–104. hosted by linköping university electronic press: http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se riles, a. (2000). the network inside out. ann arbor: university of michigan press. 6 strathern, m. (2004). partial connections, updated edition. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield publishers. wesley shumar is an anthropologist and professor of communication at drexel university with research experience in higher education, mathematics education, online learning, and social learning theory. in higher education he is author of college for sale: a critique of the commodification of higher education, falmer press, 1997. hi is co-editor, along with joyce canaan of structure and agency in the neoliberal university, routledge, 2008, as well as coeditor along with søren s. e. bengtsen and sarah robinson of the university becoming: perspectives from philosophy and social theory, springer, 2021. © 2023 wesley shumar microsoft word groupp_review_le sel.docx 1 ‘white gold’: cultivating salt and saline spaces in senegal faye, cheikh ahmed tidiane. (2021). le sel, une roche sédimentaire cultivée au sénégal: focus sur les mutations socio-spatiales de l'axe kaolack-mbirkilane [salt, a sedimentary rock cultivated in senegal: focus on the socio-spatial mutations of the kaolackmbirkilane axis]. l’harmattan, pp. 315, isbn 978-2-343-24980-3 keywords: environmental anthropology, climate change, the production of space, social change, salt farming senegal is the largest salt producer in west africa, mining nearly half a million tons each year. small-scale harvesters are responsible for about a third of all production in rural inland and coastal areas, many of whom previously relied on agricultural production for their livelihoods. in le sel, une roche sédimentaire cultivée au sénégal, cheikh ahmed tidiane faye provides a sophisticated analysis of the intertwined socio-economic and ecological processes that have led to the emergence of widespread artisanal salt cultivation and its complex socio-spatial implications for rural societies. faye focuses in particular on the high saloum region, a center of salt production situated towards the end of the expansive sine-saloum delta. the delta, covering roughly two hundred thousand hectares, is increasingly characterized by intensifying salinization,1 a result of the lack of permanent river flow caused by the sahelian drought and famine of the 1970s2 alongside a globally changing climate that continues to accentuate the phenomenon. as of now, more than a million hectares of land have been affected by salinization and acidification in senegal, and the consequences of salinization for the inhabitants of the delta have been as numerous as they have been severe. over the past few decades, salinization has led to the largescale decline in cultivable land, the aggravation of poverty, disparities between villages and increased migration towards urban centers. the degradation of ecosystems has also led to the disappearance of multiple plant and animal species, the salinization of groundwater, the drying up 1 the process by which water-soluble salts accumulate in the soil and groundwater. 2 although faye does not go into detail on the origins and causes of the sahelian drought, it has been widely documented that the drought and resulting famines were rooted in over-cultivation and degradation of ecosystems that would have otherwise withstood long periods of reduced rainfall. the exploitation of west african environments in particular that led to the drought was rooted in european settler colonialism, extractivism, and colonial policies that prevented african farmers and herders from managing the environment in a way that would have avoided the large-scale (and continuing) socio-environmental crisis (e.g., ball 1978). 2 of fresh water sources and increasingly scarce rainfall. since the 1980s, farmers in the delta region have struggled to grow traditional crops, and in some places any form of agricultural production has been rendered entirely impossible. fishing, which was the second primary activity after agriculture, entirely ceased due to the over-salination of the river and the disappearance of fish. farmers, faced with land too salty to cultivate or graze livestock, have turned towards the cultivation of a new resource in plentiful supply: salt. since the colonial era, the sahel region, and senegal in particular, have confronted accelerated environmental degradation and its socio-economic consequences. more recently, programs funded by the senegalese government and international development organizations have attempted to reverse, or at least control, the yearly advance of salinization throughout the country. yet, these efforts have largely failed to impede its progress, and have been similarly unsuccessful in improving the lives of those who are immediately affected by it, namely, small-scale farmers and producers who depend on the productivity of the land. while the state and international organizations see salinization as a risk that requires intervention, faye argues that the inhabitants of the delta have transformed the environmental crisis of salinization into strategic economic opportunities. in this vein, salt, seen on the one hand as a sign of underdevelopment and environmental decline, has been converted into a source of economic prosperity and a symbol of hope by rural inhabitants. farmers initially turned to salt farming as a supplementary activity they could turn to during the long dry season. due to the persistent climatic drought, salinization and acidification what faye refers to as the ‘saline dynamic’ (dynamique saline) the exploitation of salt has not only become critical to the survival strategies of the rural population, but has also become a lucrative source of income that has far surpassed agricultural production. moreover, salt farming has transformed the socio-economic and spatial organization of delta villages that were once exclusively agro-pastoral. this triple process of change, at once societal, spatial, and environmental, is profoundly reconfiguring the social and economic dynamics of delta societies. faye details the ways in which the widespread cultivation of salt and the abandonment of agriculture has led to new ways of perceiving rural space and new forms of production that have generated wealth while at the same time disrupting normative social relations. these far-reaching changes have included new forms of land use and ownership, shifting gender relations, and inventive forms of political organization. additionally, the cultivation of salt has not only allowed farmers and their families to improve their socio-economic conditions, but is has also led to the valorization of salt as a source of prestige, offering the enhancement of social status and personal financial autonomy, and therefore, emancipation from previous social hierarchies. this is especially true for women, who have been able to earn significant income from trading salt with foreign merchants and have established their own trade organizations seeking broader representation in political life. throughout the delta, salt is viewed as the ‘white oil’ of the region, giving rise to aspirations for lifestyles now attainable 3 through its extraction. the dazzling rise of salt production has not gone unnoticed, and more and more migrants arrive each year hoping to cultivate their own salt farms in the pursuit of economic promise and social mobility. throughout, faye demonstrates through vivid detail the contradictions of the high saloum landscape; characterized by both constraints and risks alongside opportunity and hope. moreover, the study demonstrates how environmental decline can, in turn, become a catalyst for new dynamics, offering the potential for social and political change in the most unlikely of the places. in thinking through these processes of crisis and disruption that give rise to opportunity and change, faye invokes a notion of ‘creative destruction’ – a process of destruction that leads to restructuring and transformation. at the same time, the rise of the salt trade has motivated rapid growth of coastal towns, accompanied by strong pressures on other resources in limited supply, leading to new social tensions and repercussions on an already fractured environment. in this vein, faye highlights not only the slow violence (nixon 2013) of environmental degradation, but also the cycles and contradictions of environmental decline that, while offering opportunities, raises questions as to the long-term sustainability of these new modes of survival born from crisis. in order to grasp these complex environmental and socio-spatial issues, faye mobilized multiscalar analysis, skillfully weaving together diverse forms of data (e.g., hydrological, geophysical, surveys, interviews, observations, archival sources) and phenomena separated by temporal and geographic distance. in the first chapter, faye details the geomorphological history of the area, climatic variables, and anthropogenic factors in the dynamics of agricultural land degradation, illustrating the complex processes and historical roots of the ongoing social and ecological transformations. these dynamics are covered in remarkable detail, with the additional provisioning of extensive maps, tables, and illustrations to demonstrate the historical depth and contemporary extent of these interconnected events as well as their scalar problematics. the second chapter is devoted to the analysis of physico-chemical and socio-spatial transformations of delta societies, and includes an expansive discussion on the process and practices of salt production in addition to a history of artisanal salt exploitation in west africa and the mediterranean region. the final chapter draws connections between the events over the longue durée that led to the degradation of rural socio-economic and environmental systems to the widespread emergence of the small-scale salt cultivators and the dynamics of socio-spatial change. overall, the study responds to key questions relating to the interconnected processes of environmental decline and social change around the world, as well the entangled links between colonialism, globalization and anthropogenic climate change. as such, the discussions here would be particularly useful to those interested in environmental anthropology, global supply chains, the production of space, studies of global climate change, and changing forms of extractivism. cited: 4 ball, n. (1978). drought and dependence in the sahel. international journal of health services, 8(2), 271–298. nixon, r. (2013). slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor (1. harvard univ. press paperback ed). harvard univ. press. emilia groupp is a phd candidate in the department of anthropology at stanford university. her dissertation research focuses on large-scale solar energy production, transnational energy infrastructures and emergent energy geographies. her research is funded by the social science research council, the american institute for maghrib studies and the stanford king center on global development. she is also a research fellow at the organization for identity and cultural development, and co-editor of the anthropology book forum. © emilia groupp 2021 1 gaetano, arianne m. 2015. out to work: migration, gender, and the changing lives of rural women in contemporary china. university of hawai’i press. 184 pp. keywords: migration, women, contemporary china, anthropological approach, criticism out to work: migration, gender, and the changing lives of rural women in contemporary china (2017) is an ethnographic study of chinese rural women’s experiences of migration into the city at an age of market socialism and globalization. by focusing on the life stories of a group of rural women born between 1976 and 1984 who migrated to beijing between 1993 and 2000 to work as domestic workers or hotel housekeepers, arianne m. gaetano pays special attention to the problem of agency and empowerment. the main argument of the book is that “migration promotes agency and advances gender equality by creating more opportunities for young rural women to make money, learn new skills or further their education, earn recognition and respect for their contributions to their rural households and communities, and exercise greater control in matters of marriage and family” (132). this positive stance invites critical scrutinization, which this review tries to conduct via an examination of its specific approach of field work. despite this book’s insightful account of rural women’s experience, i argue that this project could be more comprehensive if it had claimed more clearly the limitation of such an overly optimistic conclusion as a result of choosing highly homogenous interviewees. in order to locate the particular points of agency and empowerment, gaetano examines the workings of migrated rural women's’ experiences on three levels. on a macro level, gaetano considers the hidden inequality and marginalized voices in china’s miraculous national project of modernization, prompted under market socialism and globalization. on a meso level, these migrated rural women’s interactions with the household and the division of labor by sex in the work field are explored. on a micro level, the personal trajectory of each woman’s survival story 2 from a rural woman to a fortunate successful urban sophisticate is examined. particularly, the emphasis on the micro-level exemplifies gaetano’s “bottom-up” methodology in understanding these rural migrant women “who have heretofore been largely ignored or silenced” (13). with these three directional focuses, the book is organized into six chapters. the first chapter deals with the macro-historical background of the rural women’s migration enabled by the policy of “reform and opening.” the second chapter explores the micro-level of individual women’s decisions of migration and their subsequent negotiations with the household on the mesolevel. the third chapter discusses the workings of social networks of kin and the principle of reciprocity. the fourth chapter highlights migrant women’s participation, creation and obstacles while at work. the fifth chapter pays attention to the process of “urbanization” on individual migrant women, especially of their interaction with consumer culture. the sixth chapter considers the influence of migration on women’s life trajectory and “how this transforms traditional courtship, marriage, and family” (12). the task gaetano sets for herself was no doubt an exciting one: to search for evidence of agency and empowerment in the state-wide system of social stratification and transformation. this style of scholarship has also been widely welcomed by scholars with a feminist perspective since locating and presenting the possibilities of agency that individuals can exert are practically empowering to women, indicating traces of hope. however, i would like to point out that even though it is understandable for a writer to defend one’s stance by diminishing or slightly ignoring the other side of the coin, it shall make a stronger claim if the other aspect is also articulated in the book. to present “agency” of migrant women, this book presents rare cases of migrant survivors’ stories, those who successfully achieved class-transgression. however, this book does not include the vast majority of migrant women’s tragic fates while contextualizing the whole picture. the limitation of this book’s research is defined by the approach and the availability of interviewees. as gaetano describes, of the thirty migrant women she interviewed, the ones she got close with were “all unmarried and under the age of twenty-five,” and the ones she was able to maintain regular contact with are also the younger ones, the ones who are familiar with “airmail letters, e-mails and instant messages, cell-phone texts” (5). three factors are at work here: first, marriage is a key factor of migrant women’s eventual settlement and with interviewees being “unmarried” it automatically denotes more space of mobility and possibilities for them; second, a young age also plays a vital role in migrant women’s personal desires and aspirations, which are 3 identified as significant in the class-transgression process; third, the familiarity to technology also limits the interviewees to young and promising migrant women with more possibilities. one of the most-mentioned stories in the book is the story of qiaolian, who first worked as a domestic worker and then successfully gained education and was then a teacher in beijing. this trajectory is only possible due to the fact that qiaolian is smart, young, and unmarried, and even with some luck involved in her situation as well. on the contrary, the group of migrant women that are left out of the picture, therefore, are the ones who are older, unfamiliar with modern technology, or already married -and these are exactly the ones that truly sees no hope and future but sells the body and dignity to the modern city at a minimum wage. overall, gaetano does admit that this project alone is “inadequate” to detail the specificities of migrant women’s dilemma. nevertheless, there is no other analysis of its limitation other than this one sentence in the conclusion chapter. the endeavor of this book to locate moments of agency of migrant women and presents them not as powerless victims is admirable. however, by focusing on the more promising migrant women (the younger, the smarter, and the unmarried) and not articulate the severe situation of the older, the more “uneducated,” the married, gaetano has weakened her argument. this project can be strengthened with a more detailed articulation of its limitation. works cited: gaetano, arianne m. 2015. out to work: migration, gender, and the changing lives of rural women in contemporary china. university of hawai’i press. tingting hu is both a cultural critic and a creative writer. she earned her m.a. and ph.d. in comparative literature at the university of south carolina and now teaches at renmin university of china as an assistant professor. her research focuses on women’s narratives, media studies, subaltern studies, and contemporary literature, film, and culture in and beyond china. her dissertation “form and voice: representing contemporary women&apos;s subaltern experience in and beyond china” investigates transnational women authors&apos; multi-media narratives. hu has published academic pieces, essays, stories, and poetry in international comparative literature, sino-us comparative literature, rocky mountain review, meiwen, ibookreview, ifeng youth, literary dog, and new poem frontline. 4 © 2024 tingting hu microsoft word stark final .docx page 1 of 4 six decades of collaborative bioarchaeological research on the nile george j. armelagos and dennis p. van gerven, 2017, life and death on the nile: a bioethnography of three ancient nubian communities, gainesville: univ. press of florida, 244 pp. isbn 9780813054452 keywords: nubia; bioarchaeology; sudan; bioethnography; human osteology life and death on the nile is a rollicking reminiscence that looks back at the roughly six decades of research collaboration undertaken by dennis van gerven, george armelagos, and colleagues in sudanese nubia. at its core, this volume reads as an ode to a great friend and scholar: george armelagos, a mentor to countless biological anthropologists and to whose memory this volume is also dedicated. bioarchaeology within nubia, modern sudan and contexts within southern egypt, over the last century has largely been driven by dam building projects. the research presented by van gerven and armelagos utilizes the lens of dam building and associated threats of flooding to the destruction of sites as the initial impetus for undertaking bioarchaeological research at wadi halfa, and subsequently at kulubnarti. though dam building along the nile has historically posed challenging ultimatums to either excavate and document sites or lose the contexts forever, such infrastructural projects have also provided a strong fillip for incentivizing archaeological research in the region, ultimately setting in motion a deep discourse on the history and archaeology of nubia that has expanded well beyond the limits of dam building flood zone impacts. the excavation of cemeteries, and associated analyses, in particular has seen intensive focus as a primary area of research for examining human experiences within ancient nubia. it is to this area of the discipline that the subject volume contributes most fully. page 2 of 4 the nubian material presented by van gerven and armelagos serves primarily as a synthesis of previous research, a magnum opus of sorts, presented as a career in retrospect. the tone of this volume in many ways lends itself to the bildungsroman genre, with numerous anecdotes of personal history and development, chance discoveries, and resultant advancements in the fields of biological anthropology and paleopathology, such as the recovery of a mandible from a tire track leading to the inadvertent discovery of a 12,000 year old mesolithic cemetery at meinarti. life and death on the nile is thematically driven, being presented through seven focussed chapters ranging from a look at the transition from racial categorizations to the development of the biocultural model, assessments of growth and development, pathology, and a number of unique case studies comprising cases of hydrocephalus, neoplasm, and scoliosis, among others. in this way each chapter takes on its own singular part of the broader narrative, allowing for a deep-dive into the topic(s) addressed in each individual chapter. as a whole, the volume makes clear that, while “big” diseases like plague, smallpox, and syphilis, have shaped history in drastic ways on grand and obvious scales, the small scale diseases of microbial infection, diarrhea, and parasites have equally played a pervasive and more quietly pernicious role in shaping human history. each chapter provides the reader with a detailed background summary to the main theme that both situates the material within its broader academic historical context—be that a history of racial categorizations in anthropology or a background to osteoporosis—as well as provides a foundation for the reader to appreciate the subsequent presentation and discussion of research findings from wadi halfa and kulubnarti. the volume thus effectively strikes a balance between textbook and research monograph. the thematic materials presented within the initial six chapters are anchored within chapter 7 through development of the “bioethnography” approach, a term coined in effect by van gerven and armelagos, and developed through the biocultural model as a central unifying tenet to their bioarchaeolgical research, being premised on two overarching principles: 1.) human evolution is the result of an interaction between biological and cultural systems, and 2.) human evolution isolated from its cultural context is unintelligible (p. 21). as van gerven and armelagos posit, at its root all anthropology is ethnography. while ethnographic research traditionally entails detailed observation and discussion with living populations, bioethnography page 3 of 4 relies on observations of lived experiences and cultural viewpoints derived from preserved skeletal markers and cultural practices reflected in burials, essentially providing a biologically driven ethnographic reconstruction for deceased individuals lives within a cultural context. while shortcomings and challenges related to the removal of human agency in the constructing of bioethnographies can easily be levelled against such an interpretive method, the presented attempts to more broadly define and nuance the experiences of populations living in ancient nubian contexts is commendable for lending a humanizing lens to the discussion of biological markers of growth and pathology. to develop such bioethnographic syntheses, in part, van gerven and armelagos rely on the principles of strong inference, which stresses the need for multiple hypotheses to avoid or inhibit confirmation biases that abound in single hypothesis approaches. this is to say that, keeping an open mind and not seeking to fit data to preconceived notions of “what happened” are integral and imperative to unbiased research and opens the door for opportunities to identify previously unrecognized trends and associated interpretations. the research results presented within this volume also take on parsimonious viewpoint, gauging results along three lines of certainly true, probably true, and possibly true. in this way questions of confidence can be clearly stated while not also requiring such smoking gun evidence as to avoid any level of human inference. for instance, van gerven and armelagos point out that it is certainly true that natural mummification occurred in nubian contexts, while it is only probably true that impaired individuals received assistance from their community, such as a documented individual with scoliosis who likely received a “great deal of social support” (p. 184), while also admitting that explicit evidence of such cannot be confirmed. the highly relatable and anecdote rich retrospective synthesis presented in this volume is appreciated as a singular source for summarising a number of broader biological anthropological questions examined at wadi halfa and kulubnarti, as well as for the insights “behind the scenes” to the development of research along the chain of events from field excavation to laboratory analyses to final publication synthesis. this volume will be of the greatest benefit to individuals interested in the history of biological anthropology in sudan and to biological anthropologists seeking a broad synthesis and retrospective of research findings from wadi halfa and kulubnarti. a welcome contribution to the history of biological anthropology and a fitting page 4 of 4 testament to george armelagos as a scholar, this volume will make a welcome addition to university libraries and anthropological research collections. robert j. stark is a bioarchaeologist with a background in human osteology, stable isotopes, and paleopathology. his ongoing research focusses on contexts within egypt, italy, and sudan, along with professional involvement in cultural resource management (crm) archaeology in ontario. © 2020 robert j. stark andean time review by jerry d. moore edward swenson and andrew roddick, editors, 2018 constructions of time and history in the pre-columbian andes, university press of colorado louisville: university press of colorado, 288 pp, isbn: 978-1-607326410. in northern colombia, kaggaba (kogi) priests (mamas) turn back the sun at the solstices and equinoxes, a cosmic effort that involves extensive training and engagement with ritual and time. at the opposite end of the continent in tierra del fuego, the historical selknam distinguished five verb tenses: present, recent past, remote past, beyond past, and the mythical past. between these two geographical and conceptual poles, traditional south american cultures employed diverse concepts of time, the broad focus of this collection. originating as a 2013 symposium on “envisioning time and imagining place in pre-columbian landscapes,” this volume has a narrower focus on the central andes, principally the north-central peru, the titicaca basin, and the heartland of the inca empire. the archaeological and cultural traditions discussed include chavín, moche, tiwanaku, inka, and colonial cultures. the volume considers “indigenous temporalities and modes of historical production” (p. xiii), contributing to broader, ontological shift in archaeological approaches to time, as seen in gavin lucas’s 2005 the archaeology of time or the 2019 volume andean ontologies: new archaeological perspectives, edited by maria cecilia lozada and henry tantaleán. these works mark a departure from concerns with archaeological sequences (relative time) or dating techniques (absolute time), instead exploring a) how time was conceived and expressed by other societies in prehistory and b) how those temporal conceptions might be reflected or obscured in archaeological inquiries. this requires an analytical compromise between looking at broad analogies and attention to significant variations. the editors write, “despite considerable diversity in premodern andean representations of time, […] it is worth identifying some general trends in andean time reckoning and historical consciousness” (p. 14). in this effort—not surprisingly—the incas loom large. in an intriguing essay, wilkinson and d’altroy draw attention to the “lack of figurative imagery in inka material culture” (p 107). (ironically, our visualizations of inka culture largely are based on the detailed and remarkably accurate drawings of the mestizo savant, felipe guaman poma de ayala (ca. b. 1535/1550d.1615)). wilkinson and d’altroy argue that the absence of prehispanic commemorative drawings is consistent with an inca view that engaged with the past via social relations “and more specifically, kinship relations” such that the “past existed in the form of living and sentient nonhuman actors who were made the kin of the inkas” through material exchanges as with other andean kinship ties (p. 127). thus “past” encounters were not depicted, wilkinson and d’altroy argue, because they remained in the “present” via such exchanges and engagements. if figurative depictions were absent in inka culture, they are prominent in andean archaeology of time, as roddick explores in his study of chronographics: “those charts, figures, and illustrations used to represent time” (p.67). these chronographics not only include timelines and chronological charts, but also visualizations of distinct ceramic pastes or a harris matrix that displays reconstructed depositional order but not the differential duration of deposits. rather than abandon such visual displays, roddick argues that we can use them “to seek out temporal discordances and to work toward an understanding of temporally complex but always fully inhabited landscapes” (p.94). such dynamic engagements are also found in chase’s thoughtful comparison of the “canonical prehistory” of the huarochiri manuscript with the archaeology of the region it describes. produced circa 1608 under the direction of father francisco de avila (1573-1645), the “extirpator of idolatries,” the text describes a pre-inca era in which cannibals and superhumans vied for supremacy. instead, the archaeological evidence points to a much later, inka period presence, which leads chase to suggest that the narrators of the huarochiri manuscript “were not attempting to ‘do history’ but instead were performing a successful, fertile llacta” (p. 153), a mythic charter recounting the existence of competitive, complementary, and dualistic social groups who drew on distinct domains, thus creating unity via opposition. the rowe-menzel chronology is a classic representation of the andean past, envisioning a sequence of ‘horizons’ interspersed by ‘intermediate periods.’ sayre summarize the scholarship and assumptions embedded in the definition of the early horizon, focusing on the site of chavín de huantar and arguing how a focus on ceramic styles “forces us to think in terms of horizons,” that silences other aspects of ancient life. sayre calls for an archaeology “that investigates the rhythms and patterns of domestic life at chavín” that will allow “scholars to try to understand andean temporalities and through a more emic lens” (p. 60 moving to the north coast of peru, swenson discusses “shifts in political and religious ideologies in the jequetepeque region” (p. 175) as reflected by variations in the use and construction of residential and public space at the late formative (500-100 bce) site of jatanca and the late moche (ad 650 -850) center of huaca colorada, which rises stepwise as three principal sectors climb to a height of 20 meters. the restrictive access to jatanca’s walled compounds contrasts with “huaca colorada’s vertical design and history of constant renovation” (p. 179), and thus “the affective time of the huaca [colorada] thus departs from the feelings of anticipation and suspense engendered by the horizontal and labyrinthine compounds of jatanca” (p.193). in another look at moche culture, spence morrow considers miniature architectural models or maquetas recovered from tombs at the site of san jose del moro, models apparently patterned on the compounds at huaca colorado, arguing “both the incremental ritual renovations at huaca colorada and inclusion of maquetas in the tombs at san jose del moro served to make and order time” (p. 229). in a thoughtful study of “shifts in time reckoning and conceptions of history in the ancient andes” (p. 247), seone and culchuchion-venegas explore variations in site orientations in which early preceramic sites like caral were aligned with constellations such as the southern cross and milky way, while late intermediate sites (ad 650 -1400) incorporated additional organizing entities such as the equinox. intriguingly, at the site of moche itself, the nocturnal observations and orientations of the old temple at huaca de la luna were replaced by diurnal events, a “structural reorganization of religion and cult as conforming to an ideological move to re-center the moche world in a solidified and continually rejuvenated ‘present’” (p. 251). in an outstanding and wide-ranging final essay, bray observes “taking the dimension of time as a matter of concern rather than an assumed universal suggests new ways of recalibrating not only the traditional segmentation of pre-columbian history in the andes—incorporating important ideas about synchronicity, persistence, and overlap—but our own culturally specific notions of time as linear, homogenous, and universal” (p. 263). the studies in this volume suggest new directions for such archaeological recalibrations of the past. jerry d. moore is professor of anthropology at california state university, dominguez hills. his research focuses on cultural landscapes, the archaeology of architecture, and human adaptations on the north coast of peru and northern baja california. his research has been supported by the national science foundation, the national geographic society, the wenner-gren foundation for anthropological research, the getty research institute, the institute of advanced studies (durham, uk), and other agencies and foundations. he is the author of architecture and power in the prehispanic andes: the archaeology of public buildings (1996), cultural landscapes in the prehispanic andes: archaeologies of place (2005), visions of culture: an introduction to anthropological theories and theorists (2012), the 2014 saa book award winner, a prehistory of home, (2017) incidence of travel: recent journeys in ancient south america, and (2021)ancient andean houses: making-inhabiting-studying, thirty-five peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and sixty-seven professional papers. © 2022 jerry d. moore microsoft word ixta review.docx politicization of body processing and manipulation review by itzamara ixta osterholtz, anna j.eds. 2020. the poetics of processing: memory formation, identity, and the handling of the dead. university press of colorado louisville. keywords: body processing; violence; warfare; social politics; ritualistic burials in present day western society, the act of processing bodies is often unseen, with a body being presented to its kin once ready for burial. the idea of corpse manipulation is seen as a natural next step after a person passes away. similarly, other cultures throughout time have had ritualistic processes for their dead that extended beyond the burial. in the poetics of processing, anna j. osterholtz focuses on body processing and the ways in which body manipulation serves as a social tool (3). the book itself is separated into three sections1) the americas, 2) europe, eurasia, and africa, and lastly 3) anatomization. section 1 focuses on historical sites in peru, chihuahua, mexico, and the southwest. the second section has case studies focused in africa and the middle east. the last section focuses on anatomization, the dissection and analysis of bodies, within the united states beginning in the 19th century. osterholtz begins the volume by introducing body processing and the poetics model. the poetics model was a theory developed by neil whitehead, where he applied the concept of poetics to violence and the way in which it creates identity (4). whitehead concludes that violence itself is both constructive and destructive, and emphasizes social identity while enforcing hierarchies and power structures (4). whitehead’s model goes beyond violence and the immediate gratification, but evaluates violence as a cultural trait. this concept is highlighted by each author throughout the book. within the first section, there is a clear pattern of violence through cultural performance. for instance, at the site of uraca in majes valley, peru, trophy heads of enemies are used to emphasize cultural power and dominance over enemies. the trophy heads act as agents that elicit responses from the living with a changing relationship dependent on the maker and victim (34) chapter three, four and five continue to emphasize the significance of manipulation and processing as part of ritualistic behavior. the same poetic element viewed here falls under cultural performance that allows a varying interpretation of what violence is. the paquime site of casas grandes, chihuahua, used body processing as a means to enforce community norms and social control. in holding public ceremonies, the act of processing enemy bodies brought about 1 community cohesion. likewise, the regional focus of the southwest highlights the overlooked importance of an audience. without an audience to view the violence, norms cannot be enforced, and the performative violence loses its cultural impact and social identity. debra l. martin and anna j. osterholtz emphasize that the complexity and symbolic force of violence is a long-term processual event reinforced by new acts of violence (94). in this case study, a community met by stressors can use violence to maintain their identity as one and symbolically place themselves above the enemy. in section two, the reader begins to understand violence as a means to maintain social order. within the aksumite kingdom, burial rituals and processing is directly tied to the concept of group hood vs personhood and the deviation from social norms (103). in ancient egypt, the concept of group hood is ruled by the pharaoh, who executes violence against threats to order (123). section two sparks the conversation of the legitimacy of violence. in modern society, the idea of dismemberment is labeled as violence, a common ethnocentric viewpoint. that is, examples of violence in past societies may seem exaggerated by our standards that outlaw any form of violence against another. however, for these cultures, these processes are socially acceptable and for the greater good of their society. lastly, we enter the importance of anatomization in the united states. the concept is defined as dissection of cadavers. in chapter 10, the authors christina j. hodge and kenneth c. nystrom place emphasis on the poetics of the body as communication tools and material practice (189). by the late 19th century, social hierarchies in the united states had been set, and remains maintained their personhood. anatomization began as a punishment of criminals, and eventually increased in occurrence for medical schools, where there were instances of illegal resurrection of remains, particularly of the disadvantaged (193). remains of minorities, poor, and mentally ill were illegally acquired and used for medical schools. the authors then emphasize the poetics of space, particularly in the anatomical theater that serves as a heterotopic space (198-203). the acquisition of remains is questioned when it comes to famous collections like hamann-todd which consist of unclaimed remains. poetics here differ from the first two sections, and they focus on the postmortem treatment symbolic in western culture. here, remains are stripped of their personhood, with their identity erased or reduced to material (213-230). the book itself is carefully curated around the theme of poetics. the concept itself is shown to be variable culture to culture, but often is dependent on social norms. the need for an audience is invaluable for reinforcing social control. poetics are amplified through the material, architecture and space (241). the last section ties together the clear distinction in processing between premodern and modern societies. violence emphasizes the importance of a social hierarchy and domination over the enemy. it is important to consider that in the u.s., without human remains and associated collections, we wouldn’t have advanced science and research. however, the poetics of this violence extends beyond body processing and shines a light on political structures that aim to strip disadvantaged communities of their personhood and identity, thus labeling them an ‘other.’ 2 itzamara ixta is a first-generation master’s student in the department of geography and anthropology of louisiana state university. she is interested in mortuary practices among burials in the andes, with an emphasis on social hierarchies and gender roles. she holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the university of california, santa barbara. © 2022 itzamara ixta raising the veil: new clues into unique burial practices review by christopher nicosia 2021, 21, june tracy k. betsinger, amy b. scott, and anastasia tsaliki, eds. 2020, the odd, the unusual, and the strange: bioarchaeological experiences of atypical burials, gainesville: university press of florida, 448 pp, isbn 978-1-68340-103-2 keywords: atypical burial, bioarchaeology, death, sociopolitical, biocultural what makes a burial atypical and how are they identifiable? that is the central question of the odd, the unusual, and the strange: bioarchaeological experiences of atypical burials, edited by tracy k. betsinger, amy b. scott, and anastasia tsaliki. this edited volume expands on the works of eileen murphy's (2008), deviant burial in the archaeological record, and andrew reynold's (2009), anglo-saxon deviant burial customs, by examining a variety of atypical burial treatments as well as inherent parallels in how death is treated by past peoples through time and space. initially studied in the early 1970s, atypical burial investigations have progressed from focusing exclusively on a system's model of culture to adding various lines of evidence, such as biological, pathological, and social influences. this contextual avenue of research examines mortuary variation, agency, and individuality using social bioarchaeological approaches (i.e., biosocial and interdisciplinary perspectives), with the goal of further understanding the complex relationships between humans and their broader social, cultural, and physical environments. moving away from the stigmatized phrase "deviant," which connotes representations of the bizarre and negative meanings, and toward the more universal term "atypical," which represents the versatility required to describe a wide range of mortuary activities. by bringing together a diverse group of bioarchaeological scholars who use integrated biocultural approaches on contextual non-normative samples from several geographic regions and temporal periods, the edited volume asks questions about how we understand atypical burials and advances the study of the topic. atypical funerary treatments may reveal shifting ideologies that influence the creation of mortuary contexts for particular people, which can reveal cultural perspectives on life and death. the edited volume is divided into 19 case studies that report atypical burials in china, mongolia, greece, japan, peru, bolivia, the caribbean, and various regions in europe and the united states. documenting event types (e.g., “vampire” burials in medieval poland, a mass grave of decapitated soldiers in ancient china) or single events (e.g., an individual from the bolivian formative period [1300 bc-ad 200] buried with their middle digit inserted in their vagina or anus) as part of a larger advocacy for methodological and analytical considerations of “typical” vs. “atypical” mortuary programs. for example, in chapter 2, cerezo-román compares preclassic and classic southwest hohokam inhumations and cremations from the tucson basin, arizona, demonstrating how atypical mortuary practices evolved over an 800-year period. she argues that critical and contextualized approaches to the study of non-normative burials are needed to reconstruct the complexity of funerary customs and associated cultural significances. while moilanen suggests in chapter 12 that using archaeothanatology (i.e., paying close attention to post-dispositional events) and social microarchaeology (i.e., recognizing regular social practices behind diverse phenomena and identifying social discourse in detail rather than vague generalizations) can potentially aid in the development of atypical burial investigations. each of the 19 case studies take a different approach to understanding atypical burials, highlighting not only the extent of mortuary diversity but also the contextual details. in chapter 15, garvie-lok and tsaliki introduce a checklist of burial significances, such as focused disturbances of rib cages, to assist in the recognition of greek "vampire"-related mortuary ritual. this is echoed in chapters 13 by gardela and chapter 14 by betsinger and scott, which focus on “vampire” mortuary conditions in early and post-medieval poland, seeking to shift the conversation from singular nonnormative cases and toward a more widespread understanding of this burial type. in chapter17, haddow et al. illustrate the evolution of atypical mortuary treatment by taking an insightful temporal approach to four atypical burial examples from the neolithic period to the twentieth century ad catalhöyük in turkey. lee, in chapter 19, explores a wide geographic and temporal range of mortuary practices from china and mongolia from the neolithic (3500-3000 bc) to the period of disunion (ad 744-840) and draws on archaeological, bioarchaeological, and historical evidence, emphasizing the importance of local contextual information since vast quantities of social complexity make a single interpretation and understanding unlikely. in chapter 8, wickowski et al. show how linking cosmology with the physical body allows for sociocultural comparisons of burials that occupy various biological sex and age backgrounds during the early horizon period (800-100 bc) in peru with atypical burial and iconographic explorations. although the biocultural and biosocial approaches of the 19 case studies have demonstrated success in pushing atypical mortuary research forward, challenges remain. for example, in chapter 6, mickleburgh et al. found that when the kelby's ridge 2 data on saba was compared to the wider caribbean cremation context, it would indicate cremation was an atypical practice. as observed at the site level, where cremation was more common, the perspective changes, raising questions about the size at which an "atypical" classification for burials could be given. in chapter 11, hosek addresses the issue of categorizing atypical burials, arguing that binary typologies like "unusual" and "normal" can oversimplify and limit understandings of the deceased. furthermore, in chapter 20, resch discusses castrated individuals from both chinese (200 bc-ad 1912) and european (ad 1500-1950) contexts, pointing out that while castrated individuals in both regions had distinct differences, their physical burials were often identical to non-castrated “typical” individuals. emphasizing the creation of “atypical” burials could be due to a tragic accident rather than portraying someone who was markedly different in life. overall, the edited volume stresses that the underrepresentation of non-normative burial treatments remains a major issue. to this end, the editors of the odd, the unusual, and the strange: bioarchaeological experiences of atypical burials deserve praise for its expansion and coverage of atypical burials and the sociopolitical contexts that produced them. using social, sociocultural, archaeological, and biological data, the volume critically examines and expands understandings of the continuum of variation in mortuary practices. there are numerous high-quality graphs, maps, and figures available that aid in data presentation. when piecing together past funerary practices biological anthropologists and archaeologists should have this volume on their reading lists. it will undoubtedly be useful in higher education courses because it demonstrates not only different approaches for studying atypical mortuary practices, but also different societal views on life and death. works cited: murphy, eileen m. eds. 2008. deviant burial in the archaeological record. oxbow books, oxford. reynolds, andrew. 2009. anglo-saxon deviant burial customs. oxford university press, oxford. christopher nicosia is a ph.d. student in anthropology at louisiana state university. his dissertation topic currently involves looking at peruvian subadult mortuary treatments (e.g., grave goods, body placement, body orientation, etc.) with biological components (e.g., biological sex, pathologies, etc.) to piece together aspects of their social identity (e.g., personhood, sexroles, gender) and to better understand their roles in past communities. he has an interest in the topics of looking at societal aspects of social identity (e.g., personhood, adulthood, gender) and care (e.g., perceptions of cared individuals and paleopathological influences on mortuary treatments) through mortuary practices to piece together social landscapes of past societies. this is an outgrowth of his interests in aspects of mortuary practices, violence, paleopathology, diet, and social landscapes. © 2021 christopher nicosia microsoft word gil review.docx 1 a glocal perspective on native american landscapes charles r. cobb, 2019. the archaeology of southeastern native american landscapes of the colonial era. gainesville: university press of florida, 286 pp. isbn 978-0-8130-6619-6 key words: landscape, southeast, colonialism, glocal, native american. landscape has been a significant field of research in anthropology since the 1990s. scholars have explored the significance of place and space, the social uses of natural environments, the demographic motility and coalescence across regions, and the politics of landscape through conflict worldwide. in this book, charles cobb brings together these questions into a transdisciplinary synthesis on what is known about native american southeastern landscapes, from the mississippian through the early federalist eras. the value of this book primarily resides in the creative outlook that cobb takes on the study of native american history at the structural, theoretical, and thematic levels. instead of using the traditional (and usually expected in historical accounts) chronological structure, preceded by an introduction and wrapped up in a conclusion, cobb delivers his research in seven topical chapters across which population movement is the leitmotif. this structural choice probably stems from his intention to avoid linear evolutionary continuums and replace old paradigms with a fresh perspective on the north american indigenous past. the natural flow through which information is provided (sometimes, data partially overlap or are reiterated in different chapters) adds to the attempt to make historical discourse more accessible, giving the narrative a nearly conversational tone. 2 the first chapter presents the theoretical framework that cobb uses to discuss landscape in the american southeast. he adopts the precepts of neohistorical anthropology to approach the indigenous experiences from a “glocal” perspective (the intersection of global and local agencies), and to understand the impact of the atlantic world on native americans’ lives. concretely, he looks at the native american landscape through materialist and postcolonial lenses, focusing his review on political-economic stances of power and inequality and highlighting native americans as primary actors in the process of modeling colonial landscapes. chapters two and three cover the history of the southeast, from the mississippian emergence until the 1830 indian removal act, and develop the notion of “persistent places” as constitutive elements of the native american identity and culture. chapters four and five concentrate on forced and voluntary migration, displacement, and emplacement. in chapter six, cobb describes the intertwined relationship between climatic patterns and the trajectory of mississippian polities. he delves into political economy and historical ecology to understand the social responses from indigenous communities. in particular, he emphasizes the role of trade in the colonial political economy as a major contributor to the entanglement between native americans and europeans, and between the southeast and the atlantic world. in fact, trade proliferation and its subsequent decline (extending from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries), affected native american communities in various ways. politically, it established power relations based on commodity flows instead of agricultural surplus; socially, it triggered further mobility and displacement; and environmentally, it promoted deer overharvesting and deforestation. the revolutionary war (1781-1783) ruptured statis and dwindled trade. this led to demographic dissemination into individual homesteads, reduction of communal spaces, and privatization, which altered traditional landscapes and lifestyles. finally, the last chapter addresses indigenous persistence in the face of crisis. the history of native american landscapes is defined by transformation in the event of major social, cultural, economic, and religious ruptures. therefore, the european arrival did not trigger collapse, but a history of persistence and (sometimes forced, voluntary, or opportunistic) transformation composed by different actors. 3 to address these topics, cobb draws from anthropology, archaeology, and ethnohistory. he combines high-level theory with a series of microhistories that illustrate the continuous changes in the southeast during the colonial era. in addition to enlightening his narrative with microhistories of the chickasaw, catawba, cherokee, and other groups, cobb’s chronicle is valuable for the thought-provoking, open-ended questions that he lays on the table: what happened to yamasees sent to cuba after the paris treaty? why did a certain ceramic lingua franca style emerge in some southeastern regions? similarly, cobb applies a linguistic approach to emphasize the importance of critical word-choice in social sciences. this way, he offers multiple constructive definitions of key concepts and conducts comparative analysis between them. some of the most practical definitions he develops include the notion of landscape, the atlantic world, emplacement and displacement, diaspora, colonialism, and colonization. yet, somewhat surprisingly, the author does not mention the important role that other disciplines play in his study of the landscape. human geography is indisputably a disciplinary pillar in the investigation of the flow of peoples and goods across the landscape. additionally, there are some aspects in the book that would need further consideration and clarification. regarding the research sample, cobb’s framework is described to encompass “the lives of native americans during the colonial era as conveyed through the landscape […] from the mississippi to the atlantic ocean” (pg. 2). however, he does not give equal attention to all southern regions. the focus is placed upon the british area of influence, while the landscapes of la florida and the french louisiana are significantly underrepresented. methodologically, this book fails to include native american voices. even though his primary goal is to remove europeans from the limelight to study the way native americans experienced landscape, cobb does not engage in collaborative work with descendant communities to inform his research. another aspect that could have greatly enriched this monograph is the study of landscape agency over, and its effect on, native american lives from vital materialism and political ecology approaches. landscapes have been proven to be more than mere containers of social development —they are impactful actors in the unfolding of human cultures. the same approach could have been taken on the agency of, for example, deerskin, and the thingpower of nonhuman actants. 4 furthermore, some specific conclusions also seem to be problematic. for instance, cobb states that the loss of indigenous land due to the debt acquired with the british colony, and later with the united states, did not affect the native american identity. according to the author, this is because indigenous identity has always been malleable and native americans were used to being uprooted for reasons of demography, conflict, religion, and ecology. even though indigenous communities might have been more nomadic than other contemporaneous societies, cobb’s argument might be perceived subjective, ill-founded, or culturally insensitive, particularly because of the already mentioned lack of native american voices in his historical recount. cobb also argues that the encounter (and subsequent processes of accommodation, resistance, flight, migration, and expansion) between colonizers and colonized peoples created a dialectical relationship that was translated into the landscape. in my opinion, the contact between europeans, native americans, and africans built a dialogic environment of countering, collaboration, and compromise. biological and cultural hybridization occurred, and the convergence between cultures transpires in the archaeological record. for example, fort moore (in beech island, south carolina) was a military garrison built in the eighteenth century at the core of a major indian trade path for commerce and to protect the colonial frontiers. the excavation of the site has revealed that the strict segregational policies put in place were often ignored a native american burial found within the fort shows that the existence of social and physical porosity at the fort defenses. similarly, the archaeological recovery of cutting implements made of glass bottles and stemware at the brafferton indian school (in williamsburg, virginia) proves children adapted their tradition to their new emplacement. these examples suggest the existence of a dialogue between cultures and traditions, rather than a dialectic opposition. in conclusion, cobb’s monography is a highly recommendable recount of the transformations occurred in the southeastern colonial landscapes within the larger evolution of the atlantic world, and would be valuable to both practicing archaeologists and graduate students interested in these themes. 5 irene martí gil is a ph.d. candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university and the assistant curator at lsu natural science museum, where she curates ethnological and archaeological collections since 2020. her research interests range from cultural heritage studies, museology, anthropological linguistics, and archaeology. © 2022 irene martí gil 1 knight, daniel, 2021, vertiginous life: an anthropology of time and the unforeseen, new york: berghahn books, 163 pp., isbn 978-1-80073-194-3 daniel knight’s vertiginous life delves into the concept of crisis, drawing from personal experiences and extensive ethnographic data collected over years of fieldwork. this groundbreaking work explores the instability and uncertainties of existence through the lens of vertigo, portraying the impacts of crisis that people of all social statuses undergo. knight creatively weaves film, literature, and vivid imagery into his exploration of the multifaceted nature of chronic crisis, captivating readers' imagination and academic interest. while utilizing various examples to elucidate the subject, knight's core findings stem from a decade-long ethnographic study in greece, spanning the onset and aftermath of the 2008/2009 global financial crisis. by strategically selecting diverse greek locations as fieldwork sites, the book unveils how the financial upheaval threw lives into disarray, subjecting both rich and poor to experiences of vertigo in its myriad forms. divided into chapters addressing existential, material, and temporal aspects, followed by discussions on life in suspension and the overarching theme of captivity, vertiginous life significantly enriches anthropological understanding of vertigo by tapping into knowledge of it. throughout the text, the author commences each chapter by presenting biographical snapshots of individuals confronting turbulent lives in various manifestations. in the initial chapter, knight introduces the concept of vertigo-induced 'unknowingness.' further, the narrative challenges the assumption that wealth and prosperity shield one from the impact of the greek crisis, highlighting how even the affluent experience vertigo. amidst the disaster, individuals lose their agency and security, plunged into the daily abyss of uncertainty that produces a sense of nausea. knight diverges from sartre's perspective, asserting that this ‘nausea’ stems not from 'knowing' but from a profound ‘unknowing’ of the self. vertigo emerges as the phase between past and present, where individuals grapple with the transformation of their identities in the wake of such events, ultimately 2 succumbing to a pervasive sense of unknowingness, including about their own selves. expelled from opulence and thrust into a struggle for mere ‘survival,’ vertigo reveals the abrupt and capricious cruelty that life can impose, even upon those perceived to be in stable circumstances. human experience, rooted in the physical realm, finds tangible expression through material objects. in the book's second chapter, knight transports readers to petrochori, an abandoned village nestled in the greek mountains, where inhabitants embark on the reconstruction of old residences and lives, distancing themselves from the uncertainties of the bigger cities. the refurbished homes symbolize the crisis's tangible aspects, while the return to traditional lifestyles reflects a reassessment driven by it, challenging preconceived notions about village living. in this way, vertigo disrupts linear progress. the ruins, serving as foundations for new beginnings, infuse narratives with echoes of the past; the palpable presence of old structures and the surrounding landscape grounds these experiences. vertiginous lives thus take a tangible turn. for those hugely impacted by the crisis, vertigo demands physical repositioning and temporal reorientation. furthermore, with struggles faced when adhering to eu and greek conservation laws that impede the literal reconstruction of the village, the crisis's material nature also exposes tensions between local and global dynamics. in the book's third chapter, knight delves into the temporal dimension of vertigo, focusing on technology, disorientation, and belongingness. amid navigating the repercussions of the financial crisis, individuals grapple with the daily presence and interaction with technology, characterized by the author as the 'complex intermingling of past, present, and future.' this daily experiences prompt a reevaluation of society's position within the broader global context. specifically in greece, people confront a profound dilemma regarding the country's classification—whether it aligns with 'first world' nations or parallels developing countries outside europe; whether it embodies the contemporary present or remains tethered to a primitive past. it is because, as the author contends, 'technology both enhances and disrupts temporal alignment, manipulating emotional rhythms that pull individuals across different temporal spaces.' knight illustrates this disorientation experienced by greeks, stemming from a challenge to their european identity which is often commonly linked to affluence. the introspection stirred by technology ultimately leads to broader inquiries about one's sense of belonging, prompting questions like 'where and when do i truly belong?' life assumes a vertiginous quality, torn between the promise of modernity and the 3 practicality and respite that the ‘past’ offers, inducing a sensation of dizziness and nausea akin to the author's experiences with vertigo. how does vertigo look for individuals escaping one crisis only to find themselves embroiled in another? this query serves as the focal point of knight's exploration in the book's fourth chapter. acknowledging that crises pervade both local and foreign landscapes, one reaches low points, overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness and left suspended in a state of limbo. vertigo, triggered by political turmoil, manifests as a condition of being trapped amid successive crises, unable to actualize one's potential. for migrants, this situation epitomizes being ensnared in a web of divergent temporal realities. emptiness not only reflects the despair one might experience but also emerges as an intrinsic facet of the crisis ordeal. to grapple with vertigo, the framework of navigation proves valuable. in the context of the individuals studied, shifts in politics banishes guiding stars, causing disorientation and an inability to anchor the self within the greater scheme of things. when life's course becomes unclear, all that remains is a sense of suspension. finally, in the fifth and concluding chapter, knight explores the underlying theme of vertigo: captivity. while experiences of vertigo vary, they all share a common thread—being unavoidably trapped within the crisis, held captive by its grip. entrapped in the throes of enduring crisis, individuals adapt by learning to adeptly maneuver through it, often enduring hardship while mustering courage, skills, and strategies to confront the situation. despite its disruptive nature, crisis becomes a period where individuals carve out a sphere of self-determination. disruption, nonetheless, does not equate to complete destruction. "vertiginous life: an anthropology of time and the unforeseen" thoroughly and authentically examines its subject matter. it will strongly resonate with students and intellectuals seeking an anthropological perspective on times of crisis. ultimately, it presents human suffering as a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. although it boasts considerable theoretical depth, the book retains a readable and captivating style, ensuring its accessibility to a wider audience, including that outside academia who are intrigued by comprehending the intricate nature of crises. venes carmelo tiñana banquiles is a cultural anthropologist trained in hungary. his research interests include material culture, consumption, migration, the filipino diaspora and radical 4 politics in the philippines. now based in colombia, he is to commence his training in political studies. © 2024 venes carmelo tiñana banquiles the time and space for earthly reckoning is here and now review by martin gren april 18, 2021 ialenti, v. 2020. deep time reckoning. how future thinking can help earth now. cambridge, massachusetts and london: the mit press. keywords: earth, deep time, future, climate emergency we live in planetary deeply troubling times, let us not pretend anything else. dire predictions of and for the future of the earth and us humans abound. in a recent article, “frontiers in conservation science,” it is stated that future “environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. the scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms including humanity is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts” (bradshaw et al, 2021, p.1). the message from science about the planetary condition appears to be unequivocal; “what is at stake is the fate of humanity and most living species” (ceballos, erlich and raven, 2020, p. 13601). in other words, the time and space for earthly reckoning is here and now. vincent ialenti, the author of the book at hand, knows this very well indeed. as the title indicates, and as i understand his overall argument, “future thinking” is not only for a future that lies ahead of us, as in a modern utopian spatio-temporal framing. more importantly, it can actually help the earth and us humans in the present. this is not to be understood in a general sense, but more specifically in response to what ialenti distinguishes as two overlapping crises. the first is the anthropocene, which signals an ecological crisis unfolding at planetary scale and that ushers in a new understanding of what it means to be human in relation to the earth. in his own words, it “challenges entire populations to reimagine their ways of thinking, acting, and relating to better sync with the earth´s environment´s radical long term” (p.xiii). the second crisis is “the deflation of expertise” (p-xiii) that refers to a contemporary political atmosphere that undermines the authority of science. in effect, this means that scientific expertise cannot function as an arbiter that puts an end to political disputes, in this case those that pertain to our life-supporting relations with the earth. when surrounded by a shortterm political regime, where “opinions” dismisses and triumphs “facts,” it also becomes difficult for the expertise of science to effectively contribute to climate action politics. this cocktail of double crises leads to a situation where we are “poorly equipped to grasp the scale of earth´s ecological death spiral” (p.1). for ialenti this is intrinsically linked to his argument that there is an urgent need for developing our skills in “future thinking,” notably in relation to the deeptime reckoning we face in the context of the anthropocene. throughout the book he provides plenty of imaginative exercises by which we can train and develop our own capacity for long-term thinking. these include, for example, how to model millennia and far away futures, engaging with analogue and multiple lines of reasoning, and how to learn “about long-term landscape evolution” (p.61) our own geographical surroundings. the exercises in future thinking are derived from material that originated from ialenti´s own anthropological field work on a nuclear waste safety project in finland and which forms the basis of his book. “the safety case,” consisting of various experts tasked with figuring out all kinds of risks that the deposit of nuclear waste may face in faraway futures, is essentially steeped in deep-time issues and questions. in a style of writing that is at the same time analytically sharp and accessible, the author shares his ethnographic observations by both zooming in on the everyday work and practices of those involved, and by zooming out to larger contexts that circles around future thinking and thinking about the future. while reading the book it often feels like ialenti manages to gradually reveal the secrets of deep-time and its reckoning(s). this is sorely needed in the context of the anthropocene, where the collective of humans is now a geo-force that affects both the present functioning of the earth system and its future trajectory. as a recent un report on human development puts it: “for the first time in our history the most serious and immediate, even existential, risks are human made and unfolding at planetary scale” (unep, 2020, p. 21). as important as it is to develop our skills in future thinking, particularly at this point in planetary history, one could also suspect that something has happened with both “deep-time” and “the future.” for example, the un secretary general antónio guterres has ever since his inauguration not only characterized the present planetary climate situation as an existential threat to humanity, but he has also urged all nations to “declare a climate emergency.” this implies that the time for climate action, in other words to help the earth and thereby ourselves, is now. it also means, as i understand it, that the consequences of climate inaction in the present is that the future-earth is actually moving closer towards us. to think deep-time will continue to be important in order to grasp its presence among us in rocks and fossils, but temperatures and the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are on the rise in “real time” as we write and speak. this suggests a new braiding of human and geological history, and therefore some kind of reshuffling of temporalities and also what counts as that thing or state we have been accustomed to refer to as “the future.” in times of the climate emergency, one may question if it really is “[t]he next handful of https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=alekk00sajub6zvyffcx3cuzfbvdci656a:1616658685143&q=ant%c3%b3nio+guterres&stick=h4siaaaaaaaaaongvuluz9u3merjlot_xgjclfdyxz1hke1ja05ey1tl4groyc93zsvjlkkueudig7j4pbi5elp4frekouavhn6cl5mv4f5aklpulfomakcovj1yaaaa decades [that] will determine whether humanity has the capacity, will, and wisdom to manufacture forms of collective life compatible with long-term ecological realities, or whether, instead, there is an expiration date on the grand human experiment” (p. vii). perhaps this can be understood as a small question mark on ialenti´s take on deep time and the future, but it is certainly also another affirmation of its contribution in envisioning alternative futures. if “[e]mbarking on these sort of multiscale, multiangle, multiperspective learning-journeys can be useful to today´s deep time reckoning experts and to society as a whole” (p.118), then it has been useful also for me. the books provides a convincing case that future thinking, time-literacy, and an engagement with deep-time is highly important and, if applied more widely, it could hopefully also “help the earth” and its haunting presence in our daily anthropocene lives. i hope that it will also help to “reverse the deflation of the expertise” (p.90). references bradshaw, c.j.a et al (2021). underestimating the challenges of avoiding a ghastly future. frontiers in conservation science, 13 january. ceballos, g, erlich, p.r. and raven, p.h. (2020). vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction. pnas, june 16. united nations development programme (2020): the 2020 human development report. the next frontier: human development and the anthropocene. unep, new york. martin gren is a human geographer who is trying to understand, and give conceptual figure to, the “new” foregrounded earth that humans now have to reckon with in the planetary climate emergency. he has published books and articles and teaches at the linnaeus university in sweden. © 2021 martin gren 1 allison mickel. 2021. why those who shovel are silent: a history of local archaeological knowledge and labor. louisville: university press of colorado, xiii + 203 pp. isbn 978-1-64642-114-5. key words: çatalhöyük, community engagement, ethnography of archaeology, lucrative non-knowledge, petra. allison mickel’s book is an enlightening ethnographic-based critique of the dehumanizing, colonialist, and classist dynamics traditionally harbored in archaeological praxis. the author collects the stories, memoirs, interactions, and (very expressive) silences of the local communities involved in the early excavation of two flagship archaeological sites in the middle east: petra and çatalhöyük. the temple of the winged lions is a large nabatean complex located in petra (jordan) that was excavated by phillip hammond between 1973 and 2005. on the other hand, çatalhöyük (in anatolia, turkey) is a large neolithic and chalcolithic proto-city excavated interruptedly since 1959, first by james mellaart and then by ian hodder. despite the apparent dissimilarities between both sites, petra and çatalhöyük share some commonalities that make them suitable for analysis and comparison: both are large-scale sites extensively excavated for several decades by a mixed team of foreign and local members and have progressively embraced public engagement strategies. since 2009, the temple of the winged lions cultural resource management (twlcrm) project works on preserving the site with the collaboration of local bedouin supervisors and personnel (p.6). likewise, hodder's çatalhöyük research project (çrp) is known worldwide for pioneering the use of progressive and integrative archaeological and curatorial methodologies that include, for example, recording laborers’ interpretation of the site (p.6-7). in this monograph, mickel’s goal is to assess the evolution of archaeological fieldwork over the past fifty years and to evaluate the role that seasonal local laborers play in 2 archaeological research settings. her study combines different quantitative, qualitative, and visual approaches. the author performed social network analysis to compare the site laborers’ experiences, obtained from recording a hundred and sixty-seven interviews with locals that used to work at the temple of the winged lions and çatalhöyük, along with archival documentation produced by archaeologists. furthermore, she conducted a smallscale experiment that involves inclusive photography to show the workers’ stance on archaeological work. mickel presents the results of her research in six chapters. chapter 1 contains a historical overview of the archaeological work performed in the middle east since the midnineteenth century, when european scientific expeditions were linked to military imperialism, economical colonialism, and moral paternalism. she places special emphasis on the creation of the first standards for fieldwork that were formed at the time, which inserted global politics and hierarchies of power into the labor-management strategies and resulted in exploitative work conditions, low wages, long hours, and a clear segregation between intellectual and manual work. in fact, the origins of archaeology in the middle east explain why the interviewed site workers claim to lack knowledge and expertise about the archaeological process. this is the thematical cornerstone of the book and the connecting thread between chapters 2 to 4. in contrast to laborers’ allegations, mickel’s social network analysis shows that local workers do develop scientific expertise in archaeological methods and processes and have a deep understanding of artifacts (chapter 2). their perspectives sometimes overlap and sometimes complement the body of information recorded by professional archaeologists, which proves the loss of significant information when laborers’ insights are disregarded. unfortunately, the voices of local workers are silenced by prejudices and misrepresentations that prevent the symbiotic transfer of ideas between laborers and archaeologists. furthermore, the management system that was used to run petra and çatalhöyük for decades (and is still used at other archaeological projects in the middle east and elsewhere), led to the disconnection of local workers from the analysis and interpretation processes and the resulting outcomes (chapter 3). for instance, in petra, laborers were not allowed to excavate artifacts and they were banned from laboratories due to their supervisors’ fear of valuable assets getting looted or any expensive equipment being stolen. therefore, they were given no place to develop their own theories and contribute 3 to the interpretation of the past. hence, mickel’s assertion that local laborers represent the marxist epitome of workers in a capitalist system (p.35): they were instrumentalized, alienated from the product of their work, and received no real academic prestige or monetary profit for it. their job was reduced to remove as much earth as possible, as fast as possible, in exchange for a substantially small wage. mickel argues that laborers have found a way to take advantage of these unequal power relationships—local workers decide to purposely conceal their expertise in archaeological matters because it is more beneficial to portray ignorance than to share their knowledge. this phenomenon is what she coins as “lucrative non-knowledge” (chapter 4). members of local communities admit to systematically downplaying or denying their scientific knowledge to be more likely to be hired for the work season. they also affirm being willing to self-identify as ethnographic-worthy subjects in order to receive better compensation. passivity and ignorance are features well-rewarded in archaeological labor economics. unfortunately, this situation is not exclusive to the middle east. in chapter 5, mickel explores the phenomenon of lucrative non-knowledge in syria, egypt, india, south africa, and various countries in central and south america. with some exceptions, laborers from regions with a colonial past are not paid for their expertise but are remunerated for performing docility, submission, or exaggerated traditional identities. in chapter 6, mickel claims that changing the archaeological labor management system implies a radical transformation at the foundational level of archaeological projects. despite the emergence of post-processualism in the 1990s, which introduced a new appreciation for reflexivity, equity, and representation, and brought forward public engagement and community archaeology, fieldwork guidelines remain firmly established. the author suggests that a viable approach to catalyze change is to involve laborers in various forms of documentation. archaeologists should incorporate the perspectives and insights of laborers not only to trigger a shift in the economic dynamics of archaeological labor that currently sustain lucrative non-knowledge but for the betterment of science itself. the author points out that “a science in which some of the most experienced researchers are so disincentivized from showing their expertise that they refuse to speak is bad science” (p.161). in my opinion, why those who shovel are silent contains two main lessons for us to ponder: the need to move from cooperative to collaborative archaeological work and to 4 train archaeologists (especially project directors) in leadership skills that surpass the mere management of sites. in cooperative work dynamics, the parties involved operate separately to achieve a common outcome. this is the labor management system adopted in the excavation of petra: laborers and archaeologists performed different tasks independently to produce archaeological knowledge. instead, mickel advocates for collaboration, which requires the establishment of a new set of work values onsite (including equity, epistemological impartiality, and technological and processual democratization) in order to make laborers and archaeologists work together as equals. in this way, locals become an inextricable part of the research process, both as laborers and as rightful cultural descendants, consultants, and as knowledge-producers. this vision can only be achieved if a leader (as opposed to a boss, manager, or supervisor) takes charge, focusing on the process and the relationships established in the field, rather than concentrating on the results; inspiring and motivating crew members, rather than controlling them; looking after the team, instead of overseeing it. hodder’s vision of community engagement in çatalhöyük is an exceptional example of how leadership can transform archaeological work. in conclusion, introducing collaboration and leadership in the archaeological field as standards of praxis can both improve work conditions for all participants and make the generation of knowledge more rewarding than its denial. irene martí gil obtained her bachelor's degree in archaeology from universitat autònoma de barcelona (barcelona, spain), having pursued an academic exchange at université paris-sorbonne iv (paris, france), and graduated from escuela de liderazgo universitario-universidad francisco de vitoria (madrid, spain). she earned a master's degree in cultural heritage from university college london (london, united kingdom) in 2017. currently, irene is a ph.d. candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university (baton rouge, usa). her field of research is focused on archaeological looting and antiquities trafficking from an interdisciplinary (legal, archaeological, ethnographic, and linguistic) perspective. 5 © 2023 irene martí gil microsoft word russell_final.docx 1 the undercurrent of female power in the north atlantic michèle hayeur smith, 2020, the valkyries’ loom: the archaeology of cloth production and female power in the north atlantic, florida: university press of florida, 236 pp., isbn 9780813066622 throughout the valkyries’ loom, smith discusses how textiles (which were largely produced by women) “encode information” about the societies in which they were created, particularly the scandinavian societies of the north atlantic. smith also emphasizes the role of women in cloth production as one of the foundations of norse society and aims to shed light on the importance of women in the north atlantic throughout history and the textiles recovered from the region, both topics that have so far remained largely understudied. smith organizes her chapters both chronologically and thematically. the book begins with an overview of the terminology used for textile analysis. the first chapter after the book’s introduction provides an overview of early cloth production in the north atlantic and the archaeological themes surrounding the subject matter, such as the ways in which researchers study recovered textile fragments, ideas related to weaving as strictly women’s work, and evidence suggesting that men showcased a “fear of cloth” because of the exclusivity of its production (23). the remaining chapters follow the evolution of the north atlantic’s societies and economies from the viking age to the early modern period through the archaeological and historical analysis of cloth production in the region. one of the most notable concepts discussed throughout the work is that of vaðmál, which is a term that has been used historically to describe cloth that was used as a form of currency between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries (172). the valkyries’ loom concisely and cohesively covers over a millennium of history and archaeology regarding textiles and the practice of weaving in the north atlantic. smith manages much ground while also providing an in-depth analysis of material discussed throughout the book, from the entire norse settlement in greenland to individual textile samples discovered across the north atlantic. smith’s discussion provides an excellent 2 jumping-off point for readers who wish to expand their knowledge of weaving in the north atlantic. additionally, her extensive bibliography provides numerous avenues for further research and even incudes a glossary in the back for quick reference of the many norse words and weaving-related technical jargon. smith grounds her analysis and interpretation with a strong theoretical framework, which she cleverly weaves throughout the book rather than consolidating it into a single section dedicated to a theoretical background. furthermore, she draws heavily on socio-cultural anthropology. for example, while discussing the burial of a woman from ketilsstaðir, smith (47-8) introduces the term cultural authentication, a term originally coined by erekosima (1979). smith uses this term to describe the process through which a culture will incorporate and adopt aspects of another culture into its own, especially regarding fashion. she then applies it to the mix of styles found with the woman from ketilsstaðir’s funeral costume, explaining that the combination of cultural traditions exhibited by the woman’s dress and adornment has resulted in the cultural authentication of the textiles into a hybrid style often referred to as hiberno-norse (48). she later cites terence turner’s (1993) work regarding the “social skin” to affirm that the production of cloth played an integral role in the socialization process for the people of the north atlantic (165). in addition, smith (85) references multiple studies that involve the scientific analysis of surviving textile samples. for instance, she often cites textile studies conducted by walton rogers (1998) and østergård (2004), who notably analyzed textile remains from greenland. these researchers discovered that many arctic species other than sheep were used to make cloth, which provides insight into the ways greenlandic settlers adapted to their environment. smith’s focus on the social aspects of cloth and weaving combined with her usage of more empirical archaeological studies allows her to produce a dynamic, well-rounded analysis of weaving and the textiles produced across the north atlantic over the last millennium. the body of the valkyries’ loom focuses more on the social aspects of cloth production in the north atlantic as a whole rather than cloth production’s relationship with female power in the region. throughout most of this book, the reader is left to make his or her own connections to the topic of female power in the north atlantic, and smith saves her in-depth discussion of female power for the book’s conclusion. this approach was likely taken because of the sheer amount of ground she covers throughout the book, especially regarding her comparative analysis of the (until now) severely understudied textile collections in iceland, greenland, denmark, scotland, and the faroe islands. 3 the valkyries’ loom would appeal to a wide audience – academics and lay people alike. one does not need to be a textile expert to use and enjoy this highly informative work. it is an excellent resource for researchers at any stage in their careers looking for an updated overview of the archaeological study of textiles from the north atlantic. works cited: erekosima, t.v. 1979. the tartans of buguma women: cultural authentication. paper presented at the african studies association annual meeting, los angeles. smith, m. 2020. the valkyries’ loom: the archaeology of cloth production and female power in the north atlantic. florida: university press of florida. østergård, e. 2004. woven into the earth: textiles from norse greenland. aarhus: aarhus university press. turner, t.s. 1993. “the social skin.” in reading the body social, edited by jeffery david ehrenreich and catherine b. burroughs. iowa city: university of iowa press. walton rogers, p. 1998. “the raw materials of textiles from gus – with a note on fragments of fleece and animal pelts from the same site.” in man, culture, and environment in ancient greenland: report in a research programme, edited by j. arneborg and h.c. gulløv, 66-73. copenhagen: danish national museum and danish polar center. olivia russell is a recent graduate of newcastle university where she received her ma in archaeology: artefacts and technologies. she currently works as a field archaeologist at r. christopher goodwin and associates, inc., a commercial archaeology firm based in new orleans, la, usa. her primary research interests include early medieval england, early medieval objects (especially items of adornment), and applications of the biographical approach to archaeological study. olivia hopes to return to england to pursue a phd that tackles these topics in the coming years. ©2021 olivia russell 1 coe, cati. 2019. the new american servitude: political belonging among african immigrant home care workers, new york university press: new york, series: anthropologies of american medicine: culture, power, and practice, 304 pp., isbn: 9781479808830 through the lens of african immigrant home care workers and their clients, cati coe’s the new american servitude: political belonging among african immigrant home care workers is an exposition of the contested political belongingness of african immigrants in the united states at the wake of heightened globalization, migration, and an aging population. these processes have brought the global world of immigration and immigrants to the home of the elderly in the united states, as well exposed immigrants to the elderly. the book in based on ethnographic research conducted among african immigrant home care workers on the east coast of the united states, particularly in northern new jersey and washington dc suburbs. on the elderly research population, the author indicates that, “in the washington area, many of the patients i encountered were highly educated members of the upper-middle class socioeconomic status that includes retired academics, scientists, lawyers, and mid-to-high-level civil servants in the federal government” (p.16). these were clients that were able to afford home health care within the comforts of their own homes. they were also all white except for “one african american woman, a retired nurse” (p. 16). the author also categorizes them as being in the top 10%, with enough monetary resources from their many years of savings. while the ideal situation should mean a symbiotic relationship where care workers gain a sense of political belongingness and patients receive their perceived health care, the author argues that the situation is far from the truth and that most africans in these health jobs feel a sense of less political belonginess based on their experiences. within labor migration in the united states, the author argues that african immigrants are perceived as having a niche employment in the home care work facilitated by a continuous pull 2 for other african immigrants to continuously join this section of employment in the job market. this employment niche is projected by immigrants as the macro state treatments of political belongingness or lack of belongingness. the african migrants, the author posits, experience a challenged sense of political belongingness with some perceiving the united states as a temporary place to raise money but retire in africa. for example, the author argues that the realization of the american dream of at least attaining a middle-class lifestyle becomes almost impossible as the home care profession stagnates them with no room for socioeconomic mobility, the very motivation for them to migrate to the us. the book elaborates on how the socioeconomic dynamic is augmented by social and cultural treatments in a racialized care workforce, which evoke stories of servitude almost equated to the past experiences of african americans servitude. the authors present the book with six interludes and five chapters, giving detailed ethnographic accounts and literature comparisons to interrogate political belonginess on several topics. the author argues that “work conditions are interpreted by african care workers as indicative of the society at large” (p.4) and that “work is one site where political belonging is negotiated in everyday life” (p.8). beginning with the introduction, the author problematizes the idea of political belongingness and brings in a nuanced position where political belonginess is based on the daily experiences of the immigrants at the local level of the workplace and their perception and use of these experiences and treatments as a base to evaluate their political belongingness. the author reveals that there is more to the political belonging of immigrants than being hosted, offered employment and even citizenship. immigrants’ experiences and treatments by agencies and patients at the workplace reveals their interpretations of political belongness or lack of belongingness, as a struggle that is continuously experienced. ending the introduction with an interlude on food and the centrality in sharing food as an equalizing socialization space brings out an example of the inequality and power dynamic based on whose food is more valued and shared between case workers and their clients. in chapter one, “anyone who is not africa”: the racialization of the care work force, the author, argues how the care work profession has become a niche employment for african immigrant. through networks, africans find these employment sectors easy to access, causing some to have a downward mobile experience once they arrive to the us because their educational credentials are sometimes higher than the care work requirements. the rush and need to help themselves and their relatives in their home country, economically, makes health care profession 3 even handy and accessible via already established networks. however, what is more striking, according to the author, is the racialized job market that these african migrants care workers sometimes experience, including, to some extreme, the experiences of racial slurs from the clients themselves. this employment sector is also portrayed in this book as a dead-end for african migrants to be socioeconomically mobile as there are no ways to advance oneself career-wise. thus, the author emphasizes that, while most migrants are supposed to be incorporated into political belongingness in the us via employment, it is this racialized care working space instead that tends to challenge their belongingness. to put more emphasis on the sometimes racial antagonism between african care workers and their patients, the author states that, “when africans come to the united states, they encounter a racialized employment market, in which their africanness, blackness, and migrant status play major roles in how they are perceived (p.79) the interlude, silences about servants, leads to the second chapter, stories of servitude: racial slurs, humiliating insults, and the exercise of power. in this chapter the author state that “most of my african research participants in northern new jersey and the washington, dc, suburbs, told me stories of deliberate humiliation or diminishment” (p.82). using examples from her fieldwork data, the author tells the experiences of case workers racialized experiences at the workplace. they told her many stories of racial insults that circulate among themselves as care workers. the author argues that while care requires some form of intimacy such as touching and cleaning, racial antagonism creates distance, unequal power dynamics and inequality between the care giver and the clients. “the imagery of slavery and servitude is available to both patients and care workers for evaluating and commenting on the caregiving relationship” (p.109), the author argues. the author also insists that, “case workers mainly respond to these kinds of recognition with avoidance and escape, leaving a case without clarifying to the agency or the patients why they are doing so, or putting up with the case because of the need to support their families” (p.124). in the next interlude, longing for a house, the author reveals how building a house in ghana and envisioning an eventual return, upon retirement, is one of the ways of regaining dignity by migrants. chapter three, making and breaking practical kinship: affectionate names, occasions, and the end of life, introduces a new lens in the relationships between the case workers and patients. the author argues that despite the sense of political belongingness challenges and connotations of political exclusion, a case worker sometimes also “creates opportunities to produce intimate bonds 4 that form a basis for partial political inclusion” (p.130). the author also states that “it is not surprising that care could generate the feelings of intimacy and closeness that people name as kinship” (p.131). patients and care workers are referred to as using fictive kinship terms such brother, sister mother and father. patients allow care workers into intimate family gatherings and occasions and gifting by patients to care worker can happen. the author demonstrates this form kin relationship with the interlude playing tennis. however, she is quick to distinguish between two forms of kin relationships i.e., practical kin and official kin. the author argues that african care workers forge practical kin relations that are brief and unpredictable and that “terminates upon the patients’ death” (p.134). compared to their counterparts who are the official kin. thus, practical kinning does not, according to the author, lead to political belonging. chapter four, reciprocity: who deserves what, and on what grounds? the author argues that “the mutuality integral to belonging requires ongoing reciprocal exchanges that support feelings of interdependence and interest in the other’s well-being” (p.175). however, the author is quick to mention that the chapter is on care-taker’s perspective on these forms of reciprocity and what they feel they deserve in this connection. according to the author, care workers evaluate these reciprocal relationships or lack of them as the macro-views of the american challenges to achieve their immigration goals. care workers expect appreciation and gifts which they sometimes receive but not always or to the magnitude they expect to receive. for example, the author explains that care workers sometimes feel humiliated and develop a sense of exclusion but must continue to work because of their financial vulnerability. the section on care workers perspectives on reciprocities delves into acknowledgement and appreciation, money as spirit, gifts, divine reciprocity, and negative reciprocity: theft. these sections concentrate on the intricate reciprocal exchange relationship between care workers and patients and are more visible at the patients end of life as author argues with an in-depth illustration with the interlude, intangible gifts, and the end of life. this chapter illustrates that “african care workers evaluate political belonging through the lens of reciprocity” (p.203). the last chapter, a lack of reciprocity: wages, benefits, and contingent employment, argues that there is a lack of reciprocity when it comes to wages and benefits deriving from their work. this is considered a challenge to political belongingness because the author indicates that “the wages 5 and benefits of work are signs of recognition” (p.203). the author continues to illustrate that state benefits such as pension are one of the indicators of belonging by their capacity to signal citizenship. most also struggle with lack of insurance, time off work, job insecurity, poor credit and, to the extreme, some end up losing their houses that they purchased in the us as illustrated in the foreclosure interlude. the chapter explains how after working for many years as care workers, some felt that they had not realized their american dream and did not see themselves retiring in the united stated or being able to afford to do so. some saw a better alternative in building a home back in their country where they would eventually retire and afford a comfortable life economically. though they talked about their concerns, concentrating on work and most were not able to organize themselves in labor union to air their grievances as the author states “however, such disgruntlement did not lead them to political engagement or labor activism, in part because they spent so many hours working. instead by directing their energies towards returning to their home countries, they rendered their complaints politically invisible” (p.205) the book concludes with the topic, recognition and belonging through care that summarizes the main argument in the book within the context of the nation state and the global world and the livedin daily experiences of african immigrant care workers. since elder care is projected to be on the increase within the united states and the need for care worker will continue to increase, the author in end suggests to “reconfiguring our politics from an emphasis on individual autonomy and selfreliance to an acknowledgment of human vulnerability and interdependence.” (p. 252). this research is very timely given heightened the global circulation of individuals and the search for greener pastures, economic stability, political identities and belonging. serah shani is an associate professor in the school of social and behavioral studies at mercy university in new york. dr. shani is author of two books, african immigrant families in the united states: transnational lives and schooling and indigenous elites in africa: the case of kenya’s maasai. dr. shani is currently working on her third book project, based on an ongoing research project funded by a grant from the john templeton foundation. © 2024 serah shani 1 glass, aaron. 2021. writing the hamatsa: ethnography, colonialism, and the cannibal dance. vancouver: ubc press, 489 pg., isbn 9780774863780 in 1884 the revised indian act made first nations peoples’ ceremonies illegal. canada’s first prime minister john a. mcdonald would go on to share with parliament a number of ethnocentric messages about the spiritual condition of indigenous communities claiming that men, women and children of these communities were to be considered ‘savages’ until they became christians. mcdonald also put forth propaganda about indigenous customs claiming that first nation traditions included the ritualistic eating of flesh and the giving away of women at traditional potlatch ceremonies. in writing the hamatsa: ethnography, colonialism, and the cannibal dance author aaron glass meticulously takes readers on a journey through the interpretations of cultural customs by outsiders to these communities. glass shares how the stories of outsider perceptions to customs created racist propaganda and eventually would lead to colonial prohibition of traditional ceremonies. colonial attention and interpretation aggressively focused on the hamatsa dance of the kwakwaka'wakw people of british columbia. the dance was later referred to by franz boas as the cannibal dance. the ceremonial dance portrays the spiritual realm where a supernatural being known as the baxwbakwalanuksiwe’ is known to capture and eat humans. the ceremonies involving the portrayal of these beings are filled with ecstatic dances, intricate masks and prescribed ritual behavior. the elements of this ceremony within the context of the community communicate several deep philosophical teachings. the author points to a quote from an initiate into the hamatsa: “the 2 hamatsa is not about what you are eating, but what is eating you” (p.41). while these ceremonies have communicated complex concepts among indigenous communities for several years, the perspectives of those outside the community and those against the community were something very different. glass takes a holistic approach to researching the campaigns against and the true nature of the hamatsa. he brings us into an understanding of the cultural manifestations of this ceremony and the important rich teachings that surround the mythology of baxwbakwalanuksiwe’. he opens with an examination of the symbolism and choreography of this much misunderstood dance. his work then takes us into the dynamics of settler colonialism which situates us into the eventual encounters between colonialists and first nation’s peoples. his work then takes us into the anthropological realm where famed anthropologist franz boas and ethnologist george hunt began to focus on researching local community and ceremonies related to the hamatsa. he mentions several interesting facets, including some anthropological pitfalls where generalizations made by the two may have affected future interpretations of the culture. the text analyzes the previous ethnographic work on the hamatsa ceremonial dance to give us an understanding of how our perceptions of the dance have changed throughout history. lastly, glass looks at the recent approaches to cultural descriptions from an indigenous point of view as voices of the kwakwaka'wakw people and their views on anthropological works on their culture are documented. one of the fascinating aspects of the cultural journey that the hamatsa dance has taken can be found in the contemporary images of the dance. the dance once deemed illegal by colonialists is now embraced in the tourist industry in canada. images of the masks and dances surrounding the hamatsa are now used in tourism advertisements and museum depictions. this brings to mind the paradoxes found in new orleans history where african religious traditions were once feared and prohibited but today are a tremendous part of tourism and public life. what was once a private sacred ritual has become a postcard for tourism and promotion of cultural heritage. 3 aaron glass has produced an important book in writing the hamtsa: ethnography, colonialism, and the cannibal dance. the text serves not only as an eye-opening piece of research into the past but communicates a theme that affects us still today. perceptions from biased outsiders toward cultures can and do affect legislation, public perceptions, and social stresses for communities. tony kail (ba-arizona state; ma-eastern university) has served as an anthropologist in the academic, public and private sectors. he currently teaches undergraduate courses in cultural anthropology, introduction to anthropology and contemporary issues in anthropology. today he serves as a curator for the humboldt tennessee historical museum. © 2023 antony kail 1 marilyn strathern, 2020, relations: an anthropological account, durham and london: duke university press, 274 pp., isbn 978-1-4780-0835-4 in relations: an anthropological account, british anthropologist marilyn strathern offers up a genealogical treatise on the word-concept ‘relation.’ she probes into the particularities within and along the history of its evolution through the modern era of the englishspeaking world. for the purposes of undertaking such an analysis, ‘relation’ is considered in two distinct ways. the first is as the familiar, seemingly inherently ever-evasive yet fundamental material to the construction of knowledge. the second is in the guise of kinship, that perhaps formerly trademark means and ends of the modern anthropological enterprise and its practice of ethnographic fieldwork. in fact, relations, in their vastly myriad shapes and sizes, have figured significantly throughout strathern’s body of work, whether the point of focus or adjacent to it, as gender relations, transactions, exchanges, connections – the in-betweenness of things, or, perhaps especially, as noted, kinship(s). while such relations were before considered in the context of a historical analysis of modern and contemporary britain or on-site fieldwork in melanesia, in the present investigation, the source word-concept is the very subject of attention, with implications abounding for all. strathern’s inquiry surveys the etymology of ‘relation’ from as far back as its incorporation into the english language from the latin – ‘relatio’ – through the middle ages. ultimately, however, attention given to this period is brief, as for the most part, the inquiry concerns itself with the course of relation’s changes in the formative modern period, as pertaining to the western european, anglo-american world’s history. indeed, strathern is careful to 2 make a point of emphasizing that her inquiry has relevance exclusively for the englishspeaking world, and more specifically, for the discipline of anthropology as practiced at least in the anglophone tradition. strathern writes, “there is a decided particularity to my inquiry. i turn to the use of ‘relation’ as it is configured in the english language. the emphasis of this phrase is on configuring and use. my concern in this work is with the relation as an expository device or tool and i refer to its ideational capacity for such work by the shorthand, concept” (pg. 2-3). strathern’s explicit focus on anthropology as practiced in the english language has to do with an acknowledgment of limits. her attention to use and configuration articulate how such an inquiry will be undertaken. she furthermore explains, “it is in paying attention to the way relation is used that we might come closest to something like an ethnographic account of it […] relation is at once one of anthropology’s central tools of inquiry and a prime target of anthropological knowledge, while at the same time its theoretical invention as a scaffolding device precipitates its discovery as something that seemingly slips out from under explicit theorizing” (pg. 2). after all, the british anthropologist known for his fieldwork in melanesia, and theorizing on art, alfred gell, is cited as stating in the late 1990s that if anthropology had any specific subject-matter at all, it would be social relationships, a thought echoed by other practitioners of the discipline (pg. 1). the breadth and depth of sources strathern employs in her inquiry is exacting, particular, yet formidable still. she draws from fields as disparate as the philosophy of science, biology, art, and literary criticism, and the work of other anthropologists like marisol de la cadena, manuela carneiro da cunha, alberto corsín jiménez, su fang ng, joão de pinacabral, and eduardo viveiros de castro. hers is a philosophical dialogue spanning from john locke to gottfried wilhelm leibniz to david hume, and contexts from the enlightenment, to modernization, identity, and the nature/culture (or society) dichotomy. with regard to relations specifically, strathern considers forms such as kinship (or kin relations) and friendship, and aspects such as comparisons (and contrasts), metaphors (or analogies), similarities (and dissimilarities or differences), positive connotations, blood, relating (in the manner of narration or exposition), closeness and distance, degrees of 3 proximity, and alliances and other connections. this is all to render a rich, substantial discourse from which to analyze relations. strathern’s inquiry is divided into three parts, the first of which is devoted to what she terms the historicizing and culturalizing of the connotations held by relation(s) (pgs. 1920). in chapter 1, she invokes pina-cabral’s “objection to anthropological socio-centrism, that is, to using social relations as a prototype for all relations…[furthermore to] the long line of ‘anglo american philosophers’ who treated ‘all relations as being akin to paternal filiation,’ succumbing to the sociocentric trap of seeing every relation as propositionally instituted in the way kin relations are” (pg. 28). locke’s writings around “of relation,” which are liable to said objection, are referenced throughout. in chapter 2, strathern considers the “registers of comparison,” a more recent, modern form of relation. she notes that “[i]n common usage, ‘comparison’ can both include the alignment of similarities and differences or be distinguished as focused on similarities by contrast with ‘contrast,’” identifying an inherent bias for the latter (pg. 45). such configurations no doubt have long affected how anthropologists have worked with comparisons, among other word-concept forms of relations. strathern further scrutinizes relations in part 2, but focuses on (the) relation as a concept. in chapter 3, she notes that “[i]n the register of academic knowledge-making, description is intimately bound up with exposition,” and she identifies a “routine self-consciousness with which anthropologists organize materials and develop models…languages of expertise create themselves in turn as objects of knowledge,” furthermore expressing no surprise that ‘the anthropologist’s relationship to other people’s knowledge is always at issue’ (pg. 73-74). arguing that “the anthropologist’s comparative enterprise is found not only in its elements but also in the relations that compose them,” strathern arrives at an analysis of the relation as in relating a story, or narration (pg. 74-75). in fact, a quite curious history can be traced for this relation, a dead genre that nonetheless heralded questions regarding trust in the teller (or narrator), believability, and authority (in experience), amongst others, which we today take for granted especially within academic and/or other more professional discourses (pg. 75). strathern devotes chapter 4 towards “probing into 4 notions of similarity in the imagining of relations” (pg. 97). her concerns here more or less revolve around “the conceptual impasse that comes from trying to activate difference through ideas of relating saturated with the connectives of similarity” (pg. 110). this is to say, the word-concept of ‘relation’ is inherently loaded with or assumes some kind of similarity. in acknowledging this, how is one, then, to incorporate into the picture and make relation(s) work with difference? in the third and last part of relations, strathern reflects on the evasive nature of relations in thought, and then on some of the limits of the word-concept’s workings with and through kinship. for chapter 5, strathern poses what could have been if locke, in a dialogue with hume regarding “personal identity,” that is, “selves (persons) or human beings (man),” had employed the terminology of kinship? she speculates, “[f]or this attribute of kinship could have been the imaginative link, the train of association, that brought relations to mind. thus the thinking self might have summoned a multiplicity of such selves in dialogue with others” (pg. 133). she continues, “[c]onversely, if understanding relations is not intrinsic to the dual concepts of person or man, are we to conclude that kinship, being entwined with questions about relations as it is, finds itself irrelevant to these formulations of identity, too? as it stands, determinations of the nature of personal or organic identity could take place without any figuration of relations” (pg. 133). there is much food for thought on offer in thinking about relations from strathern’s relatively short yet dense inquiry. as well, the reader may come away with the impression that the possibilities seem endless in undertaking an etymological-genealogical inquiry, and that any number of words and their associated concepts could have been investigated. strathern is quite forthcoming in admitting the former, at least. it is also made evident, if not explicitly, that the implications of such an investigation reach far beyond the social sciences, let alone anthropology. furthermore, the reader, much as any student, is reminded of the gravity inherent in the practice of word usage as it comes to academic discourse. 5 arthur ivan bravo is a writer and educator. he holds an ma in anthropology from the new school for social research and an ms in education from long island universitybrooklyn. he lives in new york city. © 2023 arthur ivan bravo microsoft word wood review.docx 1 writing emotional communities lynn stephen, stories that make history: mexico through elena poniatowska’s crónicas. durham, duke university press, 2021. 312 pp. isbn 978-1-4780-1464-5 born in paris, france in 1932, poniatowska came to mexico with her family during the second world war. in 1953, after attending school in the united states, she was hired by the excélsior newspaper in mexico city. working as a young journalist, poniatowska wrote for the society section and became a passionate interviewer of well-known individuals. soon moving to novedades, poniatowska’s subjects began to include an ever-widening cross-section of mexican society. at the time, mexican print media reflected the changing times. alternative publications such as the embattled 1960s era por qué? and later, proceso and unomásuno in the 1970s and la jornada beginning in 1984, sought to challenge policies and the power of the ruling party. in this transformative social and media climate, poniatowska diligently pursued her writing career and was profoundly politicized in the process. she collaborated with visual artist alberto beltrán who was then associated with the taller de gráfica popular and possessed a keen sense of city life. “he showed me all around mexico” she later remembered (52). with assistance from luis buñuel, she met painter david alfaro siqueiros and talked with railroad workers in lecumberri prison. thanks to beltrán, poniatowska developed a friendship with a woman named josefina bórquez who lived in one of mexico city’s lower income vecindades. ensuing interviews with bórquez became the inspiration for the leading protagonist jesusa palancares in poniatowska’s 1969 novel hasta no verte, jesús mío (here’s to you, jesusa!) about a revolutionary soldadera who subsequently experienced the growing disappointment and deepening marginalization of mexico’s popular classes. as poniatowska’s biographer michael schuessler has written, “[t]he impact these interviews […] had on elena was so strong and so deep that it altered her personal if not her genetic 2 condition” (quoted in stephen p. 54). thus, the stage was set for poniatowska to join with several other of her contemporaries such as writer carlos monsiváis to begin “constructing a critical narrative of mexican history” that mixed journalistic, historical, literary, ethnographic and testimonial approaches in a hybrid expression that came to be known as the crónica. to read elena poniatowska crónicas is to perhaps feel a slight glimmer of hope amid overwhelming tragedy. her widely read books massacre in mexico and nothing, nobody: the voices of the mexico city earthquake along with her writings on the zapatista uprising, reflections on national politics in the mid-2000s and, more recently, public support for the families of the september 2014 disappeared students of ayotzinapa are all deeply engaging, emotional works that intimately portray the life struggles of ordinary mexicans. veteran anthropologist lynn stephen’s treatment of poniatowska’s highly influential career is based on a series of long interviews with the writer in conjunction with a close analysis of her many published pieces. configured differently than a biography, stephen instead critically engages the journalist’s crónicas painstakingly constructed using interviews, oral histories, personal testimonials, newspaper articles and more along with her life as a public intellectual. stephen’s book centers on how poniatowska has effectively shaped historical memory through what she calls a “strategic emotional political community” (2). drawing on the work of colombian anthropologist myriam jimeno, stephen explains that poniatowska’s “process of creating emotional community is centered in the act of one person narrating his or her experience of suffering to another so that it is not identified only with the victim ‘but extended to other audiences who can identify with the experience and be moved by it’” (21). as stephen elaborates, “[t]he experiences of testifying, listening to, and reading others’ testimonies are key to how political perspectives develop not only in individuals but also in how these individuals connect with others to analyze the world” (22). various “levels” of emotional community can exist, of course, ranging from those who have experienced the same event firsthand to people who have lived through a similar history to individuals more distant in time and space yet still sympathetic and perhaps even committed to working to bring about social change. 3 using this idea of creating an “emotional community” as a frame to organize and focus her discussion, stephen’s six chapters range from poniatowska’s first blockbuster work on the 1968 student massacre la noche de tlateloco to her emotionally powerful collective testimony on the 1985 earthquake and then subsequent activist/public intellectual endeavors concerning the ongoing zapatista rebellion in chiapas and the more recent tragic drug war desaparicidos of ayotzinapa, guerrero. carefully describing how poniatowska has shared with us not only several critical moments in the larger social history of mexico, stephen also effectively argues that the pioneering journalist’s vast body of work conveys key “strategies of representation” that “can become [powerful emotional, social and] political tools for influencing change” (248). andrew grant wood is the rutland professor of history at the university of tulsa. he was born in montreal, canada, and his research focuses on the history of mexico. wood has published on a variety of social and cultural topics: urbanization, immigration, grassroots collective action, housing, regional politics, civic ritual and celebration, tourism, film, and popular music. he is author of agustín lara: a cultural biography (oxford, 2014) and is editor and contributor to the business of leisure: tourism history in latin america and the caribbean (nebraska u press, 2021). wood is currently writing a history of the port of veracruz, mexico. © 2022 andrew grant wood 1 abranches, maria, 2022, food connections: production, exchange and consumption in west african migration, new york: berghahn books, 192 pp., isbn 978-1-80073-373-2 food connections: production, exchange and consumption in west african migration is a well-written ethnography by maria abranches on the lives and experiences of migrants from guinea-bassau to portugal, and the enduring connections that they aim to maintain with their relatives and their homeland. in her phenomenological approach to the subject, abranches is able to thread a thorough discussion that intersects two key subjects of west african anthropology – food studies and migration – that have long been determined to be of significant interest within the regional subfield. however, abranches’ approach shows us that an investigation of how the two interact can lead to more insights that may be overlooked by just looking at only one or the other in isolation. abranches leads us through the lives of guinean migrants over the course of five chapters with rich ethnographic writing that manages to capture the mundane, such as quiet moments of conversation (77), and the exciting, such as the busy activities of agencies (103). through narratives that revolve around the experiences of selected interlocuters, she presents her main argument that the ways in which the processes of production, exchange, and consumption alongside the interplay of the migration of people, plants, and animals, “affect people’s lifeworlds in ways that indicate a particular investment in connections” (4). keeping with her central theme of connection, the book’s chapters are substantially interconnected with each other. while this means that the book is best read as a whole, this does not mean that individual chapters suffer when read independently, only that they are best engaged with as part of abranches’ overall ethnography. in chapter 1, which focuses on the social spaces of production, abranches takes a historical view in explaining land, territory, and social organization, criticizing the use of european views of land ownership in african contexts, as the latter cannot be thought of in simple concepts such as “coherent, homogenous, and stable” (24). abranches shows how the urban farms through which vegetables that are key to products such as sauces (mafe) bound for lisbon are grown can become spaces of performativity, with farmers and food sellers playing key roles in 2 connecting guinean migrants to their homeland. abranches traces how these spaces have changed historically, from precolonial land organization tied to contracts with spiritual entities call iran to ethnic co-ownership of farming spaces and liberalization reforms and the growth of small-scale urban farms. in chapter 2, abranches explores the sensorial experience of food, highlighting the spiritual and religious dimensions of consumption and how this allows guinean migrants to maintain links to their homeland (53). furthermore, abranches shows how the processes of adaptation and negotiation are essential for migrants in order to integrate new materials into their cultural traditions and into meaningful social interactions (55). chapter 3 takes a closer look at the process of travel and transportation, and how the movement of people and products serve to fuel and reorient intentions and projects of migration among those from guinea-bassau, in addition to projects of return among migrants in portugal. abranches considers how an imagined lisbon is mediated by the materials that are sent to guinea-bassau (80), and how the movement of parcels sent to lisbon materializes the desires of bidieras, or women food sellers, to move to portugal (81). additionally, abranches also considers the role that memory plays in this mediation of imagination through materials, particularly in the case of guinea-bassau’s colonial past (97). chapter 4 focuses on the transnational process of exchange, highlighting how the act of receiving food from home reminds migrants of their social ties and obligations at home (105). however, abranches takes her discussion beyond the traditional discourse on exchange and value, highlighting how exchange can become very complicated in transnational contexts. for example, when food items, sent overseas as gifts, may then be sold once they arrive in portugal, and yet the income from these gifts may be remitted back home, or reciprocated as gifts in other forms (107). lastly, in chapter 5, abranches takes a closer look at the economic spaces that emerge in the foodscapes that surround migrants from guinea-bassau. in particular, abranches provides a strong discussion in the role of formality and informality, and how the boundaries between these two are often more permeable and intertwined. in the case of shipping food between guinea-bassau and portugal, informal arrangements are often needed to circumvent restrictions between formal regulations, and yet formal arrangements create a sense of structure and dependency that allow trades to not be fully reliant on small-scale social bonds and obligations (132). abranches adopts a phenomenologically-oriented approach that considers both experiences as well as the meaning of things as equally constitutive of people’s realities (4). this makes for a novel approach to food and migration, which has often focused on more nutritional and 3 dietary aspects of the former and on economic and labor issues of the latter. there are a several advantages to this approach. for one, abranches argues that most studies on migration focused on the arrival of migrants to the new country, but in reality most migrants’ lives continue to be connected to the homeland, with homeland food playing a key role in that connection (7). also enabled by a phenomenologically-oriented approach, abranches is able to make use of multisited ethnographic methods which shift from different areas in guinea-bassau to lisbon, portugal and back. while the use of phenomenology highlights the everyday experiences of abranches’ interlocutors, and thus provides rich ethnographic information as the basis for her arguments, abranches also makes careful note of the political and historical contexts through which the present-day food connections that exist among the guinean migrants in lisbon and their homeland-based kin emerge and operate. for example, in discussing spaces of production, abranches shows how the notion of tempu di balanta, or balanta time, can illustrate how for the people of guinea-bassau the notion of ethnicity goes beyond the traditional idea of it being bound to a fixed territory (29). apart from providing rich ethnographic data on the lives of guinean migrants, the strength of this book lies in abranches’ ability to highlight connections between her interlocutors and the larger field of west african scholarship. abranches is able to situate her findings by drawing from a strong pool of earlier research on west african anthropologies of food and migration, and in doing so develops a subfield that effectively combines the two previously separate areas of discussion. however, the insights that abranches has developed in her fieldwork are not only relevant to those interested in west african migration, but also in the larger transnational process of migration and the role that homeland food plays in this process. while the migrants of guinea-bassau form a unique case in the sense that most of the food items that they produce and consume come from small-scale farms and are distributed through small-scale traders, they nevertheless provide us with insights on how migration is never just a one way-process that starts and ends with the arrival of migrants in a new land. rather, migration involves the reorientation of lifeworlds, mediated through materials and held together by connections between people and their kin, based all over the world. food connections: production, exchange and consumption in west african migration provides a strong blueprint for exploring this type of anthropological research on food and migration. josef adriel de guzman is a phd student at the department of anthropology at the chinese university of hong kong. his research interests involve food and migration, the filipino diaspora, corporate packaged food, as well as the fields of archaeology and heritage studies as they relate to food and culture. his current research project looks at the emergence and 4 development of filipino foodways in hong kong, in particular how filipino restaurants have developed a local hong kong identity, how filipino food culture is developed in household kitchens, and how corporate packaged food flavor packs and seasonings affect the transmission and development of filipino cooking skills and traditions among migrants. © 2023 josef adriel de guzman microsoft word towards an anthropology of data.docx 1 anthropology against, of, and with data practices douglas-jones, rachel, antonia walford & nick seaver, eds. 2021. towards an anthropology of data. chichester: wiley/rai, pp. 180, isbn 978-1-119-816768. keywords: data practices, datafication, ethnography, methodology, theory the past years have seen a surge in anthropological studies of data. for someone who is relatively new to the topic, rachel douglas-jones, antonia walford and nick seaver’s edited collection, towards an anthropology of data, provided a most helpful sample of how inquiry into data can contribute to the discipline in original ways. the introduction underscores how the study of data requires that we revisit classic anthropological concepts – e.g., kinship, value, and personhood – while productively challenging our ways of understanding them. the editors put this succinctly: “discourses, practices, and imaginaries of data are configuring and inflecting the familiar in unfamiliar or surprising ways” (10). data, therefore, offers “a generative site of anthropological theory building” (10). the tension between the old and the new is recurring. this contrast is also reflected in how data is sometimes spoken of emically: it is informed by ideologies of objectivity while simultaneously pointing at immense complexity; it draws on familiar modes of quantification whilst also harbouring revolutionary potentials. in the meantime, the uses that people make of data to re-apprehend themselves and their worlds turn data into a thoroughly relational and socially constituted phenomenon. qualitative methods can indeed be seen as a counterpart to data and thus encourage a disposition against datafication. yet, the nine essays that follow seek to treat data primarily as something that can provoke conceptual re-theorization, asking what it does not merely what is built into it. 2 the first essay by vijayanka nair examines india’s aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric identification system. through the processes whereby enrolees become data, aadhaar re-stages a tension between individuality and dividuality; biometric technologies serve as “tools for a purifying ritual” (35) indifferent to collective identities, meanwhile becoming enmeshed with familiar sociality and yielding new modes of belonging. the next essay attends to spatializing techniques in analyses of cultural data. by drawing on fieldwork with developers of music recommender systems, nick seaver elicits data’s “reality-producing effects” (45) irrespective of its representational accuracy. at stake here are representations of culture as mappable space, which limn “genre” and “taste” through their spatial location. an interlocutor’s contention that “[e]verything lies in space” (58) becomes the basis for discussing euclidean imaginaries among social theorists, for instance in notions such as fields of power and analogies between proximity and similarity. the third case study on the datafication of nature at a natural history museum in berlin centers on how data becomes enmeshed with temporalizing projects. tahani nadim demonstrates how attempts to speed up the process of taxonomic research in the face of rapid biodiversity loss brings into view not only various scales and (dis)connections, but likewise natural history’s relation to imperial formations. the essay unveils “the sociocultural and historical specificities and contingencies within data” (73) by tapping into a number of tensions at stake in digital salvage taxonomy: between the big and the small, taxonomic and relational precision, and decontextualization and recontextualization, among others, showing how these often go handin-hand. a.r.e. taylor’s essay also deals with temporality, albeit by looking at cold war, nuclear bunkers repurposed as data storage sites for cloud computing providers. through a tour at a uk-based bunker, the author explores how “future-proofing” involves the construction of certain temporal imaginaries. for bunkered data storage to become meaningful for clients, companies need to dismantle visions of “data transcendence” (90) and instead enact the materiality and fragility of data by grounding the cloud. along the way, companies conjure and concretize both a sense of resilience and future threat. next, cori hayden reflects on social media in connection to old and resurgent debates around crowd formations, emotional contagion, and social dissolution. clouds crowd not only by virtue of the size, scope, or scale of data practices, but also modes of connection: “the forms of similarity and even ‘susceptibility’ through which data points, people, ideas, suggestions, are both generated and brought into contact with each other” (101). by critically examining 3 gustave le bon’s problematic anxiety over the power of crowds, hayden interrogates classic distinctions between correlation and causation, message and medium, and input and environmental surround. hannah knox explores how “the hack” can serve as a model for doing anthropology. drawing on fieldwork among citizens in manchester who try to make sense of data produced by sensors and monitors, the essay moves beyond distinctions between data as “socially constructed representations” and “direct signs of an underlying reality” (109). the citizens’ uses of data did “not so much reveal truths as reveal ambivalences” that generated new questions and social relations. knox’s is an anthropology with data practices -an exercise in learning from data practitioners in seeing otherwise and forging new relations. the following essay by antonia walford works with two sets of comparison to elicit how data is often defined by its potential, “valued as a form of social relation that has not happened yet” (128). a first comparison, between data processing among scientists in the brazilian amazon and ova donations in the united kingdom, helps to challenge understandings of data as extraction, instead framing data processing as a form of reproductive labour. a second comparison, between big data infrastructures and genomics, serves to interrogate the idea of “openness” in open data. together, these comparisons encourage a critical engagement not with the way data is reductive but with data as potential. sarah blacker’s study explores indigenous data compositions that can be policy-relevant without becoming subsumed by western science. through a “‘three-track’ methodology” (142), first nation communities presented data about environmental contamination produced by the oil industry in alberta, bringing their knowledge into conversation with dominant data paradigms by translating the former “just enough to enable recognition” (147). the essay demonstrates how one might develop methodologies that push beyond normative modes of data production. the last essay by rachel douglas-jones examines how bodies of data are thought of as a means to knowledge about physical bodies and bodies politic. concerned with the exhortation “getting to know your data self,” the essay draws out “often tacit assumptions about where data comes from, where it goes, how it is ‘us’ (or not us),” including how it “is thought to be or stand in for larger wholes” (160). in the examples, the data sought for self-knowledge differs; the use and movement of data provides it with new meanings. a short afterword by bill maurer makes use of the analogy between data and money to highlight data’s transformative potential, from which its value often derives. fittingly, towards an anthropology of data concludes with the 4 suggestion that we “bring the data forward, switch figure and ground” (174), so as to, perhaps, “set in motion alternative values” (175). the continuity of older methods of quantification suggest that data might not be so revolutionary after all. even so, the essays variously demonstrate how new data practices transform what counts as data, which does indeed point at certain kinds of change. and while data practices do reproduce older forms of listing, specifying, and counting, it is difficult to tell, without situated ethnographic inquiry, what exact forms governance and power take in diverse settings. anthropologists seeking generative approaches to data will find in this collection a broad and inspiring array of examples. chakad ojani received his phd in social anthropology from the university of manchester. his doctoral research was an ethnographic study of fog capture in coastal peru. chakad is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the jagiellonian university in kraków, where he is undertaking a project on outer space infrastructures and imaginaries in sweden. © 2022 chakad ojani behind the scenes at american anthropologist review by marc lange march 15, 2021 michael chibnik, 2020, scholarship, money, and prose: behind the scenes at an academic journal, university of pennsylvania press, 232 pp., isbn 978-0-8122-5217-0 keywords: academia, anthropology, journal, scholarly publishing, work publishing is essential in academia. its inner workings and daily business are however rarely written about. a welcome exception is scholarship, money, and prose, in which michael chibnik offers the reader a profound behind-the-scenes look of american anthropologist (aa), the flagship journal of the american anthropological association. mostly based on chibnik's time as editor-in-chief of aa from 2012 to 2016, the book is a personal account of his experiences and probably best described by himself as “a perhaps unusual hybrid of an ethnography and a memoir” (p. viii). the book broadly falls within the anthropology of work but is of interest to anthropology at large. the book is well structured with its main text divided into an introduction and eight chapters with clearly distinguished subjects. in the introduction, chibnik recounts his way to his editorial position at aa and sets the stage for the following chapters by providing context about academic journals in general and about aa in particular. in the frst chapter, chibnik explores aa's history from its frst issue in 1888 to just before his arrival as editor-in-chief in 2012. he focuses on the tensions and controversies that shaped the journal's direction, the editors and their different visions, and the changing composition of the journal. he illustrates how aa started out as a four-feld journal with mostly descriptive, generalizing content without 1 much variety or topicality, and how over time it became more diverse in content as well as editor and authorship and how it increasingly addressed contemporary issues, while being more and more dominated by sociocultural anthropology. the second chapter is a vivid retelling of the months immediately before and after becoming editor-in-chief of aa. chibnik describes how he applied for the editorial position, his interview before the search committee and how, after being selected, he assembled the editorial board and the many necessary editorial positions. the next three chapters are a detailed insight into the review and editorial processes of aa. in chapter three, chibnik elucidates his handling of the submitted manuscripts and on the organization of the peer review, particularly detailing his experiences with the reviewers and providing informative short statistics on the reviews. in the fourth chapter, he illustrates how he evaluated the manuscripts and made decisions by providing anonymized excerpts from decision letters that he sent to authors. he also openly explains how he dealt with submissions on topics he had a personal preference or dislike for and how he tried to maintain the balance of content from the four felds of anthropology in aa. chapter fve is solely devoted to the writing and style of manuscripts and chibnik's attempts to improve aa's readability. obviously an important issue for chibnik, he animatedly talks about the often unclear writing by anthropologists, the overuse of jargon, the challenges of technical language, and the formal requirements imposed on manuscripts. the focus of chapter six, perhaps the densest chapter, is the various kinds of material presented in aa and its therefore magazine-like quality. chibnik gives insights in the creation of the regular and irregular features of the journal. in the process, he reviews noteworthy incidents, responses and controversies of the time of his editorship. the seventh chapter is devoted to the business aspects of publishing aa. the complex fnances of the journal are outlined, in particular the funding, the fnancial outlook and the proft sharing between the publisher wiley-blackwell and the american anthropological association. chibnik also elaborates on increasingly required business reviews and reports as well as the reliance on metrics to assess the journal's impact, both of which he is not in favor of and perceives as part of an audit culture. in addition, he delves into production changes of aa during his time as editor-in-chief and into open access publishing. 2 the fnal chapter is a look backward and forward. chibnik writes about the succession of his editorial position and the transition of editorships. he reflects on his likes and dislikes about editing aa and comments on recent developments at the journal (under his successor deborah thomas), the journal's future and the future of academic journals in general. chibnik concludes with remarks on his time as editorin-chief of aa, among them his wish of seeing other personal accounts of editing in publishing. scholarship, money, and prose is a rarity in scope with its trigonal focus on scholarly publishing, work and anthropology. while most titles that portray specifc journals are historic accounts, this book's approach is different and certainly an addition to the sparse literature on the day-to-day work in scholarly publishing. the book also admirably contributes to the anthropology of work and just as much to metadiscourse in and about anthropology. just as the anthropology of work has not all too often focused on its own discipline as a feld, meta-discourse in anthropology is not all too often about the daily business of disciplinary journals and its editors. michael chibnik manages the balancing act. in great detail, the reader gets to know the nitty gritty and the peculiarities of editorial work. chibnik also shows how academic knowledge work, in this case in scholarly publishing, is influenced by more or less external requirements (such as the economics of the journal and its governing body, or auditing and assessment of impact) and likewise by internal disciplinary contentions and controversies (such as increasingly complicated and overly feldspecifc language, or disciplinary debates about current political issues). the personal facet is a particular strength of the book. chibnik places himself in the book without becoming the focal point. chibnik is neither shy of noting where he did well nor of admitting where he made mistakes, while always staying on target of the larger issue he is discussing. it would not be unreasonable to call the book an autoethnographic portrayal of journal editing. for this reason, especially advanced graduate students and junior researchers may fnd the book a rich resource for background information on the processes at the other end of a submission of a journal article. it would therefore have been delightful if the book had contained more personal advice to authors of submissions. recent debates about open access in anthropology are not ignored by chibnik. he outspokenly discusses the issue and journals that have implemented open access, 3 successfully or not. he is acknowledging the aspiration of open access while critically noting the lack of practical suggestions on implementation by its proponents in anthropology. his detailed elucidations of how aa operates and why open access is not yet viable are welcome insights and should be acknowledged by advocates of open access. it would however have been encouraging if chibnik had drafted a possible route to open access for aa given his experiences and in-depth insights. chibnik's strong emphasis on the importance of the core work of a journal editor and his realistic stance towards aa's production and its capabilities on adapting to possibilities of digital publication are worthwhile and respectable. chibnik's belief that academic journals will persist might however prove wrong. many developments in scholarly publishing forecast a departure from journals as print-era publishing outlets fxed on volumes, issues and pages. while their names may persist, publishing formats may radically change. while chibnik acknowledges the likelihood of such changes, the question of what then a journal essentially is remains unresolved in the book. so does the question of how aa and anthropology should react to such changes, or if they might even try to inspire them. nevertheless, scholarship, money, and prose is an insightful frst-hand account of editing a scientifc journal, which there are not many of. it is of interest to anthropologists in general and to those studying work or practices of scholarly publishing in particular. michael chibnik's intelligible writing certainly makes it a compelling read for a broader audience interested in the inner workings of an academic journal as well. marc lange is a librarian at the academic library of humboldt-universität zu berlin, where his main area of work is open access. he graduated in anthropology from humboldt-universität and worked as a subject librarian for anthropology previously. © 2021 marc lange 4 1 hatim a. rahman, 2024, inside the invisible cage: how algorithms control workers, oakland: university of california press, 276 pp., isbn 9780520395541 key words: invisible cage, algorithm, freelance, platform, ratings work has long been shaped by shifting economic structures, technological advancements, and evolving forms of labor organization. from agrarian economies to industrial capitalism, each era has introduced new systems of production and control, redefining workers' roles and relationships with employers. the rise of bureaucratic management in the early 20th century formalized labor through fixed contracts and institutional oversight, offering stability but also embedding hierarchical power structures. in recent decades, however, globalization and digital technologies have transformed traditional employment models, leading to the rise of flexible, project-based work. in this book, the author explores how digital platforms structure and control freelance work, introducing the concept of the "invisible cage" to explain a new form of algorithmic governance. drawing from extensive ethnographic research, the book reveals how platforms mediate workers' experiences, shape their reputations, and restrict their agency through opaque and constantly shifting rules. digital labor platforms (upwork, fiverr, freelancer, toptal) are online systems that facilitate the connection between workers (freelancers, contractors, or full-time employees). they typically offer various tools for job posting, talent sourcing, communication, project management, and sometimes payment processing. this book is based on ethnographic research on one digital work platform, for which the author uses the pseudonym “talentfinder.” since the demand for digital work platform services has outgrown the capacity for manual matchmaking between clients and workers, they use algorithms that can be dynamic, opaque, 2 and speculative. “dynamic” refers to the ability of algorithms to evaluate input and make decisions in real time, including when encountering new data or situations. “opaque algorithms” function in a way that is only fully understood by their designers, leaving workers unable to see how decisions about them are made. “speculative” refers to algorithms that use a set of procedures to accomplish a task by establishing a probabilistic relationship between social phenomena. max weber’s concept of the ‘iron cage’ describes how bureaucratic organizations enforce control through rational, rule-based systems. in traditional workplaces, employees comply with these structures because they believe adherence will lead to career advancement, making control feel voluntary rather than coercive. in contrast, the “invisible cage,” a term coined by the author, refers to a system in which platforms embed rules within opaque algorithms that change unpredictably, without notice or explanation. while platforms appear to offer workers flexibility and autonomy, they simultaneously undermine stability and limit workers' ability to anticipate future opportunities. the book examines how this reliance introduces new challenges, particularly through rating and ranking systems. on talentfinder, workers' visibility and job opportunities are heavily influenced by an evolving algorithm. originally, the platform used a simple 1-5 rating system, borrowed from ebay, to provide a transparent measure of a worker’s reliability. however, over time, this system was replaced by the "project success score" (pss), a proprietary metric introduced overnight without explanation. because the pss was opaque, workers struggled to understand how their performance was evaluated or how they could improve their scores. the platform’s refusal to disclose the algorithm’s criteria meant that workers lost agency over their reputations, reinforcing the “invisible cage.” the book also identifies key concepts that emerge from this environment. the “cold start problem” refers to the challenge new workers face when entering a platform they must build a reputation from scratch, regardless of their prior experience outside the platform. workers attempt to navigate these constraints through two forms of “reactivity.” “experimental reactivity” involves workers testing different tactics such as taking on diverse projects or varying contract lengths to improve their ranking. meanwhile, “constrained reactivity” leads workers to limit their engagement with the platform, either by working exclusively with established clients or by finding ways to conduct business outside the platform altogether. 3 beyond algorithmic control, the book explores how platforms exploit institutional gaps to maintain power. the author discusses the role of digital boilerplate agreements shifting terms of service that allow platforms to extract workers’ data, conduct experiments on users, and change labor conditions unilaterally. even after workers leave a platform, they remain subject to reputational interdependence a system where platforms share ratings and data with third parties without workers’ consent. this interconnected surveillance further reduces workers’ control over their professional identities. the author offers several recommendations for mitigating algorithmic control. one proposal is “episodic transparency” a system in which platforms periodically disclose insights into how their algorithms function without fully revealing proprietary mechanisms. another suggestion is to involve more diverse stakeholders in algorithm design, including experts who can anticipate social consequences, rather than relying solely on data scientists and engineers. the book also proposes practical reforms, such as allowing new workers to hide their wages during their first few projects (to offset the “cold start problem”) and setting clearer expectations about algorithmic errors. by employing ethnographic methods such as participant observation, the author provides a first-hand account of platform dynamics from both worker and client perspectives. in addition to these immersive techniques, the research draws from 118 in-depth ethnographic interviews 93 with workers and 25 with clients conducted over six years. the author analyzes platformgenerated content, including talentfinder’s discussion boards, websites, blogs, terms of service agreements, user policies, and help articles. the use of archival data is particularly valuable as it provides a longitudinal perspective on how platform rules and algorithms have evolved. the discussion boards play a crucial role in this analysis, serving as one of the few spaces where workers can openly share insights and interpretations of platform policies. since most platforms restrict direct communication between workers, these forums become an essential venue for collective knowledge sharing and resistance. the book demonstrates how organizations design algorithmic mechanisms that systematically limit workers’ agency such as routinely sharing users' data with third-party organizations which further entrenches workers' positions even when they stop using the platform. moreover, the book critically examines algorithmic optimization strategies that prioritize corporate efficiency 4 while marginalizing workers. it also situates its findings within broader discussions on algorithmic governance and digital labor, drawing comparisons between high-skilled freelance work and lower-wage gig work. while much of the existing literature on digital labor focuses on platforms like uber, instacart, and amazon mechanical turk, which cater to low-wage gig workers, this study highlights similar mechanisms at play in high-skilled digital labor platforms such as upwork, topcoder, and gister. by doing so, the author challenges the assumption that algorithmic precarity is limited to low-income workers, showing instead that even highly educated professionals are subject to unpredictable, data-driven control mechanisms. višnja katalinić (1996., osijek, croatia), graduated in ethnology, and cultural anthropology and information sciences in 2022. during her studies, she volunteered with various organizations and participated in projects advocating for the human rights of minority communities. a year after graduating on the theme of women's solidarity in ethnological and cultural anthropological perspective, she was employed as the head of the central library of the roma in the republic of croatia, where she implemented projects aimed at integrating the roma national minority into society by promoting reading and lifelong learning. she is currently holding a culture competence workshop and is employed at the national and university library in zagreb, working at the center for continuous professional development of librarians. © 2025 višnja katalinić 1 ulf hannerz, 2022, afropolitan horizons: essays toward a literary anthropology of nigeria, new york: berghahn books, 226 pp., isbn 978-1-80073-250-6 ulf hannerz’s afropolitan horizons is a beautifully written book that convincingly displays how to do literary anthropology. starting with a cosmopolitan city roughly located at the center of nigeria, kafanchan, hannerz meticulously presents to the readers his personal but insightful and analytical essays on various settings and themes in nigerian writings. the autoethnography style of writing adopted by him is highly accessible to anyone, also to those without the technical knowledge of the discipline. afropolitan horizons is written in lucid and simple language, yet it offers a rigorous anthropological analytical perspective on the themes, events and locations that shape the trajectory of nigerian creative writings. within it, one can easily deduce the sociocultural trajectory of nigeria and how her citizens shape the urban cultures of their cities and their borderless reach within the globalized world. reading the book is an entertaining and introductory experience to the literary anthropology of nigeria, especially the inter-cultural contexts that birthed numerous novels, from the groundbreaking amos tutuola’s 1952 palm wine drinkard to contemporary afropolitan novels like chigozie ogioma’s 2019 an orchestra of minorities. hanner’s reader-friendly tone is a synthesis of fieldwork narratives, the history of nigeria, and an analysis of his selected novels. hannerz’s analysis is conceptually framed by here and there, a phrase which appeared 16 times in the 226-page book. here and there is the metaphor that hannerz uses to capture the essence of fictional writings on nigeria. in my view, hannerz has used this metaphor as an indexical sign to capture numerous meanings, some of which could be only accounted for by the anthropological eye. for instance, it could refer to authors (nigerians, non-nigerians (e.g., british colonial workers, european anthropologists like hannerz), diaspora nigerians), or cities like lagos, port harcourt, ibadan, kaduna, nsukka, enugu, abuja, or kafanchan which was the anthropological site that attracted the author to nigeria in the first place. it 2 could also mean any location in europe or the usa like oyotunji village in south carolina where anyone with a nigerian affinity enacts their nigerianess through creativity. here and there covers cities touched by anyone with a nigerian connection. it includes the ever-changing temporospatial realities of nigeria, which started during the transatlantic slave trade era, and continued in the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial periods. it bestows a unique experience on nigerians and creates another one for nonnigerians, like hannerz, that interact with the country and her peoples. it is therefore not surprising that hannerz’s anthology of literary anthropology essays is entangled with themes like globalization, hybridity, pan-africanism, cultural crossover or fusion, all of which are concepts encoded into afropolitanism. in choosing afropolitan horizons as the title, the author implied that, in time and space, the nigerian literary landscape is shaped by the involvements of the west african nation with the global community. thus, nigerian literature has never remained within national boundaries but has been delineated by “the real homeland of imagination” that is continuously being “stretched out along” the “transcontinental cultural continuum” (p.7). it is the cultural continuum with nigeria at its center that hannerz captures in his 19 chapters. he begins with tutuola’s writings in the first chapter, whose idiosyncrasy of style belittles what other nigerian writers would achieve in a non-native language like english, especially if the palm wine drinkard is compared with the writings of achebe and soyinka. in chapter two, hannerz switches to a brazilian writer, antonio olinto who wrote about even earlier times in the countrythe return of freed slaves to their roots. readers are therefore introduced to how hannerz analyzed nigerian writing through an afropolitan eye as different authors, cities and characters traversing fluid identities keep popping up across the whole work. this way, the author showed that nigeria is not only microscopic of global cultural diversity but also shapes it, as the country’s horizon is habitually stretched beyond local cities, national borders or indigenous people to include expatriates, other countries and foreign cities where nigerians are making a living. so, for instance, we see hannerz discussing nigerian engagements with america (chapters 16, 17 and 19). nevertheless, we can divide these chapters along the lines of nigerians in nigeria writing about their country, europeans in nigeria reporting their experiences about nigeria, diaspora nigerians writing on nigerian life and experiences, and, nigerians writing about europe and america. but because hannerz’s anthropological approach is defined by here and there, his analyses are not bounded by these dimensions, rather they are intertwined in a multicolored manner that one is 3 easily transposed from one shade to another without knowing it. one can easily see that the cities that make up nigeria and where the stories are set are imagined communities with boundaries not limited to their physical locations, but are defined by how much the people and stories created in them shape their margins. hannerz covered an extensive range of texts in his essays on nigerian literature. the array of nigerian writings he analyzed bespeaks a comprehensive knowledge of nigerian fictional writings. from the leading internationalized writers like chimamanda ngozi adichie, teju cole and ben okri to the globally less-known writers of the macmillan pacesetters series, hannerz offers a “view of nigerian life and nigerian imagination” (p. 12). because he moved here and there, he also included “certain writings by expatriate colonial officials, journalists, and fiction writers with their long-term bases elsewhere, as well as anthropologists” (p. 13). furthermore, by drawing on “a border-crossing combination of insider and outsider writings” (p. 12-13), hannerz practicalizes the need for anthropologists “to study sideways: taking an interest in other groups of people involved in knowledge production” (p. 13). afropolitan horizons appears to be a valid approach to studying nigerian writings sideways, because journalistic writings from foreign newsmen and colonial notes on nigeria by white colonial administrators do not constitute nigerian literary writings. however, their inclusion in hannerz’s work contradicts the arguments against studying down. although they are fictitious, they are not authentic nigerian writing in the same way that tutuola’s, achebe’s or adichie’s writings are. although this limitation is well-buried in the convincing enthusiastic tone of hannerz, it might mislead his targeted audiences in the west who are not familiar with nigerian authors and their works. nevertheless, hannerz has provided readers with a captivating introduction to an anthropology of nigerian writings. afropolitan horizons is strongly recommended for all students and scholars of literature and anthropology, and anyone who is interested in knowing about the cultures or history of the most populous african nation, nigeria. works cited: tutuola, amos. the palm-wine drinkard. london: faber and faber, 1952. obioma, chigozie. an orchestra of minorities. new york: little, brown, 2019. 4 ibukun filani is a graduate student in communication at the university of massachusetts amherst. he taught english linguistics courses at augustine and mcpherson universities in nigeria. his research interest is humor and he has written extensively on stand-up comedy in africa. © 2024 ibukun filani microsoft word jereza_review.docx 1 jacqueline d. lipton, 2022, our data, ourselves: a personal guide to digital privacy, oakland: university of california press, 224 pp., isbn 9780520390508 keywords: digital privacy, privacy law, us, digital marketplace, individualism in our data, ourselves, lipton provides a thorough overview of digital privacy in nine domains of american life: home, work, social media, children’s data, school, the digital marketplace, health, money, and the government. the book also has a chapter dedicated to digital privacy laws in the eu and a concluding chapter where lipton ruminates on the future of digital privacy given present legal challenges. the biggest challenge is that the us has “never had – and likely will never have – strong legal privacy protections” on a federal level (197). as lipton points out, this is problematic in the digital age, where various institutions and organizations take our personal data for scientific study, efficiency, profit, surveillance, and more. moreover, the documents made available to us, which outline how our data is being collected and for what purpose, are often difficult to parse. for example, tech companies’ terms of service (tos) and hipaa consent forms ostensibly exist to inform consumers yet are written in an inaccessible legal register. lipton tackles these issues through offering detailed explanations of 1) digital privacy issues in each domain of life; 2) the pertinent laws and legal attempts that seek to address the lack of privacy protections in the us; 3) what we – as individuals – can do to protect our digital privacy and personal information. thus, the book should be understood as a guide for individuals that draws on the author’s legal expertise to inform people about contemporary challenges to personal privacy in the digital era. how effective is lipton’s attempt to explain the complex legal and political terrain of privacy to the average user without a legal background? i think lipton writes effectively in this sense, although, of course, i am reading from a standpoint of relative privilege. the main thrust of the book is clear: in lieu of a sweeping federal privacy law, privacy issues in the us are addressed through a web of state and federal legislation. individuals’ health information privacy, for 2 example, is protected on the federal level under the health insurance portability and accountability act (hipaa) (p. 144). meanwhile, tort law – which concerns “situations where the law allows one person to sue another for causing [civil] harm” – operates on the state-level (pp. 34-35). for instance, doxing – “the gathering and publishing of private information, which may be aggregated from publicly available websites or require physical and/or digital incursions into a person’s private space” – is usually addressed through tort law (p. 35). in contrast, several european countries consider privacy a basic human right through article 8 of the european convention on human rights (echr) (p. 131). lipton does a fair job of defining terms, clearly describing the histories of various legislation, and outlining the implications of laws addressing digital privacy for business interests and individual freedom of speech. yet, lipton’s individualistic framework is limited at best and neglectful of systemic violence at worst. first, she takes the social, political, and economic factors shaping her audience’s lives for granted. reading this book as anthropologist, i got the sense that she reflected little on the inequalities among potential readers. this is particularly evident in the last section of each chapter, titled “privacy tips and tricks,” where she lists the steps individuals might take to safeguard their privacy in each domain. in several chapters, she recommends that people read companies’ privacy policies, terms of service (tos), and other documents pertaining to user privacy. for example, in the chapter titled “our data at home,” she recommends that when buying devices like alexa or nest cam, readers “do [their] homework…[and] read each company’s privacy policy and compare policies across companies” (p. 43). this not only contradicts the point of her book, i.e., to parse the legal register for non-legal experts, but also reflects the unrealistic expectation that people have the time and resources to sift through multiple policy documents. moreover, such documents were not written to be read: companies write them to avoid liability and protect themselves from future litigation. in this way, documents like social media platforms’ tos should be understood as mechanisms to protect corporations’ profit and disempower users. the book would be stronger if lipton, at the very least, acknowledged the fact that her advice is applicable to a very thin slice of the us population: white, wealthy people who have the resources to enact her suggestions. second, lipton’s individualistic framework leads her to ignore systemic inequalities. while the lack of robust all-encompassing privacy protections affects everyone, it is especially a problem for marginalized communities, whose data are disproportionately misused and harvested by 3 corporations and the state. it is worth noting, of course, that this phenomenon is not new: surveillance technologies have long been used to control people of color in the us and colonized peoples in the “global south” for centuries. the scale and efficiency of surveillance has only intensified in the digital age. for example, when roe v. wade was repealed, the commodification of cis women, non-binary, and trans men’s location data when seeking reproductive healthcare became a matter of serious risk to their safety.1 lipton occasionally acknowledges such inequities, but she does so unevenly and in ways that neglect their systematic character. for example, in the chapter “who owns our data?” she discusses the case of henrietta lacks, a black woman whose cancer cells were acquired by johns hopkins without her consent for cancer research in the 1950’s. lipton writes that lacks’ case constitutes “one of the more high-profile and significant unauthorized uses of a person’s biological material” (p. 15) but does not acknowledge how this breach of privacy was made possible by a racist system that continues to deprive black people of their dignity as human beings. in sum, this book is best regarded as a reference for understanding just how little we have in the way of legal privacy protections in the us. insofar as the book constitutes a “guide” to protecting one’s privacy, however, it fails to offer any solutions that get at the root social causes of privacy issues. lipton’s lack of attention to power means that her suggestions fit squarely within neoliberal logics of individual responsibility, which is problematic in the digital economy not only because few can apply her “tips and tricks,” as i pointed out, but also because it reinforces the defeatist notion that our only recourse comes from individual action. i submit, instead, that our only hope is through organizing and collective action: it is only by drawing connections between our experiences and mobilizing on the basis of this shared – albeit uneven – reality of exploitation that we can hope to protect our privacy. rae jereza is a queer, filipinx anthropologist based in the us. they are a research assistant professor and senior researcher at the polarization and extremism research and innovation lab (peril) at american university. they are currently researching the hate speech/free speech dichotomy in the digital age, gun violence, content moderation, and how disabled users make 1 lai, samantha and brooke tanner, “examining the intersection of data privacy and civil rights,” the brookings institute, july 18, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2022/07/18/examining-the-intersection-of-dataprivacy-and-civil-rights/. 4 sense of those who question their diagnoses on social media. geographically speaking, their work focuses on north america. © 2023 rae jereza microsoft word 519-1659-1-sm.docx 1 to hear and feel the noise through the glitch marina peterson. 2021. atmospheric noise. the indefinite urbanism of los angeles. durham and london: duke university press, pp. 256, isbn: 978-1-4780-1182-8 atmospheric noise, by marina peterson, is a well-written and clever contribution to the vast literature that takes a sensuous approach to understand the world around us, human and nonhuman (cf. van ede 2009; pink 2015, 2021). if eduardo kohn (2013) uses signs to paint an ontological understanding of "how a forest thinks," and hannah knox (2020) uses numbers and policy practices to, as she suggests, "think like a climate," then peterson utilizes noise to understand the atmospheric, insisting "on the significance of sound and listening, and by extension, a broader atmospheric sensorium" (p. 5). early in her book peterson writes, "[t]his is a sonic ethnography of how people (and sometimes machines) listen" (p. 7). peterson continues by explaining that she listens to a multitude of actors, human and nonhuman, and seeks to understand how the "noise they encounter is sensed and made sense of" in the context of an urban airport, that is, los angeles international airport (p. 7). peterson offers a way to understand the atmospheric through sound while showing how noise from above affects material, nonhumans, and humans on the ground – suggesting that sound is a form of touch. the book consists of an introduction and six chapters, beginning with chapter 1, aerial attunements, which tells the story of how "air and ground are drawn together" (p. 15) when tracking the way that residents around the airport experience the sound from aircraft above – how bodies and air are sensorially connected via sound. in chapter 2, noise annoys, we learn about ways of tracking sound via, for example, heat maps. here peterson shows that maps and devices, although generally not thought about in these terms, have the capacity to do things. for example, how the color scale of the map affects and creates reactions in humans (p. 73-74). chapter 3, environmental imaginaries, takes on the topic of "noise pollution." that is, how noise levels produced by aircraft can be thought of and treated as a form of pollution that can 2 and should be regulated. the chapter has a historical perspective, diving into the legislative history of noise pollution in the u.s. the following chapter 4, murmurs: experiments in glitching, offers several short stories, one could say, that jointly negotiate what counts as noise and what does not while keeping the what does not in the story. peterson shows how that which does not count as noise still have humans respond and react. in chapter 5, vibrating matter, we learn about the soundproofing of houses to shut the noise out. but inside these soundproofed "bubbles" sound is engaged otherwise. in the last chapter, indefinite urbanism, peterson draws out what she calls "indefinite urbanism," engaging the edge space of infrastructure to show how airport noise has an effect also beyond the airport. this last chapter also brings a new being into the picture, that of the el segundo blue butterfly, noting that "[e]ncounters between people, neighborhoods, photographs, ice plant, and butterflies become atmospheric forms that echo those drawn together by noise" (p. 17). to wind up this review, i wish to dig a little bit deeper into peterson's proposed methodology, playing with the notion of glitches: "a sign of infrastructural failure or the materiality of digital technology, glitches are unintended sounds that are always potentially audible, with as much work required to keep them concealed as to make the intended sound heard" (p. 12). paying attention to these glitches, tuning in on the sound that is not wanted, to sense and think with it follows what yolanda van ede (2009: 65) writes about sensuous ways to learn about and with the world: "we learn how to see; we learn to observe or not to observe. this is the same for all other senses as well." peterson demonstrates her ability to listen with humans and nonhumans to localize the glitches that are part of constructing the atmospheric around the airport. for example, in chapter 1 (p. 20), peterson illustrates a gap – glitch – in the jurisdiction around the airspace that becomes tangible through the noise. furthermore, throughout the book, she shows how noise and bodies are entangled (p.28), how noise (sound) is a form of touch (p. 125), and how noise reaches the most well sealed-off places, if there is a small "glitch" sound will find its way in (p. 133). thus, albeit being a study embedded in legislation and human infrastructural attempts to conceal noise, that one typically could engage and study mainly through interviews and observations, peterson's methodology of following noise through the glitches provides another perspective, and a rich one to that. atmospheric noise is a book that offers an intriguing story that weaves together humans, machines, and animals in a joint worldmaking relationship with one another via the atmospheric. this is a book that should be read by scholars and students interested in the 3 sensorial, human – nonhuman relations, as well as by those interested in thinking about how human inventions and infrastructures affect and change the world. cited: knox, h. 2020. thinking like a climate: governing a city in times of environmental change. durham: duke university press. kohn, e. 2013. how forests think: toward an anthropology beyond the human. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. pink, s. 2015. doing sensory ethnography. london: sage publications. pink, s. 2021. sensuous futures: re-thinking the concept of trust in design anthropology. the senses and society, vol. 16:2: 193-202. van ede, y. 2009. sensuous anthropology: sense and sensibility and the rehabilitation of skill. anthropological notebooks, vol. 15:2: 61-75. rasmus rodineliussen is a ph.d. student at the department of social anthropology, stockholm university. his current research lies within the domain/intersection of environmental anthropology and political ecology focusing on the relationship between water and waste. he has worked with migration and refugee studies, mainly focusing on syria. rasmus has published in peer-reviewed journals such as anthropology now, anthrovision, irish journal of anthropology, visual studies, and kritisk etnografi, and is currently coeditor of the anthropology book forum. © 2022 rasmus rodineliussen microsoft word berk.review.docx 1 liquifying categories in a palestinian refugee camp review by elizabeth berk gustavo barbosa, 2022, the best of hard times: palestinian refugee masculinities in lebanon, syracuse, new york: syracuse university press, 329 pp., isbn 978-0-8156-5524-4. keywords: gender, palestinians, lebanon, youth, anthropology both gustavo barbosa and i, as non-native speakers of arabic educated in the western liberal tradition, have dedicated portions of our scholarly inquiries to gender and agency, as concepts, lived experiences, words, and metonyms that link all of these. during my fieldwork in lebanon i, as barbosa, found myself searching for an arabic word for agency and curious as to why conversations otherwise held in arabic often employed the english for both gender and agency. barbosa delves further into these questions in his the best of hard times: palestinian refugee masculinities in lebanon, echoing visweswaran’s (1997: 616) invocation to not mistake the category, the heuristic device, of gender for its reality or realities. taking on “crisis of masculinity” and “youth bulge” discourses that he locates in scholarly, organizational, and media work, barbosa’s main project is to problematize the “categories through which we see,” in this case including, inter alia, ethnography itself, gender, “antistate effects,” and youth and generation. in order to answer the question “how do the shatila shabāb come of age today and display their sex belonging” (36), barbosa welcomes his readers into the worlds of the shatila shabāb, the young men or lads, most of whom are palestinian (though this is one of the “imagined populations” (88) barbosa interrogates), who live in the shatila refugee camp in beirut, lebanon. he follows ghannam (2013) in looking at the masculine life trajectories of the fidā’iyyīn, the generation of palestinian men who fought in the revolution for palestine around the years 1967-82, and their sons, today’s shabāb. 2 barbosa spent the years 2007-2009 in the shatila palestinian refugee camp in beirut, lebanon, living in the camp for one year during that time. he employed participant observation (and what he refers to as non-participant observation), questionnaires, focus groups, life history interviews, and open-ended interviews. these last he conducted with sets of parents and their children both together and separately, local leaders, unrwa (united nations relief and works agency, the un body that works with palestinians) and ngo staff, and scholars researching palestinian refugees in lebanon. he also conducted a household survey with 39 families, and held workshops that used rap music and older, nationalistic songs to encourage discussion. finally, barbosa includes pictures he took with one of the shabāb, hisham, images which today they can no longer discern which are hisham’s and which barbosa’s. in a project “advocating for patterns that connect,” it is fitting for barbosa to show pictures that in a “very deep sense are ours,” a tight link between form and function that barbosa sustains throughout the book (42). the lads, the shabāb, gave barbosa what they called, in english, a “hard time,” as they were all too familiar with researchers coming into their camps with nothing in their daily lives ever changing (66). this “hard time” prompts barbosa to interrogate the ethnographic enterprise itself, so that one of his focuses in the field was the “limits of representation” in ethnography (12). he accomplishes this interrogation through self-referential writing, such as alerting the readers to when he tells white lies (118), and by letting us into some of his interviews with statements such as “me: [pushing, insensitively]” (163). he ultimately concludes that part of what we must do as ethnographers, methodologically and theoretically, is “let go of those grand narratives,” such as gender and youth/generation (253). in destabilizing gender and youth/generation in the context of the shatila shabāb, barbosa compares the “revolutionary masculinities” of the fidā’iyyīn, the generation of the revolution, to the “quotidian masculinities” of today’s lads, the shabāb (37-8). he builds on the work of scholars such as marcia inhorn and her notion of “emergent masculinities” to argue that, rather than understanding the shabāb and men in similar situations as in a crisis of masculinity, as emasculated because they cannot embody or perform masculinity in the ways their fathers did, scholars should rather problematize the notions of hegemonic masculinity and gender themselves, admitting the “full historicity and pliability of masculinity over time” (2012:125). 3 he demonstrates, through the shabāb’s rap music and their now-defunct practice of raising pigeons, that these lads do not “fit comfortably into either category: ‘youth’ or ‘generation’ (197). here barbosa’s analysis calls to the fore that of abu lughod’s in her veiled sentiments (1986), in which the shabāb express through rap attitudes they might not otherwise be able to, an exercise that is always already political. barbosa understands the liquifying of gender and youth/generation through an antistate lens, taking care throughout the book to note the ways in which, in the absence of the state, order still prevails in shatila and the lives of the shabāb. he also dedicates a chapter to demonstrating the ways in which numbers and statistics can at best tell only a partial picture of the shabāb’s lives, and how they can reify certain categories such as refugee or palestinian. he also addresses language, both his own non-native english and the arabic he used in his fieldwork. the chapters are organized via the theme of water, and barbosa draws on bateson’s notion of the “meta-for”, deftly mixing theory and ethnography throughout, one of the major strengths of this book (19). he dedicates his book to the shabāb (110), and it is apparent throughout that he not only paid strict ethnographic attention to these men, but that their eventual acceptance and befriending of him means a lot to him as an ethnographer and a human. further, the book is incredibly rich ethnographically, with barbosa managing to protect his interlocutors’ identities while also offering deep and nuanced journeys into their lives. if there is a shortcoming to the book, it is perhaps that barbosa sets himself too many projects. while he convincingly demonstrates the interconnectedness of the ethnographic project, gender, youth, and the antistate, keeping track of these threads can at times feel overwhelming for the reader. it would further enhance his analysis to be in closer conversation with scholars such as maya mikdashi on citizenship in lebanon, and scholars of trans and other queer experiences who are also liquifying some of the categories barbosa explores. this book is recommended for scholars interested in gender, youth, political anthropology, the middle east, and ethnographic method. public policy students and those outside the academy, such as those working for relevant ngos, might also be interested. it is suitable for any level of student, including in courses on anthropological or ethnographic methods. its larger theoretical 4 interventions are certainly applicable to contexts outside the middle east, in any case where crisis of masculinity discourses might prevail. finally, this book might interest students of arabic language, as barbosa parses some of its finer points in his analysis. cited: abu lughod, lila. 1986. veiled sentiments: honor and poetry in a bedouin society. oakland, ca: university of california press. ghannam, farha. 2013. live and die like a man: gender dynamics in urban egypt. stanford, ca: stanford university press. inhorn, marcia. 2012. the new arab man: emergent masculinities, technologies, and islam in the middle east. princeton, nj: princeton university press. visweswaran, kamala. 1997. “histories of feminist ethnography.” annual review of anthropology 26:591-621. elizabeth berk is postdoctoral associate at the yale university council on middle east studies. she holds a phd in anthropology from yale university and an ma from washington university in st. louis. her research focuses on gender and health in the middle east, and she has also published in medical anthropology and science and technology studies. © 2022 elizabeth berk the artworld(s) of the mesoamerican antiquities market review by irene martí gil. cara g. tremain and donna yates, eds, 2019, the market for mesoamerica. reflections on the sale of pre-columbian antiquities, gainesville: university press of florida, xvi + 213 pp., isbn 9780813056449 keywords: antiquities, trafficking, mesoamerica, market, law. cara tremain and donna yates’s edited volume brings antiquities trafficking in mesoamerica back to the scholarly limelight. this almost forgotten phenomenon, originally brought to the attention of scholars by coggins (1969), and more exhaustively reviewed at the 1990 dumbarton oaks symposium (boone 1993), has gone virtually unnoticed in academia despite the loss of cultural heritage in mexico and central america it has caused, and persists today. the selection of papers presented here explore the legal, sociological, archaeological, and museological aspects of the antiquities market in mesoamerican artifacts. the theoretical foundations of the book rest on actor-network theory and the theory of entanglement, which are broadly described in the introductory chapter by rosemary joyce. joyce defines the market in mesoamerican antiquities as “art world(s),” or a complex network of mutually-dependent, and thus equally responsible, actors that once created and now perpetuate the traffic in antiquities. the main actors participating in the mesoamerican art market include looters, local authorities, middlemen, dealers, collectors, museums, as well as scholars. the actants, although implicitly identified as such, comprise 1 the evolving taste in the arts, the choices of scholarly research, and the museum’s interest in exhibiting the mayan material culture. these actants are responsible for building the commercial and non-commercial value in mesoamerican antiquities. cristina luke’s chapter excels in bringing the “artworld” network to light. she offers a historical overview of the connection between elite privilege, archaeological practice in the early twentieth century, and the socially accepted looting performed by american archaeologists in honduras. the author reveals how american archaeologists used cuyamel fruit and united fruit corporative infrastructure, as well as top-executives and diplomats’ political power and social influence, to fill up the most renowned u.s. museums. thus, luke demonstrates and expands on joyce’s perception that archaeology plays a fundamental role in the antiquities market, not only as scholars have assisted in increasing the perceived value of mesoamerican artifacts, but as they have actively participated in the trade of antiquities (often masquerading behind the “rescue argument” and the “broadening accessibility” façade). sofia paredes maury, guido krempel, and james doyle look at the history of looting in, and looted objects from, guatemala by focusing on a “source-country” perspective. paredes maury and krempel’s chapter studies the extent of antiquities looting in the country by examining the chronological and spatial incidence of looting, the legal and managerial strategies to halt heritage trafficking in the country, and the significance of recovering artifacts that are privately held, both in guatemala and abroad. paradoxically, doyle expresses in his chapter the difficulties of repatriating archaeological masterpieces to guatemala due to the lack of resources and support, financial and otherwise. he chronicles the “odyssey” of piedras negras’ stela 5, which had been exhibited in the metropolitan museum of art via rockefeller’s collection, to exemplify the challenges archaeologists, but also collectors, encounter when attempting to reunite dismembered pieces and disassembled caches, or to return illicitly exported artifacts. doyle’s chapter serves to bridge the gap between the on-the-field looting and the journey looted artifacts embark on once they enter the “market-countries” network, the theme connecting berger’s, sellen’s, and tremain’s chapters. martin berger reconstructs the object-biography of a group of post-classic turquoise mosaic artifacts, today scattered 2 worldwide but purportedly originating from two close sites in mexico. by studying their available provenance and post-depositional life, the author advocates for the scientific analysis of artifacts that lack a secure provenience in order to avoid a “double-loss” -the privation of the artifact’s contextual data and the information it holds in itself. although this is a widely unpopular approach in academia, various authors in this volume support this practice (joyce, p.13; paredes maury and guido krempel, p.78; tremain, p.184), making it one of the compelling arguments throughout the book. adam sellen also reacts to the dispersion of looted antiquities around the globe. in his endeavor to build an online catalog of zapotec urns, the author narrates the multiple obstacles to access the archaeological material that has been disseminated through trade, and the moral dilemma of having his prolific database misused. despite the goal of creating the zapotec catalog to facilitate scientific research, dealers and forgers have found in it a reliable source of information to give looted objects academic legitimacy. the problems of legitimacy, provenance, and provenience in the antiquities marketed by the most eminent auction houses are the core subject in cara tremain’s chapter. she tracks the distribution of mayan antiquities at sotheby’s over a period of fifty-five years, by examining the existent auction catalogs and sales databases. she proves that the inherent opacity and well-guarded anonymity in the antiquities market allow the ongoing penetration of illegal artifacts, as well as forgeries, for sale. on that note, nancy kelker claims that the presence of fakes in the art and antiquities market is ubiquitous. the production of forgeries dates as far back as appropriation of cultural artifacts: both phenomena originated in response to the high demand in the art and antiquities market. in this chapter, kelker argues that developing and applying measures (forensic testing, expert evaluation) to identify forgeries before they get into the market is the only way to prevent them from contaminating scholarship. allison davis and donna yates touch upon the law regulating the flow of maya antiquities into the u.s in their chapters. davis discusses the heritage-related bilateral agreements between the u.s. and all mesoamerican countries, under the property implementation act (cipa). the value of these agreements not only rests in their primary objective, which is restricting the importation of stolen and looted materials into the u.s., thus reducing the incentive to loot in the first place; but the collaborative binational relationships concomitant 3 to the ratification. the ongoing professional and diplomatic interaction fosters dynamics of cooperation and mutual support, along with the establishment of concrete measures to protect the cultural heritage. however, yates argues that the enforced heritage policies do not produce the expected effects in preventing looting and trafficking because of their country-specific approach. since the ancient maya area does not correspond to the current political division of mexico and central america, the difficulties in ascribing the country of origin of the artifacts being traded hinders the enactment of country-to-country bilateral agreements. instead, heritage laws require an object-specific model, similar to the policies restricting the traffic in endangered species. hence, banning u.s. importation of all undocumented mesoamerican artifacts may be a more effective avenue to halter illicit trade, and consequently, reduce archaeological looting. in conclusion, this book is designed to stir scholarly interest in the illicit trade of mayan artifacts. while presenting a well-documented, historical overview of the looting practice in mesoamerica, the book’s fresh insights break new paths of research in archaeological looting, the antiquities trade, and national and international heritage law. addressing the antiquities market as a self-contained artworld might give scholars the key to fully understand its mechanisms, and to confront it successfully once and for all. works cited: boone, e.h., ed. (1993). collecting the pre-columbian past. washington, d.c.: dumbarton oaks research library collection. coggins, c.c. (1969). illicit traffic of pre-columbian antiquities. art journal 29 (1): 94, 96, 98, 114. 4 irene martí gil is a ph.d. candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university. her field of research is focused on the archaeological looting and the antiquities market from an interdisciplinary (legal, archaeological, ethnographic, and linguistic) perspective. at present, she studies the cultural heritage laws enforced in guatemala and belize, with the objective of expanding the research scope throughout the maya area in the near future. "the artworld(s) of the mesoamerican antiquities market" critically reviews the edited volume "the market for mesoamerica. reflections on the sale of pre-columbian antiquities", by cara tremain and donna yates (eds.) (2019). this review helps contextualizing the book within its theoretical framework (actor-network theory, and theory of entanglement) and clarifying the thematic interrelation of the chapters. the reorganization of the content contributes to identify the actors (looters, local authorities, middlemen, dealers, collectors, museums, as well as scholars) and the actants participating in the mutually-dependent network of the market for mesoamerican antiquities. © 2021 irene martí gil 5 microsoft word keith review.docx 1 katherine mckittrick. 2021. dear science and other stories. durham: duke university press. 221 pp. isbn 978-1-4780-1104-0 keywords: black studies, feminist studies, production of knowledge, cultural geography, interdisciplinary katherine mckittrick’s dear science and other stories is pulse, commitment, invitation, groove, gallery, curiosity, and so much more. it beautifully, carefully, and humbly charts black life as always more than the abstractions produced through scientific knowledge. mckittrick has long insisted that black geographies cannot analytically sustain the reductive and repetitious story of antiblack violence, and that there is always something outside the dominant disciplinary frame that runs parallel toand which producesblack space and place. this book is organized into nineteen stories, seven of which are images and their sources. the abundance of these stories speaks to mckittrick’s generosity; she shares her thinking process by frequently building onto sentences as a mode of seeking out more apt articulations, playing with partial formulations, and continuously posing questions. importantly, mckittrick begins, “from the premise that liberation is an already existing and unfinished and unmet possibility,” (13). this triangulation of here-ongoing-latent liberation provides a foothold of theorizing black livingness, where futures and histories comingle to exceed scientificincluding social scientificdeterminism. in response to the unconventional book format, this book review focuses on various themes of the text rather than chapter breakdowns. one of the primary issues mckittrick takes up is the descriptive practices of scientific racism and its discursive resolutions. she acknowledges the social constructions of race but resists the epistemological drive across academic disciplines to reiterate a “teleological narrative” of blackness in terms of death and dying (135). this narrative of scientific racism begs an analytical question that only ever falls back on itself. instead, she wants to “live with violence and…not ask for more and more and more evidence or proof of that violence” (138). the book’s aim is to point to black livingness that surpasses the “plantocraticcolonial registers” of academic sciences (145). stories practice ways to share across disciplines, standpoints, mediums, techniques, and spaces. to do this, mckittrick advocates for a black citational practice that is “thick and wide ranging,” (35). she is against the limiting project of some feminist scholars who refuse to cite canonized white cismen, as she argues this obfuscates and further entrenches the chasms that split academic disciplines. rather than drawing citational lines, she advocates for the importance of sharing as it is capacious and crosses boundaries. and she emphasizes that storytelling has been formative in her relationship with sylvia wynter. in their exchanges, she has found that the collaboration and surprise which emerges from “sharing stories is creative rigorous radical theory,” (73). 2 another important theme of the book pivots on meanings of measure. one the one hand, measure comes to the fore in algorithms that assess geographical determinations under the auspices of white supremacy. she draws on the example of predictive policing technologies that codify who lives, who is criminalized, and who counts in the projected futures of racial capitalism. on the other hand, she emphasizes that “black livingness is unmeasurable,” (186). her elongated scholarly project of underlining a ‘black sense of place’ engages the praxis of moving to the differential beat of black life that cannot be wholly defined by the calculable. perhaps this can be discerned in her incorporation of musical measuresone story is a list of songsas evidencing a black sense of place; a turn away from spatialized white supremacist algorithms to black ‘algorhythms’ that improvise and move to a different geographical drum. staying with the theme of music, mckittrick plays with uses of looping. she is concerned about the closed loop of scientific racism that feeds back into itself and can only ever compute “biocentric” outcomes that reify “racial-sexual differentiation,” (134) subverting the loop of scientific racism, mckittrick talks about her practice of looping slides in public talks as a way to signal the various sources that inform her theorizing. she acknowledges the incompleteness of these visual loops yet emphasizes that they serve as a reminder of where her thinking rests in order to gesture where it can go. looping as work-in-progress, arrival, and departure is duplicated in her repetitious syntax which brings the reader along on the journey of articulation. looping is literalized in the section “(zong) bad made measure,” where the reader turns the pages and then reverses the page turn to read down and across columns. a stylistic ode to m. nourbese philip’s longform poem zong!, which newly-cycles text from gregson v. gilbert (1781) to interrogate the “diachronic loop” of racist violence in order to push against it. zong!, and mckittrick’s columned writing on zong!, write “in a nonlinear fashion” in order to “produce a knowledge system that momentarily moves outside of itself” (146). mckittrick acknowledges how looping remakes and breaks in complex ways but is a pivotal part of storytelling that seeks liberation. in the spirit of creative looping, i will wrap up this review by returning to the beginning of the book. mckittrick first story, titled “curiosities (my heart makes my head swim),” asks the reader to stay with the precision of black methodology where “wonder is study. curiosity is attentive,” (5) curiosity can be dizzying; it looks to the implications of scientific knowledge and unfurls opacity, immeasurability, possibility. wonder skirts predetermined outcomes. this means eliding disciplinary and scientific attachments. but wonder opens a pathway to awe. sustained, detailed curiosity seeks out the “already existing and unfinished and unmet possibility” of black livingness. this epistemological project challenges sciences that loop back to antiblack violence, and argues black people have always engaged in praxis across genres and mediums to “story the world” (4). while i am not an anthropologist, i am situated in the adjacent field of critical geography which uses similar tools to write about land, people, and palimpsests. mckittrick’s dear science and other stories implores social scientists to not return to the tired racialized story of socioscientific ‘facts.’ there is something radical to black knowledge systems that retain black livingness. this book should be read, not to know more, but to do better. here, neither racism nor science cannor shouldbe ignored, and at the same time, there are always registers of sharing ideas, dreams, curiosities even if the lexicon is incomplete. dear science and other 3 stories phenomenally traverses disciplines, spaces, queries, black feminist praxis, media, and more to differently account for black humanity. put whatever you are doing down, and pick up this book. p.s.: mckittrick released a six and a half hour spotify playlist under the same title as an unofficial accompaniment to the book. this allows readers hear the storytellers she engages, to bop to its rhythms, to think beyond boundaries of genre, form, and field. dear science and other storiesbook and playlistsaddles up to the edge and extends a hand. to riff on ruth wilson gilmore: as every geographer knows, edges are also sensory experiences. a black sense of place where head and heart swim and sway. kerry keith is a ph.d. candidate at uc san diego in the department of communication and program in critical gender studies. she is co-organizer of the nature, space, politics faculty and graduate student initiative at ucsd, and a founding member of ucsd’s underground scholars chapter, and a researcher thinking through geographical production, toxicity, and prison abolition. © 2023 kerry keith microsoft word the historical turn in southeastern archaeology.docx 1 robbie ethridge and eric e. bowne, 2020, the historical turn in southeastern archaeology, gainesville: university of florida press, 258 pp., isbn 9781683401629. keywords: historical archaeology, prehistory, post-colonial studies, native american history, southeastern u.s. ethridge and bowne’s edited volume explores the historicization of southeastern archaeology to decolonize old-fashioned western accounts of the north american deep past and write a more inclusive, accurate, and historical alternative. inspired by eric wolf’s (1982) transgressive “europe and the people without history,” this book places indigenous experiences, ontologies, and consciousness in the limelight of scholarly research. through a selection of essays that bridge the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological gap between north american prehistory and history, ethridge and bowne shape the historical turn as a heterogenous, multifaceted, and complex venture that takes on multiple perspectives to address a common goal: to tell the full story of north america. in fact, this compilation of essays is built in a rhizomatic fashion that honors the nature of the historical turn. the lack of thematical unity, the theoretical diversity in the essays, and the divergent inferences drawn from the data analyses exude refreshing disarray. it is uncommon to stumble upon an archaeological publication that openly portrays the inherent contradictions within the discipline. however, this volume not only makes them evident but pays tribute to the dynamic and fluctuant qualities of scientific knowledge. the only aspect that remains normative is the structure of the book itself. “the historical turn in southeastern archaeology” is elegantly distributed in seven chapters, which loosely follow a chronological order from the archaic to colonial times, that are framed by a preface and an afterword. r. ethridge, r. beck, and e. bowne in the introduction, and k. sassaman and t. pauketat in the conclusion, explain the origin of the 2 history-prehistory divide and describe the evolution of the discipline until the historical turn occurred in the twenty-first century. this framework beautifully puts together an otherwise unruly mix of theoretical perspectives and methods, ranging from progressive to conservative approaches, that corroborates the healthy diversity existing in archaeological practice. at the progressive end, post-structuralist entanglement theory and new materialism are pivotal in the historicization of prehistory. a. randall (chapter 1) studies the relational webs of meaning established between archaic peoples along the st. johns river in northeastern florida with their surrounding and cosmic geographies, their real and mythic temporalities, and their human and nonhuman, organic and inorganic agents of placemaking and social memory. the sum of these actors worked together in re-creating the world of ancient floridians and constituted equally significant elements in their history-making. the link between landscape, sacred geographies, and local histories is also the core topic in chapter 3, by s. alt. the author advocates for the adoption of new ontological perspectives that include other-than-human persons and unseen powers to understand the greater cahokia urban phenomenon. by combining ethnohistorical accounts of cahokian descendant groups and scientific data generated from excavating the emerald acropolis, alt concludes that the assemblage of vibrant natural, anthropogenic, and mystic agents made the landscape of cahokia an ideal cosmogram to access the underworld and interact with otherworldly powers, thus a desirable place to settle. also centered on place-making is c. rodning and l. sullivan’s chapter 5, which focuses on the power that the built environment played in the history-making of the southern appalachian communities, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. the functional and symbolic properties of domestic and public architecture turned native american towns into places of dwelling, collective memory, individual and communal healing, sociopolitical geography and development, and cosmological connections. r. cook (chapter 4), aiming to reconcile scientific and humanistic views in a “processual plus” endeavor (p.85), shows the benefits of synthesizing processual and historical approaches in archaeological research. the author examines the shift to mississippian life along the middle ohio river to understand why and how the fort ancient lifeways spread along the great and little miami rivers. 3 from a more processual vantage point, t. pluckhahn, n. wallis, and v. thompson (chapter 2) address the woodland period in the florida panhandle and the adjacent interior regions of alabama and georgia. by conducting bayesian modeling of radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates, the authors compare the local biographies of individual communities to explain larger, multi-site processes. in particular, they investigate the deep social restructuring that occurred over the sixth and seventh centuries in nine different sites, which involved dramatic migration movements, transference of material traditions, and changes in ideologies and practices across the region. as a result, they reconstruct the “big history” behind the weeden islandization process along the gulf coast. from a similar processual perspective, j. marcoux (chapter 6) applies quantitative analysis techniques to pottery data to reveal how the early colonial turmoil triggered diasporic indigenous communities. by looking at the potter’s intentional choices, such as the tempering agents, wall thickness, or surface treatment in the shawnee ceramic production in georgia and south carolina, the author concludes that various potting traditions coexisted within sites, which indicates extensive social reshuffling and coalescence as a result of european colonization. finally, at the far end of the processual spectrum, j. worth (chapter 7) reflects on the core values of the historicization of prehistory and advocates for a positivist historical turn, in which interpretations must be only based on verifiable empirical data. hence, the author argues that only by doing research on communities of practice, which can be traced archaeologically and historically through material and textual evidence, can anthropologists gain some reliable understanding of the communities of identity. despite worth’s valuable perspective on the amalgamation of archaeological and historical disciplines for the reconstruction of the native american past, his savage critique of post-processualism comes across as archconservative and untimely, considering the post-processualism-oriented pieces of research presented in the same volume. in conclusion, “the historical turn in southeastern archaeology” intends not to lay the foundations of a new archaeological paradigm but to offer a taste of the endless possibilities that historicization can bring to academic research. this is because the historical turn is not a monolithic approximation to the past but an analytical principle open to interpretation. the natural indefiniteness and malleability of this concept make it highly powerful and widely 4 applicable, as it fits into any underlying theoretical parameters, from vanguardist to conservative approaches, as this volume successfully proves. conceiving the ancient past as history instead of prehistory constitutes a fundamental step forward in the attempt to grasp the pre-colonial lives, practices, and agencies of humans and nonhumans in their complex, dynamic, and contingent cultural and natural landscapes. furthermore, the repercussions of introducing the historical turn in southeastern archaeology exceed the merely scholarly purpose: it gives voice to descendant communities, decolonizes views of the native american past, and brings american indigenous into the flow of american history. irene martí gil is a ph.d. candidate in the department of geography and anthropology at louisiana state university and a former assistant curator at lsu natural science museum. her research interests range from cultural heritage studies, museology, anthropological linguistics, and archaeology. © 2022 irene martí gil microsoft word jeremy slack deported to death.docx jeremy slack, 2019, deported to death: how drug violence is changing migrabon on the u.s.mexico border. oakland: university of california press, 256 pp., isbn 978-0520297333 the militarizabon of the u.s. border over the past thirty years coincides with an escalabon of “security” measures undertaken by governments to deny people the basic human right to freedom of movement while at the same bme affording properbed elites the opportunity to claim land and resources for their own benefit. u.s. government awempts to control mobility is today undertaken through the deployment of aggressive border patrols and exclusionary policy, the building of walls, the use of high-tech surveillance and, ulbmately, the threat of violence. for those on the “other side of the fence,” inbmidabon, bureaucrabzabon, criminalizabon, and punishment lay at the core of contemporary immigrabon pracbce. as jeremy slack’s deported to death makes abundantly clear, undocumented migrants unfortunate enough to be caught by u.s. immigrabon and deported to mexico o[en fall vicbm to predatory officials and criminal groups. many individuals are kidnapped, pressed into service for drug cartels, tortured and le[ for dead. thus, when the obama administrabon deported an unprecedented 3 million persons between 2008 and 2016, countless disappearances and deaths resulted. this same inhumane pracbce has conbnued more recently during both the trump and biden administrabons. slack’s penetrabng ethnographic study uniquely focuses on deportees and the way the “repressive, anb-immigrant [u.s.] machine” has “forcibly returned [these people] in chains” to o[en unfamiliar places. such uprooted individuals, he writes, are then “uniquely exposed to violence” as recent u.s. immigrabon policy has le[ thousands outcast in dangerous environments with “no one will speak for them, no one [to] look for them,” no one to tell their story (20). situated at various sites along the u.s.-mexico divide, slack sees the development of the u.s. border patrol’s consequence delivery system (formalized in 2011) as a watershed moment in immigrabon policy as “the full brunt of the u.s. jusbce system” was now deployed “to prosecute and punish undocumented immigrants” (13). in accord with other scholars wribng on the realibes of deportabon policy such as daniel kanstroom, slack affirms the creabon of a “parallel judiciary system that does not provide the right to an aworney, does not place the burden of proof on the state, and is almost enbrely based on the assumpbon that deportabon—formal removal—is not a punishment” (25). rather, these barbaric, state sponsored procedures are “enacted through a labyrinthine, kahaesque bureaucracy [that] give[s] the appearance of legibmacy and jusbce to people on the outside [and] which serves to normalize the severe harm done by removal” (33). slack’s work details how “drug trafficking, undocumented migrabon, and human smuggling interact in the shared clandesbne zone of the border” (37). his intrepid research explores how it is that “processes of disappearance, loss, and suffering related to migrabon [have] become intertwined with the death toll from mexico’s so-called “drug war” (38). slack interrogates the high stakes migrant experience and idenbfies the profound way in which organized crime now unfortunately plays a leading role in this transnabonal process. his ethnography details highly restricted mobility for undocumented persons living in the u.s. and the corresponding dark realty by which unfortunate souls are apprehended and then mercilessly deported to o[en unfamiliar places in mexico. frequently alone and vulnerable, these individuals are o[en preyed upon by organized crime. amazingly, some eventually reach their goal—o[en in solidarity with other kindred spirits. slack notes here how it is that certain people even manage to free themselves from state authority and try again. typically, however, those returned to mexico without support and sufficient social contact soon find themselves in especially difficult circumstances. building walls and constantly amplifying border security does not stop migrabon but only makes the process more perilous. o[en to survive, people will conbnue to move, generally weighing the risks with the possible benefits of a successful journey. today, a wide array of migrants are drawn to the u.s.-mexico border, not just from neighboring mexico, central america, and the caribbean, but from all over the world. in the process, countless individuals, families, and groups are terrorized, traumabzed, and turned back. many die. at the conclusion of this sympathebc and deeply human study, slack urges us to think differently about deportabon now realizing that at the heart of this process is a profoundly violent and deadly reality. andrew grant wood is the rutland professor of history at the university of tulsa. he was born in montreal, canada, and his research focuses on the history of mexico. wood has published on a variety of social and cultural topics: urbanization, immigration, grassroots collective action, housing, regional politics, civic ritual and celebration, tourism, film, and popular music. he is author of agustín lara: a cultural biography (oxford, 2014) and is editor and contributor to the business of leisure: tourism history in latin america and the caribbean (nebraska u press, 2021). wood is currently writing a history of the port of veracruz, mexico. © 2023 andrew grant wood microsoft word das review.docx 1 moore, amelia. 2019. destination anthropocene: science and tourism in the bahamas. oakland, california: university of california press, 216 pp.; isbn: 978-0-52029-893-4 keywords: anthropocene science, small islands, vulnerability, climate subjectivity, tourism. after attending a ‘climate change and tourism’ workshop, an ngo worker from the bahamas remarks to her colleague, “isn’t it a bit ironic that they want to combat the rise in tourismrelated greenhouse gas emissions in the caribbean through the promotion of more tourism to the caribbean?” (p.94). this is the central conundrum that animates amelia moore’s book, based on ethnographic fieldwork in the region where she became imbricated in various scientific projects that sought to decipher and simultaneously constitute the anthropocene. anthropologists working in “picturesque” conservation areas will be familiar with this frustrating paradox, where laments about the deteriorating value of ecosystems is accompanied by deliberations about attracting tourists as a means to increase environmental value. i therefore greatly appreciate a systematic, book-length critique of this phenomenon. the book is a call to practice and theorize an anthropocene anthropology, which does not take the term and the urgency it begets at face value, but rather makes it an object of critical enquiry. it examines the wide-reaching consequences of the ways in which “global change scientists,” as she terms them, conceptualize anthropogenesis. people responding to this emergent scientific idea of the anthropocene in turn remake the world through their reactions. in this context, the bahamas, moore shows, is a multi-faceted frontier. it is the frontier of climate change, as a small island considered to be most vulnerable to its impacts. it is also a resource frontier anew, where a nexus of science, capital and society makes it a product for touristic consumption. the bahamas, as a product of a global imaginary, is thus being forged in the crucible of the anthropocene idea (p.6). 2 as concerns about anthropogenesis grow, chapter one of the book documents the efforts that global change science (gcs) makes to study this relation between the social, the biological and the chemical. a new paradigm of interdisciplinary field-study emerges under the banner of biocomplexity, meant to overcome the narrow focus on species associated with the concept of biodiversity. moore argues that biocomplexity, as an ostensibly well-meaning effort to include social analysis in the study/creation of the anthropocene grossly oversimplifies the social life of the bahamas. it reduces the social lives of fishers and their rich, complex interactions with the environment to their livelihood interests. those with fishing interests are stereotyped as opposed to marine life protection and those with tourism interests as sympathetic to conservation efforts. this is one of the many ways in which gcs, overtly and covertly, helps produce the bahamas as a tourism resource, by depicting climate action and neoliberal marketization as compatible. chapter two delves into the imaginary of the bahamas as educational islands. privileged children from the global north come to hotels refurbished as sites of hands-on climate change education. they are implicitly trained to be teachers, capitalists, investors, scientists and so on, who will offer solutions to climate change in the future. meanwhile the islanders themselves are interpellated as passive subjects, who are either objects of study, or subjects whose deficient environmental consciousness needs to be remedied. much like the colonial imaginary of the islands as living laboratories for anthropological knowledge, the hierarchy of those who study and those who are studied remains intact in the climate subjectivities being forged in the anthropocene. chapter three “introduce[s] a healthy skepticism with regard to the popular use of the vulnerability paradigm as a trope in the anthropocene” (p.90). the perception of vulnerability, epitomized in popular images of small islands soon to be swallowed up by rising sea levels, moore shows, is ahistorical and apolitical. furthermore, this discourse is beneficial to a regime of experts who offer technical solutions through their ability to define vulnerability in the first place. in such definitions, tourism emerges as both “the vector and the victim” (p.83). vulnerability thus mediates a form of speculative capitalism, which brands and then sells the islands to those who fear its disappearance and (absolved of guilt) consume-it-to-save-it. chapter four tells the story of the invasive lionfish as a keystone species for gcs. in the anthropocene worldmaking (p.116) that fisheries discourse engenders, local fishers are conceptually aligned to the invasive species, tourists remain immune to this imaginary of 3 unwelcome outsiders, and the solution offered is to literally consume these marine invaders into oblivion. in such anthropocene simplification, the role of global and national demand in constituting the fisheries economy (over-extractive or not) remains unacknowledged, as does the vulnerability of fishers to both climate change and to these specific forms of blame. chapter five discusses blue holes as time capsules of planetary history and as natural laboratories for marine paleontology. blue holes, akin to marine sinkholes, are also sites where science and tourism converge, inasmuch as their scientific study helps market bahamian geology as a heritage tourism product. the state therefore has high stakes in research about the blue holes, since in addition to tourism, it also constitutes a primordial identity of the bahamas as a repository of long durée planetary history. again, global scientists and tourists are considered to be both capable of diving into these blue holes and having the right conservationist attitude towards them, while those who have lived near these blue holes are sidelined. this book expertly exposed the insidious nexus between neoliberal marketization, a global conservation outlook, and scientific practice. yet, we do not find the scientists’ own voices reflecting on their entanglement in these global structures. do they at all reflect on the irony that the book so wonderfully captures? one also is left wanting to know more about where this book is positioned vis-à-vis a long tradition of critiques of conservation and development. while anthropocene anthropology should emerge as a distinctive subfield, some of the critiques in the book are reminiscent of the charges levelled against development – as a form of depoliticization, as a mode of disciplining subjects, as co-opted by neoliberalization, and so on. we get glimpses of this engagement in the endnotes, for instance, when moore discusses how biopower is transformed in the anthropocene. more such reflections, not relegated to the endnotes, would have helped anthropocene anthropology perform a necessary task, as urged by barnes et. al. (2013) – of exposing the continuities between older discourses of development and ostensibly newer climate change thinking. overall, this accessible and concise book does well to caution us to see anthropogenesis in the anthropocene as a “contextual framing for perceived problems rather than a definitive diagnosis of the present” (p.139). in the bahamas this contextual framing comes with an alarming dose of simplifications (scott 1998) perpetrated by gcs – such that residents are simplified as targets of surveys, children as targets of outreach, and fishers as barometers to measure environmental 4 perceptions (p22). the book is a stellar effort to denaturalize both the anthropocene and anthropogenesis and expose instead the global, classed interests that are served by such naturalizations. researchers, students and policy makers interested in climate justice would particularly benefit from engaging with this work. works cited: barnes, jessica, michael dove, myanna lahsen, andrew mathews, pamela mcelwee, roderick mcintosh, jessica o’reilly, et al. 2013. “contribution of anthropology to the study of climate change.” nature 3 (may): 541–44. scott, james c. 1998. seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. yale agrarian studies. new haven: yale university press. suchismita das: i am an assistant professor at ahmedabad university, india. as a cultural anthropologist, i am interested in investigating how a reckoning with climate change impacts ethnopolitics, agrarian imaginaries and environmental precarity in the indian himalayas. my book project widens the scope of the analysis of multicultural recognition, by tracing how diversity is reimagined in the anthropocene, when, with the hegemony of biodiversity conservation discourses, it is not only a social, but also an ecological good. my current ethnographic project examines infrastructure-collapse in the himalayan region as a material index of social experiences of climate change. my writings have appeared in the himalaya, economic and political weekly and conservation and society. © 2022 suchismita das microsoft word lindblad review.docx 1 jennifer mack and michael herzfeld. 2020. life among urban planners: practice, professionalism, and expertise in the making of the city. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. isbn: 9780812252286 urban planning as a future-oriented activity seeking to organize and regulate land and people is often dated back to fifth century greece. only far later, early in the 20th century, did urban planning consolidate as a modern profession through the merge of diverse expertise that used colonial cities as “experimental terrain” to fashion social and spatial engineering (wright 1987). analysis of modernist planning endeavours has generated influential anthropological scholarship (see e.g. holston 1989; rabinow 1989). jennifer mack and michael herzfeld’s edited volume life among urban planners: practice, professionalism, and expertise in the making of the city is a welcomed contribution to the study of the contemporary planning profession in times of questioned legitimacy of techno-scientific expertise as the sole basis for urban interventions, and of plans as blueprints of the future. its focus on the less spectacular dimensions of planning work across different cities speaks to debates in the planning literature about continuous tendencies to propose universalized theories that fail to account for how context matters (watson 2016). the introductory chapter situates the volume in research interested in the production of, and lived experiences of, urban space. it carves out its contribution as inquiries of imaginaries, technologies and ideologies of the present that shape experts’ efforts into making cities, and of the tensions and ambivalences that planners navigate in their encounters with other planning actors. planning, or “the making of the city,” is approached as “an act of negotiation in a context defined by social and cultural specificities” (p. 3). consequently, attention is towards planners’ interactions with the many parties – residents, politicians, other experts – through which planning unfolds. the eleven chapters are organized into three subsections. the first section, “social and cultural contexts of planning,” begins with michael herzfeld’s discussion of how planners in bangkok 2 (thailand) and rome (italy) navigate the formal and legal systems they are to enact, while aware of the inconsistencies and complications that these systems produce on the ground. a key argument established here, that figures throughout the following chapters, is that planners are also residents and share social values with the people that their policies affect. margaret crawford points, in the following chapter, to the discrepancy between the representations of urban futures through plans, and the political conditions, public support and spatial capacities that the realization of the same plans rely on. this discrepancy, that planners deal with daily, has yet to be critically engaged with by the planning profession, crawford writes, and suggests that ethnographic insights would be useful in engagements to rework how planning conceives of its role and the urban conditions it impacts. andrew newman’s chapter, which inquires how republican ideals of citizenship and political control figure historically and presently in the design of public parks in paris (france), is an example of such insights. it details how the redesign of a public park unfolded through tensions between different actors and ideals: the design features that the park department advances, resident associations’ claims of what are important interests to provide for, and tensions between different communities’ uses of the park. the second part, “grand plans and their discontents,” opens with adèle esposito andujar’s study of international aid actors as planners that bring standardized zoning technologies to the planning of siem reap (cambodia). where esposito observes how local actors renegotiate the foreign planners’ zoning proposals during their implementation, federico pérez explores planners’ work with preparing a development plan in bogotà (colombia). the account of how planners strive for better incorporating the social and urban realities the plan is to act on, and the critique that the result receives from politicians, citizen associations and developers, is a telling case of how planning failures tend to lead to demands for more planning “as usual” (p. 116) rather than questioning the profession’s rationale. gabriella körling broadens the idea of who the planner is when describing how residents in niamey (niger) prepare housing developments in the absence of state-led planning. crucial here is that residents are not merely building houses, but actively seeking to secure documents and prepare plans that aligns with formal planning techniques and law in order to ensure their rights in the eventuality of future disputes. residents also take up tasks that planners expect to lead in södertälje, jennifer mack demonstrates, in her chapter about syriac communities’ use of flexible building rules to advance architectural styles diverging from the majority design of swedish single-family housings. local planners’ anxious reaction to these, which are for them, unexpected design proposals, are suggestive of how planners may share social values and norms with (and as) residents, but more 3 often with majority society, and not necessarily the communities living and shaping the neighbourhoods that their planning efforts regard. in the third part, “resituating a ‘universal’ praxis,” bruce o’neill and kevin lewis o’neill raise questions about the implications that scale has for relations across communities in a city of racial segregation. based on the motives that planners bring forth in favor of, and that white communities mobilize against, a public transport extension in st. louis (us) they argue for a “regional responsibility” (p. 176) that acknowledges the relationships and discontinuities that occur when the scale of planning expands from the municipal to the regional. in addition to unsettling the city as a socio-spatial category, their chapter touches on the temporal dimensions of planning in a preface that highlights how this city that until today is heavily characterized by a history of segregating zoning laws, also has been a site for renewed attention to urban structural racism and inequality in response to the police shooting of michael brown in st. louis and the black lives matter movement. in barcelona (spain), contemporary planning ideology is imbued with concerns about achieving quality, trevor goldsmith notes in his chapter on how the trope of quality is entangled with a “decline of planners’ power” (p. 182). what stands out here is how planners struggle with combining their self-perceived role as experts on how planning can achieve ‘good,’ when their ‘good’ diverge from residents’ proposals about a neighbourhood, residents that the planners recognize as also entitled to define what quality as a subjective judgement implies. monika sznel’s chapter similarly deals with resident involvement within initiatives framed as “participatory planning” in warsaw (poland). based on a study of two participation processes, sznel suggests that participatory planning holds capacity for bottom-up planning that allows for residents to co-shape plans, but that these same initiatives can also be co-opted in the interest of smoothing over contestation and legitimize politically already settled decisions. the final chapter by mark graham and lissa nordin, tells about how a brownfield development in stockholm (sweden) went from a plan for a local environmentally friendly neighbourhood, to a vehicle for concretizing national ideology on ecological modernization. the development, which ultimately catered to apartment buyers of high-income residents with the initial environmental goals largely written off, is suggestive of how planning as a universal and generalizable activity is presently figuring in “global competitions centered on the marketing of sustainable urban solutions” (p. 231). 4 together, the chapters suggest that a generative entry point for anthropology to engage with the social world of planners is between the ‘plan’ as representation, the anticipated and desired, and ‘planning’ as a messy practice inherently imbued with conflict and contradiction across diverse actors and interests. james holston proposes in the afterword that where anthropology is concerned with contingency as a premise for urban life, planning tries to be “prescriptive of the present” (p. 236). in working towards the idea of planning practice that acknowledge and works with the incompleteness of its control and knowledge, holston suggests, ethnographic knowledge on the present can contribute to a planning practice that advances possibilities for social change based on “people’s practice” rather than “utopian speculation” (p. 236). this provocation ought to inspire further ethnographic engagements with planners and how these can inform debates on reformed planning for more just and equal cities. this volume, which with advantage can be read together with simone abram and giza weszkalny’s volume on contemporary planning practices (2013), is an indispensable source for anthropologists interested in bureaucracy, expertise, law, and urban life at large. it will also, i hope, reach the syllabus of planning educations where the insights proposed across the chapters can contribute to debates about planning’s limitations, and to shaping how coming generations of planners view their practice. references abram, simone, and gisa weszkalnys. 2013. elusive promises: planning in the contemporary world. new york: berghahn books. holston, james. 1989. the modernist city: an anthropological critique of brasília. chicago: university of chicago press. rabinow, paul. 1989. “french modern.” chicago: cambridge university press. watson, vanessa. 2016. “shifting approaches to planning theory: global north and south.” urban planning 1 (4): 32–41. wright, gwendolyn. 1987. “tradition in the service of modernity: architecture and urbanism in french colonial policy, 1900-1930.” the journal of modern history 59 (2): 291–316. jenny lindblad received her phd in urban and regional studies from kth, royal institute of technology. her doctoral research was an ethnographic study of planning practices in bordeaux, france, to the backdrop of reforms for flexible planning. jenny is currently a 5 researcher at kth, where she works with projects that inquire environmental imaginaries related to urban soils and wetlands in swedish planning. © 2022 jenny lindblad microsoft word shunmugan final 2022 .docx 1 being ourselves for you: there’s no business like ethnological show business joris postema (director), 2021, stop filming us, 95 minutes. link: https://www.videoproject.org/stop-filming-us.html joris postma’s “stop filming us,” highlights two key media: film making and photography in goma, a city in the eastern democratic republic of congo. as a film maker he wants to show the positive side of goma, “despite the chaos,” going back to goma after 10 years and wanting to show “my western image of “hell on earth,’ [which] clashed with congolese reality.” the key question he asks both himself and the viewer is, “can i, as a western film maker, portray this world?” photography and film are key methods in any anthropologist’s tool kit when conducting fieldwork, and one of the key questions many anthropologists ask themselves at some point is, can they really understand the society they are studying through these mediums? one of the overarching themes in this film is about who should tell which stories – and who has agency. are local film makers the only ones who can tell stories about goma or can a foreigner like postma also tell a story, and ultimately, who controls that narrative? this question comes up several times during the film, and postma asks his crew about whether he is being “neo-colonial,” and that question embeds a host of others, like who decides what to film, what to edit, what story to tell. however, for all postma’s discomfort about his position as a film maker, telling stories which his film crew feel they are able to tell themselves, in the final film credits there is only one named director – and it is postma. postma’s local film crew postulate the idea that the filmmaker may be part of the problem with his ‘white savior complex,’ and he is visibly uncomfortable during this discussion. td jack gives an example of how this works – postma offers the crew some biscuits, asking if they want one. when approached by some street children, he doesn’t ask them if they want any, but just hands them out to them. a kind gesture perhaps, but one which robs the children of agency, and the opportunity to choose. then there is the story of betty, a young, congolese film maker which is juxtaposed to that of postma. betty has completed the first part of a film and is searching for funding to complete the second part. she is part of yole’ africa, a cultural collective aimed at empowering the youth. the centre has a large mural of patrice lumumba on the side. yole’ africa is an exhibition space where people can debate contemporary issues, and one of the debates touches on representation, and the fact that “neo-colonialism is [still] a reality [in the congo], not a concept”: 2 our perception of ourselves is still influenced by the trauma of colonialism, always being represented by others, and we never take the time to represent ourselves and decide which myths we believe and which myths are false. betty goes to the institut français to discuss funding to complete her film, and the director of the institute informs her that if she needs a laptop there is one at the institute that she can use. he then goes on to explain that the institute exists for “collaborative” projects. the viewer never finds out if betty does get the funding to complete her film, but the conversation between betty and the institute director seems to suggest that the film will be completed as a “collaborative” project, i.e., with the involvement of other parties. there are many layers to this film, and another theme which emerges around voice and agency, begging the question as to who controls the image being portrayed, is seen at the start of the film. a local photographer (mugabo baritegera) is called out by the people he is photographing: “you are earning money with our photos. why are you taking our pictures?” many local people are not happy having their photograph taken, and want to know what it’s going to be used for. bartitegera says that he’s an artist, but that holds little water with an incognito intelligence officer who asks him to stop. bartitegera argues that this is liberty of expression and as a citizen it is his right to take those pictures. he wants his photos to show how people live, and what they do – not just conflict and poverty: when i wanted to recognize myself in images on the internet or wherever, all i saw was this negativity. so, i want to take pictures i can identify with, and that others can recognize themselves in. in sharp contrast to this is tor ley, a local photographer employed by unhcr to take photographs of the local people. they have a contract, and in it the terms of what and how ley should photograph her subjects is clear: she cannot deviate from that. therefore, the photos that she takes creates an image in the west of a people in permanent misery. in her seminal work “torture and the ethics of photography” (2007), judith butler provides an analysis of which lives are deemed worthy and what merits definition as a life in the first place. she argues that we do not need a caption, or a narrative, attached to a photo to understand the context and background that is being explicitly formulated and renewed through the frame. it is not just a blank visual image, and in goma, these images provide a deeper insight into the inequality of the power dynamics which govern the relationships between local congolese and the 250 ngos in goma today. bernth lindfors (1999) defines ethnological show business as the displaying of foreign peoples for commercial and/or educational purposes, noting that this trope has a very long history in europe. the display of othered bodies, mainly indigenous people, for entertainment purposes was especially popular during the world’s fairs during the nineteenth century. photography and film follow along the same continuum, and two hundred years later, some things have changed, but not a lot. this is an important film, and prior to embarking on fieldwork, this should be compulsory viewing for anthropology students. in his essay, “african’s belgium” (2001), johannes fabian asks if the gaze between belgium and the congo can be reversed, and the imperial gaze inverted. postma’s 3 film shows that the western ‘gaze’ is being contested by local photographers and film makers such as bartitegera, ley and betty – but their progress is stilted by lack of funding and control over their narrative. works cited: judith butler. 2007. “torture and the ethics of photography,” environment and planning d: society and space (25) pp. 951-966. great britain. bernth lindfors. 1999. africans on stages: studies in ethnological show business. indiana university press. johannes fabian. 2001. anthropology with attitude. stanford university press. natalia shunmugan holds a phd in social and cultural anthropology from the university of oxford. besides working in industry, she has worked for the world health organization in geneva, focusing on regulatory policy. there she was part of the who strategy team looking to develop and implement, regulatory pathways for licensing vaccines in developing countries. she currently heads up global regulatory intelligence and policy here at ultragenyx pharmaceutical. she is also fortunate to wear her anthropology hat at the richmond museum for history and culture, where she is assisting the museum in designing an exhibit on women’s progress. that work focuses on subaltern voices, and recovering native american and african-american narratives which have been obfuscated and hidden. © natalia shunmugan 2022 microsoft word doran review (1).docx 1 brian villmoare, 2023, the evolution of everything: the patterns and causes of big history. cambridge: cambridge university press, 416 pp., isbn 978-1-108-79732-0 keywords: big history – anthropology – consilience – evolution – history this book, the evolution of everything, is the latest entry into the interdisciplinary field known as big history. the term “big history” was coined by the historian david christian in the 1980s; his 2004 book maps of time is still splendid, although slightly out-of-date in some details. “big history” as a field of study attempts to unify human history with all of the sciences – most notably astronomy, geology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology – into a consilient whole, with economics and demography attending gamely. a typical semester-long big history course starts with the big bang and ends either in the present or with probable futures, exploring biological and human history along the way, hence presenting human history in the broadest possible context. the first modern work of this type was h.g. wells’ 1920 an outline of history. the field has mushroomed in the past few decades. these works marvelously vary in focus depending on the discipline of their authors: geologist walter alvarez’s big history book a most improbable journey is heavy on the geology; astrophysicist eric chaisson’s epic of evolution: seven ages of the cosmos emphasizes astronomy. the book reviewed here offers a big history focused on biology and anthropology. its author, brian villmoare, is a paleoanthropologist at the university of nevada, las vegas specializing in biological anthropology, human paleontology, and evolutionary theory, and has done much fieldwork in africa. first, the structure. the book consists of an introduction and two evenly divided parts. there are useful digressive “boxes” peppered throughout on topics such as “progress in science” and 2 “disease and the neolithic.” the introduction explains science as a method to understand reality, as well as exploring pseudoscience and what objections exist to science. it will be especially salutary for students lacking an understanding of the scientific method’s importance, who possess negative attitudes toward science stemming from religiosity or postmodernism. part 1, “introduction to the scientific perspective on the past,” contains fourteen chapters, stretching from “the origins of the universe” and many chapters on biology and evolution, through “the genus homo” to “evolution and human behavior” to “brain evolution” and onward. sections on the importance of the magnetosphere to atmospheres and hence to life, why spheres recur in nature, and stellar nucleosynthesis illustrate the author’s skill in explanation. villmoare gives due attention to panspermia, which (one suspects) will soon loom larger in scientific and popular discussions of life’s origins. superb explanations abound upon the evolution of primate physiology, brain evolution, gene flow, mutation, genetic drift, natural selection, stabilizing selection, and sexual selection, and historical christian resistance to darwin’s ideas. a fine chapter details evolutionary-biological roots of human culture (for example, altruism’s biological basis) and the resistance to these viewpoints (see also ulica segerstråle’s defenders of the truth: the battle for science in the sociobiology debate and beyond). a discussion of chaos and complexity, and engineering versus emergence, comprises a chapter closing part 1. the emergence of complex structures from simpler ones is, unsurprisingly, essential to big history: it is one of the chief ways to maintain themes across phenomena as disparate as the emergences of molecules and empires. part 2, “science and history” commences with the neolithic, then hops to chapters entitled “states and nations,” “religion and philosophy,” “the enlightenment,” “the industrial revolution” and then the modern period. villmoare elucidates the gains and losses in the shift from foraging to farming – naturally, amidst today’s critics such as jared diamond, yuval noah harari, david graeber, and david wengrow. much material after the emergence of early civilizations is thematic rather than narrative. this should appeal to non-historians offering big history-type courses, such as biologists. the earlier discussion of altruism could have benefitted the discussion of religion and philosophy, but a box entitled “the biological origins of religion” helps address this, along the lines of daniel dennett’s book breaking the spell: religion as a 3 natural phenomenon. chapters entitled “the enlightenment,” “the industrial revolution,” “economics,” and “globalism: money and power” investigate these immense phenomena from a scientific materialist perspective. chapter 23, “modernism,” distinguishes the modernity’s elements and worldview as well as resistance against these, such as religion, traditionalism, and fascism. chapter 24 usefully discusses demography and the demographic transition, birth control, and disease; covid-19 references anchor the book to today. no big history book will delight everyone. this book gives little broad, comparative world history; those needing that should prefer big history: between nothing and everything by christian, brown, and benjamin. the half of the book dedicated to human history seems selective and oddly proportioned, taking only about sixty pages for the neolithic revolution to the 17th century. however, twice that is occupied by the history of the modern period, much concerning the second world war. and there is little outside of the west. but the book is by professor of physical anthropology rather than world history. those quibbles are small. this is a fine book, and as a biologically-oriented take on big history, with beautifully clear explanations of and emphases on evolution, especially of primates, it is a most welcome addition to the field, suitable as a scientific introduction to big history, a college textbook, and for scholars. timothy doran is associate professor of ancient history and big history at california state university – los angeles, where he teaches greek, roman, egyptian, and ancient near eastern history, ancient religion, world history, and big history. he earned his phd from the university of california, berkeley in the graduate group in ancient history and mediterranean archaeology. his publications have centered on ancient sparta. his most recent monograph is spartan oliganthropia (brill, 2018). his current research project concerns paternity confidence in homer’s epics. works cited: alvarez, walter. a most improbable journey: a big history of our planet and ourselves. new york: norton, 2016. 4 chaisson, eric. epic of evolution: seven ages of the cosmos. new york: columbia university press, 2005. christian, david. maps of time: an introduction to big history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 2004. christian, david; cynthia stokes brown; and craig benjamin. big history: between nothing and everything. new york: mcgraw-hill, 2014. dennett, daniel. breaking the spell: religion as a natural phenomenon. new york: penguin, 2006. segerstråle, ulica. defenders of the truth: the battle for science in the sociobiology debate and beyond. oxford: oxford university press, 2000. wells, h. g. the outline of history: being a plain history of life and mankind. new york: macmillan, 1920. © 2023 timothy doran metamorphic sublime, mimetic excess, re-enchantment of nature: the meltdown as a chronicle of contemporaneity review by carolina parreiras taussig, m. 2020. mastery of non-mastery in the age of meltdown, chicago: chicago university press, 220 pp, isbn 978-0-226-69867-0 keywords: michael taussig; meltdown; metamorphic sublime; mimesis; mastery of nonmastery in his most recent book, mastery of non-mastery in the age of meltdown, michael taussig, with his ingenuity and wit, presents a chronicle of contemporaneity. the main argument of the book is hinted at on its cover. illustrated by olivia taussig, the cover invokes the general theme of taussig’s analysis: a boy (and his shadow) tries to balance the balls (or are they planets?) which he juggles, probably in order to avoid the collapse invoked in the title of the book. just like the balls in the illustration, our planet is in serious danger of collapsing, victim of a toxic economic system, fascist politics, and the destruction of the environment. in the nineteen chapters that make up the book, taussig reflects on a world on the brink of collapse; a world which is based on a “new normal” marked by the “fantastic power of catastrophe” and the non-existence of the ordinary. thus, the author reflects on the recent world context characterized by donald trump (whom taussig calls ironically “shaman-in-chief”), natural disasters, the green new deal, facebook, twitter, and the state of technological surveillance. the description of this context is intertwined with dense theoretical analyses. the result of his narrative seems to have the goal of creating what taussig names, right at the beginning of the text, the “smoke and mirrors game,” in which the mirror represents the mimetic element, and the smoke the mystery. when the smoke is mixed with reflections on the mirror, a “metamorphic sublime,” as he calls it, is created. for readers already familiarized with his work, the return to issues present in previous books will be noticeable, though reread from the concept that guides the book: the idea of mastery of nonmastery (mnm). in general terms, mastery of non-mastery refers to the organization of mimesis as the basis of domination, based on a mimetic excess (“mimicry miming itself”), in which there is a re-enchantment of nature, which has the peculiarity of being more surreal each time. this “dark surrealism” will be the mark of the “new normal,” characterized by strangeness and a reactive nature. in this re-enchantment of the world, the tropes of demystification and enlightenment give way to what he calls art vs art, based on “new possibilities of thought and politics, rhetoric and power” (p. 144). the idea is no longer about thinking about ideology vs truth or discourse vs counter-discourse, but art vs art, a paradigm that follows the metamorphic sublime and is based on “camouflage, montage, collage, ventriloquism and tweetery.” thus, by proposing the notion of mastery of non-mastery, taussig invites us to think about mutuality with nature, instead of colonization and exploitation of the natural world by man. mastery of nonmastery therefore refers to the disorganization of the organization of mimesis (p. 16), a kind of counter-magic that unrolls layers of paradoxes. another striking feature of taussig's broader work reappears in mastery of non-mastery in the age of meltdown: the powerful and ironic writing that challenges the framing of specific genres and that questions anthropological language itself, expanding its meaning. the author even points to the fictional character of ethnography by evoking malinowski (whom he calls a performer). taussig considers the persuasive way in which malinowski convinces us, through writing and photographs (that is, mimicking), that he was alone among the trobriands, creating the “illusion of authorial presence.” taussig takes these reflections further by stating that mastery of non-mastery (mnm) of writing, the central proposal of the book, is a cross between writing and theater, occupying a space between “science fiction, high theory and weather.” above all, it can be said that the book provides a form of writing that questions itself and the capacity for representation, especially in a context of catastrophe, which escapes simple descriptions. the meltdown is seen as a force that pushes us to think in a new language – that of transgression, above all – and in new forms of “response, evocation, and being” (p. 30), in which nature is seen and felt from an entirely new way. taussig maintains another of his characteristics in the book: the dense and meticulous reflection of philosophical and anthropological concepts, intertwined with references from literature, cinema, television, and politics. in the book, there are references to nietzsche, roland barthes, aby warburg, georges bataille and the sacred sociology, simone weil, and michel foucault, usual theorists in taussig's reflections. in this sense, it is worth highlighting the reinterpretation he makes of walter benjamin's thought, though similar efforts appear in his other books, such as walter benjamin ’s grave (2006) or palma africana (2018). his thoughts on the mimetic faculty, understood as the way in which nature creates similarities, something remarkable among children, but which has been forgotten by western science, is inspired by benjamin’s thinking, specifically the essays "doctrine of the similar" and "on the mimetic faculty." taussig proposes to take the concept of mimetic further, demonstrating how the current moment, encapsulated in the idea of the metamorphic sublime, is characterized by mirroring and mimetic excess. something striking while reading the book is the evocation, in different moments and contexts, of the figure of the sun. taussig even questions the extent to which our lives are connected to the sun and the rhythm of death and resurrection that its movement of rising and setting generates. in this way, all of us, through our bodily unconscious, are oriented towards the sun without even being aware of it. it is the sun, through the illusion of a vertical movement – which is actually the rotation of the earth – that gives guidance to our daily self. this bodily unconscious knowledge is what makes our body, the body of the other, and the body of the world gain meaning. the future seems to be murky; it cannot be described as dawn or twilight, but as something strange for which we have only just begun to build a representational language. the meltdown, which results largely from climate change and fascist politics, heightens our awareness of the body as well as the cosmos, something that becomes palpable when taussig describes hurricanes that hit new york and the bahamas, for example. how to describe the terror, the nightmare, the catastrophe, the unbelievable? how to move past “representational inertia” (p. 32)? taussig seeks the answer to this question by evoking bataille, who uses the sun as a central figure in his writings, and reflections by foucault about bataille, especially with a focus on transgression. thus, taussig claims a “negation of negation” would be necessary, in which transgression starts to be considered a liberating language. he proposes that we think of catastrophe and the environmental and political meltdown as phenomena permeated by a sacred and mythical force. it is exactly there, in this empty representational space, that the mastery of non-mastery appears, as a basis and hope in a world marked by fear and fascism. taussig proposes to use terror against itself, the re-enchantment through an art that evokes life, the adoption of a shamanic curiosity about the natural world that thinks in “multiple realities” and in a life based on perspective and error and, finally, the search for an engagement with the body and with the body in the world. in this sense. taussig’s book helps one consider new paths for understanding our contemporary world and the various forms of violence, dominance and destruction that haunt us. in a way, it is a call to act and to create a world of mutuality. references: taussig, michael. walter benjamin’s grave. chicago: chicago university press, 2006. taussig, michael. palma africana. chicago: chicago university press, 2018. carolina parreiras is an anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the state university of campinas, brazil. she was a visiting scholar at the institute of latin american studies (ilas) at columbia university (2019 -2020). the main goal of her current research is to understand the forms of classification and nomination of public and private forms of violence in favelas, with a focus on the use of digital platforms and environments, digital violence and digital inequalities. carolparreiras@gmail.com © 2021 caroline parreiras mailto:carolparreiras@gmail.com microsoft word ghalem review.docx 1 a contribution to the current debate about ethics and human remains in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology review by yassmine ghalem squires, kirsty, david errickson, and nicholas márquez-grant. 2019. ethical approaches to human remains: a global challenge in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, springer, 649 pp, isbn 978-3-030-32925-9 keywords: ethics in biological and physical anthropology, ethics in forensic anthropology, treatment of human remains, repatriation of human remains, multidisciplinary amongst sciences that study the human body, anthropology has a critical and dark history surrounding the treatment of human remains. for instance, it is widely known that pioneers in the discipline collected human remains under conditions that today are considered dubious and unethical (clegg 2020). more recently, anthropologists have adopted a more ethical approach by questioning the origin of human remains and the context of their acquisition (fluehr-lobban 2008; klenk 2010). along the same line, universities, museums, organizations, and associations have developed guides and codes of ethics to regulate, standardize and implement ethical practices within the discipline (aapa 2003; babao 2010a, 2010b; wac 2018). ethical approaches to human remains. a global challenge in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, is a consolidated volume that brings together 30 chapters written by anthropologists and scholars from various disciplines to contribute to current issues, challenges and topics associated with human remains and ethics. the volume is structured in three sections, excluding the introduction and the conclusion. the introduction addresses the lack of literature gathering current issues about human remains under one manuscript. the authors disclose that the objectives of the volume are to raise awareness 2 towards the treatment of human remains, put forward a worldview of challenges and offer recommendations and considerations for their future implementations. the first section of the book, ethical issues surrounding human remains, explores ethical concerns related to human remains from a philosophical and social angle. authors discuss consent, dignity of the dead and human right after death, representativeness of human remains in research, unethical past practices, and ethical transformations in the profession of human anatomy, and issues raised by the online human remains trade. the second section, ethical dilemmas in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology is written from the perspective of scholars based in the united kingdom. chapters in this section explore ethical dilemmas encountered in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, such as the excavation, analysis, curation, and display of human remains along with challenges caused by the rise of social media, use of digital data, and creation of human taphonomy facilities. the third section, global perspectives and case studies, presents case studies where practitioners have faced ethical dilemmas during recovery, identification, and repatriation of human remains in various regions of the world. these case studies outline good practices while also outlining challenges that must be considered in the process of developing ethical practices in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology in different parts of the world. concluding remarks summarize main topics and current issues, such as collaborations with descendants and local communities, the rise of destructive or invasive sampling, social media, and 3d data. the authors conclude with recommendations for best practices drawn from the contributions of the specialists in this volume. the highlight of this book is that each chapter offers a unique perspective on a specific subject about human remains. the myriad authors’ specializations enables this book to be accessible for a large audience. hence, by discussing ethical dilemmas, rising issues and challenges encountered in various countries, this manuscript contributes to the current discussion about ethics and human remains emerging in multiple disciplines. in addition, it addresses considerations related to consent, right of the dead, respect, descendant communities, repatriation, and indigenous people’s voices. one can say that even if a reader is not specifically interested in human remains, the content of this book makes it possible to learn about other aspects of a particular case, as it is viewed under different lenses (e.g., human remains treatment during the spanish civil war and world wars). from academics to the public, there is 3 something for everyone. furthermore, multiple chapters propose recommendations, guides, and codes to consider while working with human remains. these suggestions can be helpful to implement guidelines and codes of ethics in institutions with collections of human remains that are not regulated yet by an ethical framework. although the second section mainly focuses on practices in the united kingdom, it is significant to note that cases invoked can help guide, advise, and inspire researchers and specialists facing similar situations. moreover, the volume can be beneficial in training students to adopt good practices while working with human remains. another fundamental aspect of this book is the prominence of collaboration with communities, descendants, and indigenous people. for a long time, the relationship between scholars and communities has been neglected. nowadays, practices demonstrate a paradigm shift concerning the involvement of stakeholders, where research would be considered unethical without the permission and consent of descendant communities. this good practice is one of the founding principles of research ethics. aside from the emphasis on collaboration, the volume includes chapters written by scholars that are part of local communities. for instance, chapter 19, ethical issues of bioarchaeology in new zealand-aotearoa: relationships, research, and repatriation, provides a review from both a māori and bioarchaeological perspective on repatriation matters related to kōiwi tangata māori (ancestral remains). one of the authors of this chapter (amber aranui) is a māori repatriation researcher, and her perception on the issues surrounding the use of māori human skeletal remains offers a profound analysis for readers. this volume demonstrates positive outcomes of forming partnerships and engaging in collaboration with communities. thus, in a manuscript discussing ethics, it is evidently more ethical to include diverse voices, such as local communities, descendants, and indigenous people, to acquire distinct perspectives on topics that, for a long time, have been extensively and unilaterally analyzed by foreign scholars. the volume touches on worldwide issues and challenges, and naturally cannot exhaustively review all queries about ethics and human remains. however, in a decolonization setting, it would have been relevant to further explore the topic of repatriation. for instance, institutions such as museums and universities with collections of human remains originating from other countries should question the origin of these remains, and be more aware of the subtle, yet highly 4 significant difference between “repatriation” and “restitution” (bienkowski 2013). interestingly, only chapter 20, ethical considerations of human remains based research in argentina briefly mentions “restitution” but without distinguishing it from “repatriation.” moreover, concerns surrounding access to human remains (e.g., ownership and stewardship) and the vicious race between researchers to access rare ancient human remains to perform destructive analysis (to obtain ancient dna) have not been amply explored and require an extensive discussion beyond this book. undoubtedly, present-day practices in anthropology are widely different compared to the early days of the discipline. for instance, research ethics committees of most universities and research institutions request ethical permission for research when working with human remains. hence, researchers must anticipate ethical questions even before starting a research project. nonetheless, practices are not flawless, and much remains to be done. in this regard, ethical approaches to human remains contributes to the current debate about the treatment of human remains around the world. the volume presents a current perspective on ethical challenges faced by specialists and practitioners, along with emerging matters rarely addressed in the literature, in particular digital ethics, the use of social media, the views of indigenous communities and collaborative work. the various topic raised, and the recommendations provided by the authors are expected to be significant in improving practices. ultimately, this manuscript serves as a reminder for anthropologists and other practitioners to not neglect their ethical responsibility towards human remains and descendant communities. works cited: american association of biological anthropologists [aaba]. code of ethics of the american association of physical anthropologists. 2003. http://physanth.org/about/committees/ethics/ aapa-code-ethics-and-other-ethics-resources/. accessed 2 march 2022. bienkowski, piotr. "a critique of museum restitution and repatriation practices." the international handbooks of museum studies (2013): 431-453. british association of biological anthropology and osteoarchaeology [babao]. code of ethics. 2010a. http://babao.org.uk/assets/uploads/code-of-ethics.pdf. accessed 2 march 2022. 5 british association of biological anthropology and osteoarchaeology [babao]. code of practice. 2010b. http://www.babao.org.uk/assets/uploads/code-of-practice.pdf. accessed 2 march 2022. clegg, margaret. human remains: curation, reburial and repatriation. cambridge university press, 2020. fluehr-lobban, carolyn. "collaborative anthropology as twenty-first-century ethical anthropology." collaborative anthropologies 1, no. 1 (2008): 175-182. doi:10.1353/cla.0.0000. klenk, michael. "moral philosophy and the ‘ethical turn’in anthropology." zeitschrift für ethik und moralphilosophie 2, no. 2 (2019): 331-353. world archaeology congress [wac]. code of ethics. 2018. http://worldarch.org/code-of-ethics/ yassmine ghalem is a phd student in the department of anthropology at université de montréal specializing in biological anthropology. © 2022 yassmine ghalem 1 bond, david, 2022, negative ecologies: fossil fuels and the discovery of the environment, univ of california press, 262 pp., isbn: 978-0-52038-678-5 keywords: negative ecologies, fossil fuels, disaster, toxicity. negative ecologies is a prime ethnographic book on toxicity and disasters caused by the fossil fuel industry. both beautifully and intricately written, the book offers various fundamental case studies of the social and environmental consequences and costs of our exemplary commodity crude oil. it is also a book grounded in a broad critique of industrial capitalism. in the introduction, bond starts by placing crude oil at the center of attention, à la michael watts (2004; 2005). oil as a commodity with its staggering profit, the extraction of which brings destruction as the norm is the protagonist of the book. the destructive impact of crude oil extraction cannot be contained within the given structures of inequality, and it is “protected” by deep investments and by the law, shielding it from resistance, protests, and activism (3). bond argues that it has become common sense to “protect” the oil economy and that no disaster is huge enough and not enough lives and livelihoods are lost to make oil finally accountable. why? are we just blinded by the riches that oil brings, or have we built around us a knowledgeable discourse of negative ecologies that transform paradoxes into norms? by negative ecologies, bond refers to the detrimental impacts of human activities on the environment, resulting in ecological degradation, loss of biodiversity, and disruption of natural systems and communities. he highlights the urgent need for sustainable and regenerative practices. throughout the book, bond argues that addressing issues of toxicity and environmental pollution requires not just technical solutions, but also broader social and political changes that challenge the structures of power and inequality underpinning resource extraction and industrial capitalism more broadly. bond started fieldwork in 2010, studying the aftermath of the bp oil spill among the coastal communities of the gulf of mexico. how residents experienced the disaster was one of the author’s primary research questions. soon, it became clear to the researcher that the life 2 experiences of the locals and the technological reasoning around the spill were in dissonance. the contrast between the promise of oil and the resulting negative environmental impacts drew bond’s focus towards the distressed state of the world (12). anthropology does often focus on the negative aspects of society, so why is bond’s book so important? because in negative ecologies bond uses a poetic and eloquent tone to convey a sense of respect and awe of the destruction brought by oil. case studies used by the author include the trans-alaskan pipeline, coastal communities devastated by oil spills, toxic fallout from spills, contaminated waters, scorched forests and disappearing mangroves. all these cases of ecological fallout are protected by the mantra of profit, by its fiscal promise, by the utopia of global wellbeing it claims will ensue. the book evokes dreadful images, and the reader’s attention remains fixed on the environment. the book focuses on north america, on how we manage the effects rather than how we confront the causes of disasters. bond gives a history of the categories and series of destruction that convinced scientists, citizens, and policymakers about how “toxic thresholds and impact assessments extend the life and consequences of the use of fossil fuels, retain them within the jurisdictions” (7). they indeed turn the attention away from material harm, engineering hubris and optimism (8). thus, bond claims that crude oil “doings” have made the environment visible and politically important. in chapter 1, bond starts with the history of the concept, “environment,” a “footloose” concept (see also timothy morton in his book “being ecological”). the environment, often conceived of as a concern of the developed world, has been marginalized in terms of its historical significance, frequently relegated to a lower priority. the chapter is about the tight connection to western-made power, the materiality of negative ecologies and how we have let the “unbound destruction become ordinary” (29). according to bond, the “current arrangements” become untenable when we focus solely on the negative extremes rather than considering the nuances in between. chapter 2 chronologically presents disasters and their governance. starting with bond’s favorite case, the bp oil spill as a scientific object and with a touching representation of the “sickened” residents of the gulf coast one year after the disaster, bond shows how the dangerous mix of knowledge production, performance and corporate agendas create certainty and credibility (73). illnesses, embodied toxicity, wide dispersion of hydrocarbons in all the elements where people live after protests, testimonies at hearings and litigations could not reach 3 the type of legitimacy which was hoped for (73-77). bond shows how the legal processes were entangled with politics and corporations could “buy off” knowledge and research by putting extensive resources into contracting top notch scientists to conduct research and draft reports on the impact and consequences of the spill (76). in this way, the oil spill became a performance. in this chapter bond also shows and this was one of his earlier arguments (bond, 2013) how disasters do indeed help the industry. for instance, after the exxon valdez disaster a “legislative and technological mastery” (79) of the spill was then used a precedent and guideline to the consequent bp spill giving legitimation to oil spill expertise unilaterally brought by those who had caused the oil spill to begin with. the same with deep water research on the effects of much elusive “subsurface oil” (80) where research could only be conducted by large expenditures which never came to conclusive results and thus having not reached that “degree of certainty” liability could not be assessed (81). the chapter concludes with a thought-provoking paragraph about the “technology of consensus” extensively promoted in public. chapter 3, a fully ethnographic chapter, appears like a long digression into the story of fort mckay and fort chipewyan since the sixties. it presents archival research into old environmental assessments of this area of alberta, canada known for its tar sand disaster. after decades of destruction by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and extensive pollution across vast areas, fort chipewyan is a sad result of experimental programs of monitoring oil and water pollution. it is a case of capital funded scientific knowledge and scientific expertise that formalize, sterilize, and naturalize the impact of oil industry disaster. fort chipewyan is also a case of the corporations trying to put on an ethnographic lens, learning about traditional knowledge and local uses of the land to then standardize them and license to other oil companies (99). this is a chapter which shows how conflicting interests of the residents and of the oil company creates different scientific analyses and expertise and a struggle by native populations to be involved in environmental governance. chapter 4 is on the materiality and the significance of pipelines which have increasingly become present in the lives of many communities and have become arenas of environmental activism and protests which cross time and space. the materiality of perfluorooctanoic acid (pfoa) is the central protagonist of chapter 5. this subtle, slippery (123) and extremely resistant and toxic chemical has the property of entangling itself not only with living bodies and other natural matters, but also with class-action lawsuits (123). in this chapter, bond shows how the controversial pfoa contamination is defined “in the dialectical tension between…the open nature of [pfoa] and the effort to pull pfoa into something more solid and prosecutable” 4 (124). in this chapter, toxicity is presented as both a lived and theorized category. thus, the author presents several ethnographic vignettes where the residents affected by contamination narrate their tragic stories. these are not only stories of suffering and frustration, but also are stories of chronic neglect, paternalism and disempowerment taking place at home, at school, at the factory, at the doctor’s office, community meetings, and finally in court showing how the invisible presence of toxicity had crept itself into the public realm. finally, chapter 6 is another case study on the mangrove in st. croix and the hovensa refinery. the petrochemical contamination due to several oil spills has drastically reduced the mangroves with dramatic consequences for the livelihoods of the local people. again, the scientific documentation created by these consequential spills had finally given visibility to the mangroves which throughout the years had been seen as “a lingering anachronism best cleared out so the future of industrial modernity could finally arrive” (158). the chapters of the book rotate around different cases from canada to the caribbean, but what keeps them all together is that they highlight the violence that characterizes the hydrocarbon industry in north america. the materiality of fossil fuels linked to the negativity of fossil fuels brings new networks into life. bond calls these networks “injured,” underlying their vulnerability and the negative effects of fossil fuels (18). bond suggests that, “negative ecologies open the door for ethnography to grapple with the destructive legacy of modern progress without first domesticating it into complicit institutions or theoretically departing from its contingent history…turn[ing] ethnographic attention back to materialism” (21). in negative ecologies, bond's approach to toxicity is grounded in a broader critique of the social and environmental costs of industrial capitalism where the harms caused by toxic pollution and environmental degradation are not accidental, but rather the result of systemic inequalities and power imbalances that prioritize profits over people and the environment. bond's approach also emphasizes the importance of understanding the experiences and perspectives of affected communities, particularly those that are historically marginalized or excluded from decision-making processes related to environmental policy and regulation. in revealing the multifaced negative ecologies, bond seeks to address environmental harms in ways that are equitable and inclusive. the book's greatness lies in its unreserved depiction of the profound encounters that individuals undergo following disasters, encompassing both evident disasters like the bp spill, and more nuanced, imperceptible instances such as the ongoing pfoa contamination. these dramatic 5 experiences come strongly to light when confronted with the scientific and regulatory apparatus which produced knowledge, facts, and reality about disasters, and which is often legitimized at the expenses of individuals, families, and communities. works cited: bond, d. (2013). governing disaster: the political life of the environment during the bp oil spill. cultural anthropology, 28(4), 694-715. morton, t. (2018). being ecological. mit press. watts, m. (2004). resource curse? governmentality, oil and power in the niger delta, nigeria. geopolitics, 9(1), 50-80. watts, m. j. (2005). righteous oil? human rights, the oil complex, and corporate social responsibility. annu. rev. environ. resour., 30, 373-407. marianna betti holds a phd in social anthropology from the university of bergen, norway. she has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in kenya, norway and italy. her research interests lay in the fields of political ecology, the anthropology of development and religion and the anthropology of oil. © 2024 marianna betti sounds at the end/beginning of the world: black gay habits of mind review by rebecka rehnström jafari s. allen, 2021, there's a disco ball between us: a theory of black gay life , durham and london: duke university press, 448 pp., isbn: 978-1-4780-2189-6 keywords: black gay life, black history, queer history, blackfullness, blackness in his recent book, there's a disco ball between us, jafari s. allen presents a history of what he names “black gay habits of mind.” despite moving between various places around the world, this work is more “an ethnography of an idea” than multi-sited fieldwork. a key inspiration for this approach could be audre lorde’s neologism “blackfullness,” “the space of possibility and belonging beyond any particular place” (p. 325n2). allen emphasizes the importance that poetry, music, art, novels, theory, and historiography have to the archive of black political philosophy, not least of the long 1980s. he takes us to the time of the 1980s aids crisis, the before and after, the ends and beginnings, for the “more possible.” the title, borrowed from the artist wura-natasha ogunji and further inspired by performance artist and impresario kevin aviance1, speaks of losses and desires. in these numerously colored lights of the disco ball, communicating at various angles/times, allen writes a theory of black gay life. the language of the book is poetic, lyrical, and conversational. it follows various rhythms, develops processually (like the rhizome) – the history is not, cannot be, teleological/”straight” (pp. 165-166). nevertheless, i welcomed the moments when allen encouraged me as a reader to pause for a second or to take a few breaths before continuing, but also the invitations to read with the voices of those behind the words (e.g., pp. 56, 222). this reader (me) is a white (swedish), lesbian (femme) woman – positionings impacting on which layers of the text/history i will be able to reach and in what way. however, no matter how (un)familiar the reader is, it is a book to re-read in order to reach new depths, to see the reflections from the disco ball from yet another angle. another aspect that stood out for me was how allen uses the forenames of those he cites, an invitation to and reflection of intimacy he says. it also has another meaning, found in the history (of e.g., colonialism, religion, slavery) that has erased names and named by force (pp. 67-68). i found this way of citing at times confusing, but it also provides an opportunity to understand the words and the people behind them from a “different” perspective. 1 � see pp. 1-4 for further discussion on work by ogunji and aviance. 1 it is a thick book, both in terms of ethnography and number of pages. the book starts with an “invitation” to the read from the author, then an introduction followed by ten chapters and a conclusion – divided into three parts. hereafter come some acknowledgments, to be read as an additional (short) chapter. readers are encouraged to take time to read the footnotes, constituting yet another layer of the book. chapter 1 focuses on the foundational work of radical black lesbian feminists, the endangered black male/masculinity discourse of the long 1980s and the impact this time had on black gay politics. chapter 2 is about black habits of minds – black gay men writers of the 1980s (e.g., james baldwin, joseph beam, melvin dixon). allen brings forward the important lesson from this time of the aids crisis that “visibility is not equal to survival” (p. 63). the chapter also calls out the (white) statement that “the aids crisis is over,” pointing at the unequal access to adequate health care black and brown people all around the world still experience (p. 71). in chapter 3, allen stresses the important contribution “femmes” and “queens,” like marsha p. johnson and sylvia rivera, have to the archive. another key discussion is on antiblackness, which is everything “from what and who is beautiful to who and what is true … to no breath at all” (p. 112). perhaps, allen asks, in a world of antiblackness it is not interracial desire but black folks (not least gay men) loving and desiring black folks and blackness that is “the more radical or socalled ‘transgression of racial boundaries’” (pp. 102-112). chapter 4 invites us to the disco, to the sounds at the end (and beginning) of the world (i.e., the 1980s). allen describes this era in the usa as a time of anticipation for the revolution, a waiting for the independence from european colonial powers to finally come to north america. it was also a time when the “war on drugs” gained strong political ground and became equal to “war on black and brown people.” in chapter 5 we leave the 1980s and queer as a concept debut in the book. movements and meanings of art, porn and digital media is here discussed in a transnational setting. the chapter also treats “blackness,” in terms of agency and also in relation to the doings of white supremacy. the second part of the book starts (with a preface and chapter 6) in the black/queerpolis – “after ‘diaspora’ but before reparations and before freedom” (p. 165). it was the time when black queer studies in the us academy were established and events such as the antiapartheid movement and hiv/aids had created space for the production of black diasporic connections (p. 189). the chapter also turns to the alternative archive created by black (especially lesbian) writers (not least novelists) and how it can help to reconstruct black memory. after this chapter follows a triptych of methodological chapters. chapter 7 takes the reader to the archival turn through a virtual roundtable. chapter 8, in turn, treats transnational black queer sociality and differentiates black/queerpolity from “global gay” and “gay international,” formulations allen stresses as uncritical. in chapter 9 allen goes deeper into the politics. here he examines positionings of the black anthropologist doing fieldwork/ethnography within/among african (descended) cultures. the chapter also looks upon ways activists are shaping a new political agenda. in chapter 10 allen discusses the overcoming of (“romantic,” masculinist) freedom dreams of the black radical tradition. the chapter also emphasizes the importance of bringing forward the 1980s as a historically significant “break,” when analyzing relations between black people. it was a time when black gay (lgbt) activists, artists, and organizations shattered and reconstituted structures of the past (p. 262). allen finishes by addressing how local activists reverse homo/transphobic discourses disguised as local tradition by foreign current/historical interests, this by referring to homo/transphobia as part of a colonial, racist, foreign heritage. in the conclusion, allen asserts the importance of “advocating dynamic sociality tarrying with/for the dead and being alive to our messy and difficult-to-translate blackfull nows” (p. 2 307). the acknowledgments that follow invites the readers/seekers to be inspired by the book, both its content and its form, when navigating their own routes. an important takeaway from this book is what allen states in the introduction. the world, he writes, needs us to both commit to “master” specific methods and theoretical frameworks and then loosen our grip around them. an anthological approach that is new in academe, he continues, but has “… a longer history in black feminist, black gay, queer-of-color activist work, artistic practice, and art of living life” (p. 20). i strongly recommend this book to scholars and student within academia, across disciplines, to artists, writers, and activists outside of academia – to anyone seeking to explore and become more intimate with black gay (and queer) habits of mind. rebecka rehnström has a bsc and msc in social anthropology from stockholm university. she is interested in feminist and queer athropology, material and visual culture, lgbtq+, activism and performance. © 2022 rebecka rehnström 3 microsoft word lopez final.docx 1 the epistemology of north: indigenous re-orientations from northern fennoscandia thomas hylland eriksen, sanna valkonen, and jarno valkonen, eds. 2020. knowing from the indigenous north: sámi approaches to history, politics and belonging. london: routledge,184 pp., isbn 9780367585778 keywords: sámi, arctic, north, indigenous, epistemology, politics, history since at least the time of the romans, northern europe and its people have been the focus of intensive southern and scientific curiosity, exploration, and description. knowing from the indigenous north: sámi approaches to history, politics and belonging (2020), edited by thomas hylland eriksen, sanna valkonen, and jarno valkonen, is a welcome provocation for scholarly re-orientations towards northern fennoscandia. shifting readers’ perspectives not towards, but from the north, readers are invited to reflect over the question “not where but what is the north?” (p.5). focusing on scholarship from the finnish side of sápmi – the indigenous homeland of the sámi people overlapping the nations of norway, sweden, finland, and russia – the volume considers the north (capitalized throughout the introduction and volume) as a particular “epistemic position and phenomenological world of experience” (p.5). the north, valkonen, valkonen and ingold argue in the book’s introduction, is a “a particular place and position of knowing and being, which not only has its specific history and ways to be and to dwell, but also its own understanding of what knowledge is and how it is produced.” (p. 5). 2 the volume consists of eleven chapters grouped in four subsections. the first and shortest subsection, on knowing from the north, contains the introduction and a chapter titled “on local knowledge,” which outlines a theoretical framework and concepts through which to read the six empirical chapters in the three subsections that follow. the empirical chapters of each subsection are followed by a commentary chapter, which provide reflection over themes raised and serve as conclusions for each sub-section (there is no standalone concluding chapter). in chapter 2, jarno and sanna valkonen demarcate “local knowledge” from “traditional knowledge,” two concepts they identify as often used interchangeably in social scientific writing about northern societies (p. 13). a key argument is that “tradition” should be approached as an emic concept, to be first analyzed and understood from the perspective of interlocutors, only subsequently serving as the basis for a scholarly theoretical understanding and conceptualization of tradition in the research process. the authors also reflect on the relationship between local knowledge and western scientific knowledge, in conversation with scholars across anthropology, sociology, and science and technology studies (sts) to highlight the role of embodiment, place, and multiple possible realities (and actors) within these distinct knowledge systems. in part two, critical approaches to finnish sámi history are highlighted. veli-pekka lehtola’s chapter is a particularly powerful intervention, shedding new light on everyday forms of sámi resistance (scott 1989) to colonialism through a critical re-reading of works penned in the late 1930s by a former colonial administrator in the northern finnish district of utsjoki. in identifying these strategies as those of a subaltern group, lehtola challenges popular representations – as in sweden – that sámi accepted the imposition of finnish law, customs, and society without resistance. rather, they reveal indigenous survivance and continuity in a colonial context, arising from two institutions and systems of knowledge in conflict. eeva-kristina harlin’s chapter also shows how different institutions and systems of knowledge – sámi duodji artisans – diverge in their approaches to the preservation of sámi history and material culture. when duodji (sámi handicraft) artisans engage with museum collections, harlin shows how museums become both “contact zones” and ontological “conflict zones” (p. 53), as the cultural meanings and historical orientations associated with handicrafts objects – whether towards the past or towards the future – differ radically for curators and for artisans. finally, the commentary chapter by thomas hylland 3 eriksen forefronts how harlin and lehtola’s texts speak to being in the north and the challenges of sámi political autonomy and recognition, closely linked as they are to environments under threat by large-scale development (p. 72). the third part focuses on another key theme of the volume, belonging and the production of home. saara tervaniemi & päivi magga’s chapter (p.75) provides a detailed chronology of the emergence of sápmi – the homeland of the sámi people – as a transnational indigenous homeland, region, political institution, and movement. tervaniemi and magga importantly highlight how cartographic representation of sámi land – as well as sápmi itself – reflects colonial histories and relations, but also what these do not show: land use, customary laws, and place relations expressed in sámi oral traditions and languages, or the ways in which material practices like duodji also embody place, and belonging, and boundaries. forefronting these diverse ways of conceptually, materially, and socially producing space, the authors conclude that sápmi may be understood not only as a region but as a process, network, and counter-narrative to settler colonialism (p.87). extending this understanding of sáminess through processes and networks, jarno valkonen & petri ruuska re-consider the role of the snowmobile in the social organization of reindeer herding (cf. pelto 1987), analyzing the snowmobile as an actor and “fluid object” that comes into existence through relations with herders, animals, and the environment, and expressed in the narratives and identities of herders (p.92). valkonen and ruuska follow the “movement” of the snowmobile as it assembles different actors, co-produces knowledge, and is itself transformed through its relations with other actors. tim ingold’s commentary chapter, rounding off the section, returns to themes raised in the introduction of north as an epistemic location, a particular kind of history, way of being, and dwelling. here, ingold introduces an intriguing framework for categorizing histories and contemporary discourses associated with “west,” “south” and “east” (and to which he suggests “north” as a missing approach) (p.109). “northern” history, ingold argues, can be done almost anywhere, when “everywhere” is defined by practices inhabitation and thus “never nowhere, always somewhere” (p.118). finally, part four considers the production of sámi identity formation through sámi literature, politics, and governance in finland. tapio nykänen’s chapter traces the “dialogical message” (p. 124) of sámi poet and activist nils-aslak valkeapää to understand how valkeapää articulated 4 sáminess as a political identity in poetry and interviews. the chapter follows how and when valkeapää communicated his political message to different audiences – internally, in relation to finnish society, “southerners” and other indigenous peoples of the world – and in turn, how valkeapää was able to represent a northern way of being which resonated far beyond the north. turning from the personal political to the national, sanna valkonen’s chapter delves into the evolution of sámi rights and recognition as indigenous people in finland. this chapter will be essential reading for those seeking to grasp how indigeneity is understood in the nordic countries, particularly national debates around the ratification of ilo 169 (indigenous and tribal people’s convention, 1989). valkonen’s chapter shows how legal and political concepts can influence common understandings of social categories and belonging in finland (also applicable to sweden), where sámi identity has been rapidly transformed in the 20th and 21st centuries. crucially, valkonen shows how this “conceptual governance” (p.143) may reinforce colonial limits on sámi self-definition, as indigenous subjectivity is increasingly connected to historical rights and relations, or what elizabeth povinelli terms the “priority of the prior” (povinelli 2011). the final chapter and section commentary by michael skey underscores what is at stake in struggles over indigenous belonging in finland, when the motivations, values, politics, and privileges associated with markers of belonging remain unexamined in relation to greater institutional structures, from the local to the international. in sum, this volume is an important contribution to conversations on indigenous identity, society, culture, and difference in the nordics today. the collection not only brings a northern sámi research agenda to a global audience but expands the scope of global critical indigenous scholarship from north to south, east to west. cited: pelto, pertti j. 1973. technology and social change in the arctic: the snowmobile revolution. menlo park, cal: cummings publ. comp. povinelli, elizabeth a. 2011. "the governance of the prior." interventions 13, no. 1: 13-30.’ scott, james. 1989. “everyday forms of resistance.” copenhagen journal of asian studies 4, 33–62. 5 elisa maria lópez received her phd in cultural anthropology from uppsala university. her doctoral research examined the production of space, society, and legacies of inequality in the swedish ore fields, sweden’s largest mining region and sámi reindeer herding homeland. elisa is currently a postdoctoral researcher at kth royal institute of technology, school of architecture and the built environment in stockholm, sweden. © 2022 elisa maria lópez 1 khoja-moolji, shenila, 2023, rebuilding community: displaced women and the making of a shia ismaili muslim sociality, oxford: oxford university press, 272 pp., isbn 9780197642030 “rebuilding community: displaced women and the making of a shia ismaili muslim sociality” by shenila khoja-moolji is a poignant ethnography that aims to understand the lives of ismaili women in the diaspora. it is an insightful scholarly work that provides a rare, nuanced analysis of the experiences of ismaili muslim women who were displaced from east africa and east pakistan in the 1970s and settled in west pakistan, england, canada, and the united states. theoretically, khoja-moolji focuses on the ethics of care that these women use to rebuild their communities after displacement. in doing so, she explores how ordinary ethical practices of care are critical to cultivating an ismaili sociality that enables women to practice their faith in everyday contexts. throughout the book, ‘spiritualized socialities’ (7) are invoked both as a concept and as a lived and sensorial experience, thus revealing new paths for theorizing care at the intersection of divine will. not to mention, in understanding how care work is intimately tied to spirituality and ‘placemaking,’ (20) it joins a growing body of anthropological scholarship on care that goes beyond its economic and productivist logic. further, her ethnography exemplifies a move forward within the anthropology of religion that usually focuses on the gap between religious morality and ordinary ethics; instead, khoja-moolji focuses on demonstrating how people enact ethical moral codes between themselves and within communities. with occasional personal touches, the book alternates between ethnography and oral history, literature, memories, and intergenerational stories, making it both ethnographically and theoretically compelling. 2 the book consists of seven chapters engaging its audience in the wider discussions on religious community formation of diasporic ismaili women and their placemaking activities. with ethnographic vignettes and historical records of violent displacement, the introduction sets the stage for the rest of the book. it demonstrates how diasporic ismaili women cultivate kinship relations intergenerationally through voluntary and everyday acts of care in the jamatkhanas (ismaili houses of gathering and worship). these ordinary practices of care, for example, through cleaning, cooking, and caring for the elderly, khoja-moolji argues, are acts of spiritual sociality. such socialities facilitate a fashioning of ethical relationality between members of the faith community and the divine (26). in closing, the introduction discusses the author’s critical positionality as someone deeply familiar with their interlocutors’ religious sensibilities. khojamoolji refers to this as ‘faithful witnessing’ (31) a hermeneutic tool that enhances the researcher’s engagement with the things they see, especially the rhythms of her interlocutors’ religious beliefs. khoja-moolji’s epistemological goal of writing about her interlocutors’ experiences from within builds upon the work of scholars like kirin narayan and amy moran-thomas who have theorized a move beyond the concepts of “native” and “non-native” ethnographers. the second chapter reconstructs the migration of first-generation ismaili women from india to east africa and east pakistan using childhood memories of interlocutors. it’s a feminist story of ismaili community migration between 1890 and 1970 that celebrates women’s life worlds, their struggles with displacements across continents, educational aspirations, and self-care practices that are often forgotten or obscured into the background of male-centered ismaili history. yet, it does not solely aim at uncovering these lost voices, but focuses more on what women’s activities reveal about ismaili ethical subjectivities (35). in other words, the book is also about movements that observe how care and kinship practices traverse time, places, bodies, selves, memories, violence, hopes, and imaginations. examining the historically significant role of jamatkhanas in ismaili communities (86), the third chapter takes a deep dive into women’s placemaking activities. it’s important to note, however, that placemaking in this context is not limited to jamatkhanas’ physical infrastructure. khojamoolji deftly shows that women had often transformed their homes and makeshift living situations into sacred spaces through mundane caregiving she calls seva (88). seva for these women in the 3 jamatkhanas was at once social, spiritual, and agential. as opposed to refocusing on the gendered elements of women’s caregiving, this argument elegantly emphasizes how mundane care practices can transform women’s spiritual lives for generations to come. in khoja-moolji’s book, miracles have as much a place in women's placemaking as they are about more tangible care duties. the fourth chapter is a story of divine intervention and miracles or moujza (132) in the life worlds of ismaili community in the diaspora. by drawing on the works of religious studies scholars such as amira mittermaier and annalisa butticci, khoja-moolji calls for paying close attention to interlocutors' stories of miracles ‘that evade the power of the gaze’ (137) and defy western-centered logic. as a result, we learn about the miracles experienced by the firstgeneration ismaili women and the community as a whole. however, focusing on stories of secondgeneration ismaili women, khoja-moolji also establishes how miracles were not closed in memory as static reverberations, but were revived intergenerationally. these stories of divine intervention in ismaili lives are an important ethnographic addition to the scholarship on anthropology of islam that continues to be held hostage to western rationality. a lively fifth chapter takes us down the path of women’s culinary placemaking. using cookbooks as historical artifacts of women’s quotidian labor, khoja-moolji shows how heritage food played a significant role in recreating religious life in the diaspora. she argues that cookbooks offer an aspirational and healing space to women bringing families and communities together. moving forward, the sixth chapter focuses specifically on second-generation ismaili women born in the us and canada. she analyzes the shift in women's perspectives on migration, placemaking, and ethical subjectivities. as circumstances change in a global world, khoja-moolji argues that women experience the jamat as more ‘transethnic, transnational, and translingual’ (170). yet, she argues, that women are not disengaged or any less spiritual but more creative of their ismaili identities. furthermore, according to khoja-moolji these circumstances also altered how women discussed their traumatic migration memories as 'postmemories' (173). these postmemories of political instability and violence, she argues, are lived vicariously through stories, novels, and photographs. using the methodological tools and techniques of imagination and speculation in literature and history proposed by saidiya hartman, khoja-moolji explores the visceral 4 experiences of migration felt by second-generation ismaili women. the chapter weaves ethnographic vignettes beautifully with novel excerpts and creative works of artists to illustrate how the new-age generations now settled in the us and canada grapple with the traumas of the past, rebuild communities, and practice the ethics of seva. a concluding seventh chapter ties together the themes of migrant placemaking, care ethics, and community building in shia islam. khoja-moolji reflects on moral and ethical codes of ismaili sociality and unglamorous tasks of care work performed by women on a daily basis. her rich and detailed ethnography is a much-needed addition to the literature on islamic theology that usually undertakes a normative male-centered view of islamic ethics. in addition, it marks a careful attempt to move away from the overemphasis on rationality that often characterizes scholarship on the anthropology of ethics. khoja-moolji's book is notable for the way in which she discusses the real and imaginative processes that entail the concept of "relationality," not just among humans but also between humans and the divine. there is no doubt that her book is a decolonial intervention within anthropology of religion that aims to engage with what is beyond the gaze of the ethnographer. in that, her positionality as someone deeply familiar with the context helps “native” ethnographers, such as myself, to move beyond the stifled conception of “going native.” shahana munazir is a phd candidate in cultural anthropology at the university of wisconsinmadison. her phd thesis examines the ethical care practices performed by muslim women in india and the significance they attach to islamic destiny for motivations in practices of their quotidian labor. her doctoral work is being funded by the american institute of indian studies. © 2023 shahana munazir microsoft word borelli review.docx / silvia rodriguez vega 2023, drawing deportation. art and resistance among immigrant children, new york university press, 217 pp, isbn 9781479810451 keywords: immigration; deportation; childhood; trauma; creative methods. in this compelling book, silvia rodriguez vega engages with a challenging task: adding to the vast – and crowded field of migration studies by focusing on the perspectives and experiences of an understudied social group, despite being among the fastest-growing demographics in the us: immigrant children. due to the methodological and ethical constraints it implies, social sciences tend to shy away from conducting research with the youngest sectors of society. on one hand, the most common research methods, such as interviews and surveys, are generally conceived for adults and perform poorly when barriers such as stigma, language, and age get in the way of gathering strictly verbal information. on the other hand, working with underage populations and other vulnerable subjects increasingly requires the approval of ethical boards and committees and compliance with rigid procedures and codes of conduct. these precautionary measures are undoubtedly necessary to protect participants from any possible (intended or unintended) harm derived from the research. however, complying with such strict codes, administrative procedures, and regulations may also kill the joy of conducting field research. that is not the case with rodriguez vega, though: she proves to be neither shy nor looking for shortcuts. on the contrary, she embarks on a long-term journey aimed at unraveling the effects of legal violence – defined as “the various forms of structural injustice in society that directly or indirectly harm people through the rule of law” (rodriguez vega, 2023, p. 4), a concept she borrows from menjívar and abrego (2012) on children with an immigrant background. building on her direct experience working in school and after-school art programs in two latinx communities in phoenix and los angeles over more than ten years, the author manages to unmask the consequences of prolonged exposure to state violence such as structural racism, detention, deportation, and family separation on the children of mixed-status families. she does that through a fine-grained methodology based on art and theatre, labeled as a praxis of art and healing, as it is meant to externalize and process trauma. drawing, impersonating, make-believing, and other techniques are easily embraced by children and have proven to be very effective ways to channel and express feelings and thoughts that may be otherwise too complex to work out, verbalize and share with others, especially when subjects present a condition of chronic stress, as is the case for many kids in immigrant families. rodriguez vega shows how the cumulative effects of rampant anti-immigrant policies affect them regardless of their status or that of their parents, demonstrating once more that when state politics are imbued with the legacy of white supremacy, citizenship is not membership. the author is also adamant in stating that the antidote to chronic stress is not resilience: this is a coping mechanism that does not alter the causes of structural violence in society. nonetheless, art can relieve the most striking symptoms, helping the subject find focus, purpose, and empowerment, and escape the “school-to-prison pipeline” (rodriguez vega, 2023, p. 9). creative methods are also how she could gather a considerable amount of data not only on these kids’ excruciating experiences of border deaths, police violence, racism, and inequalities but also, and maybe most importantly, on their strategies to make sense of such experiences and imagine a future for them and their families against all odds. that is probably the main contribution of this book: in it, children are not passive victims of a system designed to keep them at the margin of society but active subjects who, if given a chance, express strong opinions, demonstrate agency, and can regain some power back through humor and creativity. the structure of the book is pretty straightforward. in the introduction to the volume, the reader is met with the unsettling notion that the practice of separating children from their parents, with which the world became familiar through the viralization of images of caged infants during the notorious ‘zero-tolerance’ campaign that former president trump waged in 2018, is a well-established american tradition since the colonial invasion. in the first chapter, what follows is a general but thorough overview of immigration policies in the us from the 1940s on, something a non-american audience will undoubtedly appreciate. notably, what the chapter highlights are the continuities, more than the discrepancies, between democrats and republicans when it comes to anti-immigrant policies: the criminalization of immigration, the subsequent convergence of immigration and criminal law (or crimmigration), the creation of a detention industry that profits from the mass incarceration of immigrants, and the diversion of resources from social services to surveillance and enforcement programs and bodies, such as immigration and customs enforcement (ice) and customs and border protection (cbp), have been increasing tendencies since at least the second half of the 80s, irrespective of the political hue of the white house. what is maybe even more surprising to a european, progressive eye is learning that the highest number of deportations to date (over three million) was reached during barack obama’s presidency (2008-16), despite the general narrative that surrounded his administration and the issuing of certain protections (such as the deferred action for childhood arrivals or daca) granted to undocumented youth. chapters 2 to 5 present the analysis of the rich material – mainly drawings and transcriptions of theater performances rodriguez vega collected during her work in arizona and california with immigrant children and are organized by the following themes: first is “fear” (as an outcome of the policies described in the previous chapter: family disintegration, police abuse, and structural racism), followed by “response” (of the children of arizona to those threats, embodied by “america’s toughest sheriff” joe arpaio), “resistance” (of the california youth to anti-immigrant policies, notably during the 2016 presidential campaign and after donald trump got elected) and finally, “resilience” (reflecting how, through the employed creative methods, children were able to overcome their righteous indignation – which mirrored back societal violence – and come up with their solutions and alternatives). after the conclusive remarks and acknowledgments, the author offers the reader a detailed methodological overview worth reading, as it provides valuable hints and guidelines for students, scholars, and everyone interested in working with subjects deemed particularly vulnerable. one of the outcomes of recent encounters between anthropology and contemporary art has been the questioning of logocentrism, meaning the prioritization of discourse and text over the visual (see rikou and yakouri, 2018). as visual anthropology has abundantly demonstrated, the renewed role of the visual is, at least, double-fold: it can be both the possible final product of research and a tool for producing knowledge. here, art making is the key to unlocking meanings that otherwise, due to barriers such as language, age, traumatic memories, stigma, and power imbalance, would have probably never emerged. certain human categories are particularly subject to be considered “voiceless”: refugees, children, victims of domestic abuse... the list is long. research as rodriguez vega’s clearly shows that it is not a matter of “giving them voice,” as they already have one, and it can be strong and loud: instead, it is about being willing to change the language to allow everyone to speak. works cited: menjívar, c. and abrego, l. j. (2012). legal violence. immigration law and the lives of central american immigrants. american journal of sociology, vol. 117, no. 5 (march 2012), pp. 13801421 rikou, e. and yalouri, e. (2018). the art of research practices between art and anthropology. field. a journal of socially-engaged art criticism. issue 11, fall 2018. https://fieldjournal.com/editorial/introduction-the-art-of-research-practices-between-art-andanthropology rodriguez vega, s. (2023). drawing deportation. art and resistance among immigrant children. new york university press caterina borelli is a social anthropologist who received her phd from the university of barcelona. she is currently a marie curie post-doctoral researcher at the ca’ foscari university in venice, in partnership with the new school for social research in new york, where she is working on her project becamp – beyond the camp: border regimes, enduring liminality and everyday geopolitics in italy and spain (supported by h2020-msca-if-2019 marie skłodowskacurie grant funding, grant reference number: 898276). previously, she conducted ethnographic research in spain and bosnia herzegovina, focusing on gentrification and other urban transformation processes, urban frontiers, and internal borders. /© 2023 caterina borelli microsoft word gemzöe final.doc 1 “the future lives with us”: diversity work and processes of change in the church of sweden helgesson kjellin, kristina (2016). en bra plats att vara på. en antropologisk studie av mångfaldsarbete och identitetsskapande inom svenska kyrkan [a good place to be. an anthropological study of diversity work and identity formation in the church of sweden]. artos & norma bokförlag. kristina helgesson kjellin introduces her book a good place to be. an anthropological study of diversity work and identity formation in the church of sweden with the story of how a small marian side altar suddenly appears in a church in the suburb skärholmen outside stockholm. this type of side altar, common in catholic and orthodox churches, is usually not seen in the lutheran church of sweden. its appearance in the suburban church can be related to the presence of migrant communities with their roots in other (christian) traditions, members of which today make up a considerable part of the churchgoers in sweden. the story of how the side altar became integrated in this swedish church is one of the examples offered by helgesson kjellin of the multifaceted encounters between the tradition of the church of sweden and different migrant communities. through ethnographic studies of such encounters, helgesson kjellin aims to illuminate what she refers to as “diversity work” [mångfaldsarbete]. as the term can signify the promotion of diversity regarding a range of categories such as gender, age, sexuality, functionality, ethnicity and religion, the author clarifies that her focus is the “cultural and religious diversity, mainly the christian diversity” p.15) that characterize the congregations she has studied. these all belong to a network named “the future lives with us” [framtiden bor hos oss] formed in 2001 by congregations in a number of urban centers in sweden around a common vision of the church of sweden as “a church for everyone, irrespective of cultural and/or religious background” (p. 15). fieldwork was conducted among employees and volunteers active in the network, with a special focus on the church in skärholmen. 2 the criteria for joining the network is to be a minority congregation (meaning that less than 70% of the inhabitants are members of the church of sweden) and to be located in an urban, culturally and religious diverse community. an important feature of these congregations is that in spite of low numbers of members, the level of activity is high with many people coming to the church to pray, to ask for aid and to attend church services. for the churches in the network the burning issue is how to be relevant in their communities under these conditions, including the economic challenge for a post-state church that now depends on membership fees. helgesson kjellin’s book could be read as a study of diversity work in a swedish organization like any other and the author opens up for such a reading as she draws on sara ahmed and other scholars researching diversity work in different contexts. ahmed’s (2012) understanding that practical diversity work carries with it a certain reflexivity is important in this study as is her suggestion that diversity work can be thought of as “turning walls into tables.” the metaphor implies that organizations have different invisible “walls” that hinder diversity but if they can be made visible and turned into tables for discussion things can move forward. helgesson kjellin structures her ethnography around the church building as a physical place that offers different rooms for encounters between people, such as the premises of the congregations where ”språkcaféer” (language cafés) or soup kitchens can be organized, “kyrkbacken” (the space outside the church interior) for spontaneous meetings and the church interior for church services, spontaneous visits and individual prayers – the latter practice led to the creation of the side altar mentioned above. helgesson kjellin shows how the abstract notion of being an open and inclusive church literally is put at stake in the daily efforts to keep the church premises open to all visitors. churchgoers with a non-swedish cultural-religious background bring new practices or habits to the church that in many cases start a series of negotiations with the employees to find a solution acceptable to all – the women of catholic origin who started to pray to a marian icon in the church of skärholmen is one such example as it eventually led to an official inauguration of a side altar in this church. another example that is explored in detail is the case of a group of syrian and iraqi men who regularly come to the so called “kyrkbacken,” an open space outside the church interior with tables where one can drink coffee and read newspapers. the men’s habit of occupying this space also when services were held led to certain frictions; the employees engaged in a communication with the men that resulted in a better mutual understanding and the start of a “language café,” a space to practice and learn swedish in an informal setting. 3 in ethnographic descriptions of situations like these, kjelllin brings home her main point: practical, reflexive work for diversity is carried out on a daily basis in a myriad of ways in these churches, experiences of which are highly valuable to the church of sweden generally – and beyond since the described situations are not unique to religious spaces. in the unfolding ethnography, one sometimes wishes that general insights or patterns were spelled out more clearly. the author typically stays close to her interlocutors and returns to their questions about how to build an open church throughout the book. there are, however, various interesting suggestions on how to understand what the walls that ahmed talks about are made of in this specific case. a key point is that the frictions often originate in a swedish norm about how to behave in religious contexts. it is worth noticing that many of the examples of negotiations that turn walls into tables also shows what norms could not be transgressed. the marian side altar that became officially recognized ended up without the plastic flowers put there by the catholic women. when funeral processions passed the group of syrian and iraqi men outside the church interior, they used to rise and bow as a sign of respect, something which by some grieving families was perceived as a disturbing behavior. an important result of the study is that it uncovers in detail the ways in which a norm of “swedishness” is intertwined with the religious culture of the church of sweden, a sort of swedish lutheranism bound up with national identity developed over the centuries. in light of this, it is interesting to note that the ideal of an open church includes the radical notion of the “open communion table.” this means that communion is given to everyone who wishes so without any questions asked about faith or baptism in spite of the existing church order that states baptism as a requirement for receiving communion. a key regulation of religious ritual simply had to be abandoned, judging by the ethnography, without causing major frictions. throughout the book, helgesson kjellin stresses how easily an “us and them” is re-created, but also seeks to show the genuine efforts in the network to avoid that kind of thinking. reflecting on how to handle the inequality in the relationship experienced by the most vulnerable, such as undocumented migrants, is one such reflexive practice that is integral to diversity work for employees and volunteers. at the same time, they express a feeling of being left alone without guidelines from the church leadership. the establishment and integration of the association mekane yesus in the church of skärholmen has its own fascinating story that helgesson kjellin dedicates one chapter to. the 4 lutheran church mekane yesus was founded in ethiopia by swedish missionaries in 1959. the association mekane yesus in skärholmen, founded by ethiopians in the diaspora, is the first and largest mekane yesus community in europe. the association arranges regular church services in amarinha that have been essential for the strong community of ethiopians and eritreans in stockholm. recently, the long relationship between mekane yesus in ethiopia and the church of sweden changed drastically. in line with the idea of “reverse missionizing” based on the perception that christian churches in the global north has sold out to secular liberal values, mekane yesus in ethiopia broke with the church of sweden in 2013 due to differing standpoint on gay marriage. this did not affect the association in sweden directly, since it technically does not belong to the official ethiopian church, and both sides in the congregation of skärholmen wanted to keep things the way they were. this solution is facilitated by a priest of ethiopian background who holds a key position as a mediator between the different groups in the congregation of skärholmen. nevertheless, tensions arise and differences in views on homosexuality need to be handled upfront. the conversations with this priest and other church employees of different african backgrounds that helgessonkjellin relate in this chapter offer a much-needed perspective on diversity work; they stress the dire need of creating cultural diversity among the staff in the church of sweden. the central dilemma faced by the people in the network boils down to the question: if we embrace the notion of being an open church, do we not risk losing our own identity as a church? as put by one of the employees: “what happens to a church…if it lets the walls tumble down?” in the absence of a common agreement about which boundaries are unnegotiable, these evolve in daily practice. what employees and volunteers in the network emphasize vary: combatting racism, xenophobia and homophobia is a key point: “if you have a problem regarding veiled women, you have to go to another church” as one priest puts it. different aspects of the lutheran tradition are brought up, such as openness to change and constant reformation in close interaction with society. further, the notion of “popular/lay priesthood” [allmänna prästdömet] is important, i.e., everyone’s right to interpret the gospels, a right that evens out the authority of the clergy. here, helgesson kjellin’s book opens up for further inquiries the current processes of change in the church of sweden. it is worth noticing that the people coming to the church with varying religious-cultural backgrounds have already brought about change and created new shared experiences. as church historian bergman (2006) reminds us in his article “strangers becoming family,” such processes are not new; “strangers” have contributed to change 5 throughout the history of the church. the network “the future lives with us” finds itself right at the center of such a current wave of change. references: ahmed, sara. 2012. on being included: racism and diversity in institutional life. duke university press. bergman, martin. 2006. “strangers becoming family: ‘low-level impact’ international integration and its impact on the church of sweden.” kirchliche zeitgeschischte 19(1): 65– 80 professor lena h. gemzöe is a social anthropologist at the university of stockholm. her research has mainly revolved around gender and religion, with special expertise in pilgrimage studies focusing on portugal, spain, france and sweden. in recent years, she has worked on collaborative projects and been involved in several interdisciplinary research groups. her research and interest in gender studies have been more recently dominated by the establishment of the gender academy, a faculty-wide network for collaboration between departments at stockholm university on gender research. https://www.su.se/profiles/gemzo1.184885 © 2021 lena gemzöe microsoft word stambach review.docx 1 colin hoag, 2022, the fluvial imagination: on lesotho’s water-export economy, oakland: university of california press, 224 pp., isbn 978-0-52038-6341. in the fluvial imagination, colin hoag, a former u.s. peace corps volunteer in lesotho, examines rangeland and water conservation efforts associated with the lesotho highland water project, a crucial infrastructure initiative designed to cater to the ever-increasing water demands of the south african cities of johannesburg and gauteng. historically, lesotho was known for producing grains for south africa's orange free state. it later became a labor reserve during the apartheid era in south africa and eventually established itself as a supplier of wool and mohair. today, lesotho is the primary provider of fresh water to south africa. however, sediment buildup in the lesotho highlands water project dams poses a significant threat to the country's freshwater supply. it is this issue that forms the basis of hoag’s quest to find solutions to ecological problems in using the insights of anthropology. many readers may already be familiar with hoag's more concise analyses of water management and livestock production in his previous works (see especially "water is a gift that destroys," economic anthropology march 2019, and "the ovicaprine mystique," american anthropologist september 2018). those works, like the fluvial imagination, drew on insights from hoag’s numerous interviews with engineers, herders, livestock owners, and conservationists as well as analysis of records housed in colonial and contemporary archives. however, while previous publications provide part of the picture, the fluvial imagination contributes much more significantly to anthropological critiques of flawed development projects and interventions by drawing attention to the humanist-ecological dimensions at the core of conservation and resource management. as such, the work encourages a deeper understanding of the complex interrelations of history, community practices, and environmental governance. of greatest significance for anthropologists, the fluvial imagination offers an expanded interpretation of james ferguson’s analysis of the failed efforts by the world bank in the late twentieth century to commercialize cattle livestock in lesotho. while ferguson argued that the world bank’s development initiatives overlooked the social value of cattle (ferguson called the development-defying powers of cattle “the bovine mystique”), hoag suggests that a different livestock “mystique” is now at play. contemporary highland herders in lesotho are more inclined to sell their livestock, particularly small livestock like goats and sheep. this shift indicates a desire to raise many of these animals quickly in the highlands, where grazing practices contribute to soil erosion. this erosion subsequently clogs the dams that supply water to south africa. hoag refers to herders’ enthrallment with the potential of goats and sheep to make them wealthy despite herders serving as the brunt of administrators’ blame for erosion, as the “ovicaprine mystique.” although hoag’s argument about the 2 ovicaprine mystique might have appeared earlier in the book in order to drive the anthropological argument about social ecology more forcefully (it is only fully discussed in chapter 4), addressing herders’ efforts to sustain their livelihoods enhances hoag’s insightful critique of bureaucracy and resource extraction. one of the book's most compelling insights is that a defining feature of conservationists’ resource management efforts is the intentional engineering of both social and environmental resources to advance the singular goal of rapid resource extraction for economic development. to capture this eco-social aspect of resource management, hoag develops the concept of fluvial imagination to describe water conservationists' implicit sociological perspectives about how water flows across the land. the idea not only recalls c. wright mills’ notion of “the sociological imagination,” inveighing sociologists to observe what is present but unsaid. it also undergirds the book's central argument that a landscape is socially engineered and capable of acting independently; it resists human management due to the natural forces of geology and gravity. while hoag observes that prevailing narratives among engineers and administrators often blame herders for dams' sediment buildup, hoag's own approach is more nuanced, including his assessment that conservation administrators themselves understand that resource management requires social engineering. hoag uses the term “conservation bureaucrats” to refer to the engineers and professionals who implement rangeland ecology principles to maximize water exports and who are constrained by projects and policies that failed before them. the term is useful yet underestimates these professionals’ own complex observations and interventions. in the lesotho highlands, conservationists’ efforts translate into programs such as fato-fato, which involves building rock-line sedimentation traps. surprisingly, conservationists support building these traps not primarily to retain water and prevent soil erosion, but to generate income opportunities, thus providing meaningful work for people living in lesotho’s highland herding communities. the book concludes with a discussion on landscape degradation and encourages conservation biologists to consider historical, racialized, and economic contexts alongside traditional ecological factors. although it is consensus anthropology, hoag's book emphasizes the failures of governance systems to protect long-term ecological stability, as well as the progrowth resource management strategies and social control methods aimed at promoting economic growth. as a study of environmental issues and an analysis of political-economic systems of governance, hoag’s call for a more critical ecological science that incorporates considerations of political economy and history will appeal to students and scholars for its interdisciplinary insights. anthropologists interested in environmental issues, economic systems, and governance should value it as a compelling critique of so-called development projects. overall, hoag’s work encourages readers to carefully reflect on the consequences of water commodification for both communities and ecosystems. offering a critical lens for examining the interplay among livestock practices, ecological governance, and ecosystems, the fluvial imagination highlights the socio-economic dynamics that shape the lives of herders. by introducing concepts like the “ovicaprine mystique” and the “fluvial imagination,” hoag encourages readers to rethink the implications of resource extraction and management strategies. 3 key words: lesotho, herders, water, environment, conservation reviewed by amy e. stambach, author of the corporate alibi: capitalism and the cultural politics of us investments in africa, university of california, 2025. orcid: 0000-0002-0693-3966 © 2025 amy e. stambach microsoft word backman review.docx 1 hamlin, rebecca. 2021. crossing: how we label and react to people on the move. stanford, california: stanford university press, isbn: 9781503610606 rebecca hamlin’s second book titled, crossing: how we label and react to people on the move, proceeds with one central argument: the migrant/refugee binary is a legal fiction with obscuring qualities and destructive consequences when used by scholars, policy makers, and in public discourse. hamlin shows that the binary term is brought to the fore in the bureaucratized mesh of international protection when various agendas are run by nation states and organizations such as the unhcr. to begin, hamlin establishes that implementation of the migrant/refugee binary builds on three main assumptions: first, it assumes that border crossings are undertaken either voluntarily or by force. second, that those considered refugees are more deserving of protection than migrants. and third, that there is a lower number of people crossing borders involuntarily than voluntarily – that is, as refugees. the examples given to illustrate how these reductive assumptions take expression are rich and convincing. while legal binaries are used for differentiating between people based on status, the parameters that go into navigating them by authorities greatly vary. regardless of what kind of qualities are sought for to grant refugee status, these processes manifest power dynamics associated with global inequality. in this regard, the disempowering essentialism entailed in the labeling of people crossing borders – as either vulnerable or demonized, feeds into the dehumanization of certain groups of people that is central to the making of ‘fortress’ europe (sajjad 2018). this relates to how states can pursue a humanitarian reasoning by which their interventions are justified precisely because some are considered vulnerable and prone to suffer (fassin 2012). hamlin’s work adds to a body of literature where state making through protection of certain groups is at focus. it also contributes with illustrations of how this takes expression against a perceived shared reality of international protection and points to how safeguarding of state interests expresses in the flux of international relations where security and humanitarianism 2 are held as leitmotifs. an important cue is that consequences are specifically burdening to those who are left in liminality. hamlin further demonstrates that the migrant/refugee binary figure has equivalents in social scientific sensemaking of the organization and management of people who cross administrative borders. the binary sets off discussions in a specific direction because it establishes refugees as timeless phenomena with an assumed neutrality that simultaneously conceals (as knowledge, metaphors, and language in general does). in other words, the binary is obscuring, and therefore, generative to “knowledge production” related to migration. however, hamlin does not take the chance to problematize any of the underlying notions to the migrant/refugee binary, such as motivation, free will, and deservingness. consequently, the discussion remains rather affirmative of parameters such as intentions and merits being the necessary indicators for understanding border crossings. while a binary point of referencing can be problematized, any act of classification or characterization risk being made from unquestioned positions that seem “stay put” or from a methodological “above.” analysis is fundamentally made in relation to some or other point of reference, but when focus remains established on nation states, administrative borders, or other legal conformities the risk of justifying rather than questioning the relevance of the same for understanding what goes on prevails. legal frameworks, such as the refugee convention, requires interpretation so what about those social agents who perform this form of labor? critical social sciences have attempted to understand policy makers, while showing the impact of policies on those who are affected (shore & wright 2011). there are instances where successful challenging and changing of immigration policy have been achieved by those who are considered governed by the same (però 2011). in sight of this, hamlin’s request for scholarly thinking beyond binaries is in full effect when seeing that states and individual caseworkers might categorize people in various and localized ways. the conflated critique directed at scholars, policy writers and practitioners, who supposedly have different agendas, seems promising because it accounts for their intrinsic alliances. but arguing that the twofold legal term is deficient supports the presupposition that legal justice is a prerequisite for social justice. we might ask whether a diversified labeling and the corresponding legal protection is sufficient for eliminating/overcoming the consequent suffering from uncapacious descriptions. this book gives reason to ask whether diversification of (legal) categories help making both sense of and justice to the broad range of accounts of border crossings? what does it imply to first argue the fictitious quality of law and then to remain with 3 making law an unquestioned figure of analysis or the given and necessary point of reference? the migrant/refugee binary is a key dimension of immigration law, the very logic through which law makes sense of people crossing borders and thus forcibly is made relevant – perhaps too well relevant. the critique can be related to discussions of processes that make legal concepts, or conceptualizations, work. the move towards perceived abstraction implies reduction, whether considered brought about through acts of entification (larsen 2010) or equivalent processes. in this view, binaries allow processes of rationalization, and rationalization allows governance that perpetuates those schemes that set off the motions in the first place (ibid). focus is cut out and made palpable out of a perceived reality and legal technicity makes law present through boundary making. law is as ontologically productive of “the real” and potentially vehement as any move of language or depiction in force thereof. in this sense, binaries work because of the fundamental sense in which we make sense of things by experience of differences (bateson 2015). hamlin’s ambition sets out from the want that there are, or at least should be, ways of describing reality to give people more accurate protection. diversification of legal concepts seems justified in face of injustice, while legal instruments tend to remain in the hands of the powerful – by definition, rather than by virtue of the excellence of their users. and there are stakeholders who are more convincing in their tries to justify the ‘correct’ version than others. the quest to methodologically move beyond binary thinking risks remaining incomplete without an examination of what binaries are, what they are productive and efficient for – and for who? hamlin’s book (2021) indeed wakes interest for these aspects: what is that space called “beyond binaries” like and how are we to navigate it without use of other concepts that make sense in relation to their origin? a subsequent discussion would be intriguing to read because when hamlin briefly ponders what might be done beyond binary thinking the discussion leads to a questioning of border practices, to suggesting attention to the division of responsibility and culpability, and to suggesting more careful use of language. at last, the suggestion to apply a “nonbinary reframe” as an alternative frame of protection makes clear that the instances allow reconsideration but nevertheless require data, and then one might ask: what data? hamlin (2021:6) does take off from derrida (2004), in accounting for the inherent hierarchy in binaries, and dives into the question of where and for whom binaries are in effect – in the sense that there are three chapters on geographical instances in the book. however, the questioning of immigration law remains a critique of law for what law fundamentally does if the grounding that lends the binary 4 technicity an illusory stability is disregarded. an added suggestion from derrida’s (1978) – that the center of a structure not only is substituted by yet another center, but also fundamentally establishes as an elapsing phenomenon, might lead the call for going “beyond binaries” further. derrida’s point (1978) on the engineer being another version of the sophisticated bricoleur (levistrauss 1962), suggests proceeding from what is at hand is inevitable. legal binaries disseminated to multiple categories nevertheless orientates around a rigid center that allows efficient organization of a shared reality – enlightenment out of looming chaos, but the given order remains destructive to some while productive to others. works cited: bateson, g. (2015) “form, substance and difference,” etc., 72(1), pp. 90–104 derrida, j. and bass, a. (2004) positions. london: continuum (continuum impacts). derrida, j. and bass, a. (1978) writing and difference. london: routledge & kegan paul. fassin, d. and gomme, r. (2012) humanitarian reason : a moral history of the present times. berkeley: university of california press. hamlin, r. (2021) crossing. redwood city: stanford university press. larsen, t. (2010) “acts of entification,” in human nature as capacity. ned new edition, 1. berghahn books, pp. 154–176. però, d. (2011) “migrants’ practices of citizenship and policy change,” in policy worlds. ned new edition, 1. berghahn books, pp.244–263. sajjad, t. (2018) “what’s in a name? ‘refugees’, ‘migrants’ and the politics of labelling,” race & class, 60(2), pp. 40–62. shore, c., wright, s. and però, d. (2011) policy worlds. 1st edn. new york, ny: berghahn books (easa). aina backman is a doctoral candidate in social anthropology at the norwegian university of science and technology, ntnu. her master’s thesis in anthropology presented at stockholm university, explores affective atmospheres in courtroom procedures at the court of criminal justice in vienna. her current research project continues the interest by exploring work life at swedish immigration detention centres through the optic of technology. among her interests are work life, philosophy of science and the history of science. 5 © 2022 aina backman 1 martin gruber, 2022, sharing the camera. a guide to collaborative ethnographic filmmaking, sean kingston publishing, 182 pp., isbn: 978-1-912385-44-77 keywords: collaboration, ethnographic film, indigenous media, participatory video, toolkit this book offers a comprehensive and inspiring introduction to what gruber describes as collaborative ethnographic filmmaking, which combines ideas and methods from the fields of ethnographic film, indigenous media and participatory video. the emphasis is on collaboration, not just as a buzzword, but as a conscientious effort to work with a diversity of persons in the process of making film, ideally of a high aesthetic quality and cinematic complexity. it is all about sharing the camera, because even inexperienced people can learn to make film, for instance through hands-on workshops facilitated by researchers and/or filmmakers. and when researchers give up control over the camera, people we work with can take power over their own filmic representation and create their own films. collaborative ethnographic filmmaking makes a lot of sense and gruber shows us how it can be done. he openly shares his experiences, even his mistakes, in a tone of experimental curiosity and courageous reflexivity. written in a very readable style, the book is structured into two parts. part i outlines a toolkit for collaborative filmmaking, following a carefully selected theoretical and methodological framework. this framework draws on concepts and methods in ethnographic filmmaking, indigenous media and participatory video, which are treated in separate chapters. focusing on participation and collaboration, the book provides a comprehensive overview of these fields, serving as a useful introduction for scholars from various disciplines. for instance, the chapter on ethnographic filmmaking traces participatory filmmaking to the pioneering work of robert flaherty, followed by a succinct overview of the works of jean rouch, john marshall, judith and david macdougall. the inclusion of gruber’s various conversations with david macdougall anchors his analysis empirically, a dialogical exchange between a master and apprentice. gruber recognises the male dominance in earlier 2 ethnographic filmmaking, and makes some effort to bring forth female voices, not least the work of faye ginsburg. the judicious discussion of how these forerunners in ethnographic filmmaking have dealt with questions of collaboration provides an insightful history into visual anthropology as well as broader discussions in anthropology. in addition to building on the work of anthropological filmmakers, gruber draws on indigenous media and participatory video. he foregrounds the societal significance of cultural and political activism through indigenous media-making, targeting local as well as international audiences. in addition to discussing various examples of indigenous media production, he argues that recent collaborations between indigenous media makers and anthropologists constitute some of the most innovative examples of contemporary audio-visual and multimodal anthropology. participatory video is described as an approach aimed at enabling representatives of marginalized groups or communities to discuss and communicate issues of concern to them through video production. participants are usually trained in basic filmmaking skills through workshops and guided in the filmmaking process. although not common in anthropology, participatory video has been used in community film projects as well as various development projects, inspired by paulo freire’s seminal pedagogy of the oppressed from 1968. gruber also discusses the less known but very inspiring combination of participatory video, drama and/or fictionalization, or what some scholars have called participatory video drama, which he also compares with theatre for development, traced to augusto boal. while acknowledging some of the critique against the use and misuse of participation in dominant discourses of development, gruber underlines the usefulness of participatory video, both as process and product, for closer collaboration with various groups or communities. part i is concluded with a short chapter outlining a methodological toolkit for collaborative ethnographic filmmaking, including a list of questions worth thinking with, grouped into three categories: initiative and focus; participant input; and benefits. in part ii, gruber explores collaborative ethnographic filmmaking in practice, drawing on his own experiences in angola, botswana, and namibia from 2010 to 2013. this work was carried out as part of the future okavango research project, which sought to generate an overview of the ecosystem of the okavango river basin. the project included over 130 natural and social scientists from various universities in africa, europe, and latin america. gruber was part of a sub-project focusing on stakeholder involvement and transdisciplinarity, and tasked with making films about the environment together with local stakeholders. this was primarily done through workshops in village settings, with the help of co-workers. following a chapter on local 3 contexts, gruber discusses his experiences of collaborative filmmaking, focusing on preproduction, production and post-production. through a detailed description of various activities and discussions, he shares insights from the filmmaking process, with candour and selfawareness. for instance, he reflects on his own positionality as a ‘white, male, foreign expert’ in relationships that can be ‘hierarchical and shaped by structural racism,’ while underlining that ‘it is feasible (and necessary) to undermine such roles and hierarchies and (at least temporarily) create a safe space’ (p. 133-134). illustrated with colour photographs, these chapters offer an ethnographic description of the collaborative filmmaking process, combining thick description with astute analysis. part ii is concluded with two short chapters, outlining spheres of participation and collaboration, as well as a closing argument on how sharing the camera makes a difference. the films discussed in part ii are available online at https://vimeo.com/channels/collaborate. in liparu lyetu-our life (32 minutes) we can see how well villagers in northern namibia managed to master the art of filmmaking, expertly shooting various scenes that capture their use of natural resources, combined with interviews with various experts. although gruber himself was hesitant about the expert interviews, fearing they would reproduce hierarchies, the villagers insisted on including them, and he admits that by doing so, they actually reversed power relations. this goes to show what a difference sharing the camera can make. sharing the camera will hopefully inspire more anthropologists to explore collaborative filmmaking, not least to push forward more innovative forms of multimodal anthropology. in my own experience, passing on the camera to interlocutors and giving them the freedom to film what they want changes the research dynamics in rewarding ways. inspired by macdougall’s work on social aesthetics in the doon school (1999) and pink’s method of walking with video (2007), i walked with teachers and students at an arts college in tanzania, while they filmed what they thought was interesting on campus (uimonen 2012). participants found this research method to be fun as well as empowering, as they took charge of the research process, while i got insights that i would not have obtained in any other way. more recently, i gave a diver in tanzania a gopro camera so he could film under water. he had never held a gopro, yet he managed to get great footage of sea cucumbers in their habitat. to my surprise, the diver also took some creative initiative, turning the camera to capture a small fish in front of his face, thus taking an underwater selfie. when we looked at his footage later on he was very enthusiastic and asked when we could film again. this goes to show what a difference sharing the camera can make. and how much fun it can be to do so. https://vimeo.com/channels/collaborate 4 paula uimonen is professor of social anthropology at stockholm university. she is specialized in anthropology of art, digital media, visual culture, world literature, ocean and water. her current research project swahili ocean worlds explores environmental and social sustainability in fishing communities in tanzania, through multi-sited and multisensory fieldwork. this collaborative research project is carried out with researchers from university of dar es salaam and funded by the swedish research council (2022-2024). paula is also involved in the decolonizing research methodologies project, which is a collaborative effort between universities in burkina faso, mali, sweden and tanzania. paula’s recent open access publications include the article “spiritual relationality in swahili ocean worlds” (2021, special issue on water in kritisk etnografi), the monograph invoking flora nwapa. nigerian women writers, femininity and spirituality in world literature (2020, stockholm university press), and the book chapter “one world literature with chinua achebe and flora nwapa,” in claiming space. locations and orientations in world literatures (2021, bloomsbury academic). works cited: macdougall, david. “social aesthetics and the doon school.” visual anthropology review 15 no 1 (1999): 3-20. pink, sarah. “walking with video.” visual studies 22 no 3 (2007): 240-252. uimonen, paula. digital drama. teaching and learning art and media in tanzania. new york: routledge, 2012. http://innovativeethnographies.net/digitaldrama © 2023 paula uimonen https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/swahili-ocean-worlds-fishing-communities-and-sea-sustainability-in-tanzania http://www.afrikastudier.uu.se/en/project/decolonizing-research-methodologies/ http://innovativeethnographies.net/digitaldrama martin gruber, 2022, sharing the camera. a guide to collaborative ethnographic filmmaking, sean kingston publishing, 182 pp., isbn: 978-1-912385-44-77 keywords: collaboration, ethnographic film, indigenous media, participatory video, toolkit this book offers a comprehensive and inspiring introduction to what gruber describes as collaborative ethnographic filmmaking, which combines ideas and methods from the fields of ethnographic film, indigenous media and participatory video. the emphasi... part i outlines a toolkit for collaborative filmmaking, following a carefully selected theoretical and methodological framework. this framework draws on concepts and methods in ethnographic filmmaking, indigenous media and participatory video, which a... in addition to building on the work of anthropological filmmakers, gruber draws on indigenous media and participatory video. he foregrounds the societal significance of cultural and political activism through indigenous media-making, targeting local a... in part ii, gruber explores collaborative ethnographic filmmaking in practice, drawing on his own experiences in angola, botswana, and namibia from 2010 to 2013. this work was carried out as part of the future okavango research project, which sought t... the films discussed in part ii are available online at https://vimeo.com/channels/collaborate. in liparu lyetu-our life (32 minutes) we can see how well villagers in northern namibia managed to master the art of filmmaking, expertly shooting various s... sharing the camera will hopefully inspire more anthropologists to explore collaborative filmmaking, not least to push forward more innovative forms of multimodal anthropology. in my own experience, passing on the camera to interlocutors and giving the... works cited: microcosms of power dynamics: the hidden world of pharmaceutical testing review by ellen a. ahlness jill a. fisher, 2020, adverse events: race, inequality, and the testing of new pharmaceuticals, new york: new york university press, 317 pp., isbn 978-1-4798-6216-0 adverse events is the product of over a decade of research, incorporating challenging ethnographic field work with theoretical considerations. at its core, it is a book about social inequality in a disconcerting place. the book is divided into nine chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion. tables and figures are distributed through the book, though largely centered in two sections. fisher does an excellent job of engaging the reader, and the book itself opens with a hypothetical thought process that an individual might go through as they as they consider whether to participate in the first phase of a clinical drug trial. the introduction assumes that readers have little background knowledge about clinical trials, explaining the difference between various testing stages in the pharmaceuticals industry, and notes two critical features of the industry. first, that phase one trials disproportionately represent racial minorities and men, and second, that monetary compensation is the primary, if not only, motivation to enroll as a healthy volunteer. the text is heavily centered on phenomenological research, interrogating how healthy volunteers experience their participation in phase one trials, especially compared to how the general public perceives their involvement. adverse events, therefore, tries to center the human experience in spaces where dehumanization is possible, as people increasingly lose agency over their bodies, being told when they eat, if they can exercise, and how much blood will be drawn. two themes are at the core of the entire book. first is the concept of imbricated stigma, the notion that people may have combined stigmas that affect the barriers they face. second is the notion of the ‘healthy volunteer’ as a model individual. together, these contribute to the social inequalities on which the research empire is built and even affect the agency of individuals who participate in research themselves. individuals are rewarded for giving up their agency by submitting to controlled conditions. chapter 1 provides greater ethnographic detail about entering and staying in a clinic. it injects the reader into the environment by describing what it looks like, how it operates, and the general tone. this is also where fisher inputs a great deal of reflexive research, setting up the methodological considerations of the project. fisher is forthcoming about methodological difficulties. despite this, there is an impressive amount of data for qualitative research: she interviewed 235 ‘healthy’ volunteers for the project, lending credibility to her conversation on power dynamics and vulnerability. chapter 2 provides greater narrative on the economic motivations of volunteers, and how someone's background shapes their view and motivations for participating in phase one trials. chapter 3 continues this theme to consider how variations in patterns of stigma and intersectionality influence perceptions of phase one trials. while fisher does not explicitly use the phrase intersectionality in their introduction, their perspective on stigma and vulnerability is consistent with the idea of intersectionality chapter 4 examines a brief history of phase one trial clinics in the united states, which provides a foundation for a conversation on study protocols in chapter 5, on how trial demands can lead to specific practices by research staff, which can affect validity concerns (analyzed in chapter 6). while chapter 7 does not draw on secondary data to articulate the risks of participating in phase one trials, the phenomenological and human centered themes are continued as fisher investigates healthy volunteer perceptions of trials’ safety and their self-categorization of some trials as more risky than others. in chapter 8, fisher expands on this content, arguing that risk constructions are a kind of epistemology, representing the way that model volunteers make sense of knowledge from personal experiences, narratives of others, and the facts received from clinics. chapter 9 concludes this conversation about risk by articulating a common and surprising narrative that fisher found in their study: volunteers are very vocal about the economic risk of not qualifying for studies. adverse event’s conclusion brings everything together at a macro level, reflecting on the political and economic context of us phase one trials. fisher asserts that a society characterized by stigmas, especially intersectional stigmas, means that there will always be healthy volunteers willing to undergo risks for financial compensation. one of the text’s greatest strengths is that it never presents an illusion of the author as being separate from their research. moreover, it does this in a way that enhances its accessibility to the general public, as sections read like an autobiography. at the same time, there is a productive sense of discomfort throughout the book that individuals are ‘selling themselves’ because they have nothing else to sell. fisher presents this perspective herself, but does give quotes that suggest that this is not an uncommon way of thinking among phase one trial participants. in talking about the human experience, fisher seems to be particularly conscientious about inferring participants’ explicitly communicated motivations for participating in trials, cognizant to not ascribe secondary meanings. culture itself is a major theme throughout the book. even as trial communities develop their own cultures, the three regions in which phase one trials are conducted in the us each have their own unique clinical trial cultures. fisher concludes the book with a warning about the dangers of invisibility: the phase one world is fundamentally invisible. even as it is robust and established in the us, along with other developed countries around the world, very few people are aware of it. that, more than anything else, gives these industries power. their hidden nature adds to their stigma and further protects the interest of pharmaceutical industries while making volunteers more vulnerable. consequently, fisher advocates for clinic and holistic industry practices that will reduce the stigma of participation. this book is an excellent read both for those interested in the sociology and anthropology of healthcare and the medical environment, as well as for readers with interests in labor and critical race and gender studies; there is no denying the impact of race, gender, and class on phase one trials. overall, this is a great read, particularly for graduate students and public readers who want to see how an environment traditionally imagined as ‘objective’ or ‘sterile’ is, in fact, affected by stigmas and bias. the effects—and events—are indeed adverse and serious. ellen a. ahlness is a board member and qualitative researcher for the nonprofit education maksad. she has served as a fellow for the technology alliance and washington institute for the study of inequality and race. her work can be found in ecologia politica, world history connected, and managing multicultural scandinavia, among other journals and edited collections. © 2022 ellen a. ahlness 1 siefkes, c. (2022). edible people: the historical consumption of slaves and foreigners and the cannibalistic trade in human flesh. new york: berghahn books. 332 pp., isbn 978-180073-613-9 keywords: cannibalism, slavery, history, morality, death christian siefkes’ book edible people: the historical consumption of slaves and foreigners and the cannibalistic trade in human flesh confronts the western cultural taboo of cannibalism head on, exploring historical accounts of the practice and its interconnections with other notoriously violent institutions such as slavery and xenophobia. this work uncovers a deep, untold history of cannibalism by asking questions that have been avoided in most academic literature, confronting the “what,” “why,” and most chillingly “how” of cannibalistic practices around the world. it identifies cannibalism as having a much deeper sociocultural meaning than simply “eating the flesh of one’s own species,” accounting for factors such as international commercialism, gender, politics, and internal and external power structures (p.6). major points of analysis focus on understanding how human flesh can begin to be socially conceptualized as “edible,” and subsequently valuable as an item commerce, among certain culture groups. after giving ethnographic examples, siefkes confronts the philosophical concepts surrounding cannibalism, searching for an explanation for the huge cultural deviation in moral positions ranging from total acceptance to inherent disgust and disapproval. the volume contains an introduction, 15 central chapters, and a conclusion. the introduction lays out a base understanding of our contemporary perspectives on cannibalism, focusing on the almost total western rejection and erasure of the practice. this is referred to as “cannibalism denial” (p.2). the false narrative of a historically “universal taboo” is consistently disproven throughout the rest of the book. however, this taboo is still an important basis in the author’s analysis concerning western involvement and participation in cannibalism. this portion also addresses the possible 2 limitations of validity in reported sources, ultimately concluding that sources with multiple reports are truly describing actual practices and can be believed. chapter 1 works to develop a taxonomy of the circumstances and motives reported to drive cannibalism, giving readers a necessary vocabulary to understand the deep analysis of the varied practices discussed in later chapters. this includes definitions of a large range of cannibal acts, for example highlighting the differences between violent acts of cannibalism and what the author refers to as corpse-eating, were the victim is not murdered but instead already dead upon consumption. chapters 2-10 center around the numerous historical and ethnographic reports of slave eating, where slave-owners choose to kill and consume enslaved individuals. people are reduced to commodities through the practice of slavery, and in certain cultures where cannibalism is also socially accepted this has resulted in the practice of utilizing slaves as a food source. places where this practice has been recorded include new zealand, the bismarck archipelago near new guinea, sumatra, and the congo. the congo has produced a remarkably high number of reports, which are covered in chapters 6-8. western influence on slave-eating is a major focus of this portion of the book. this includes outside commercial and social pressures influencing acts of cannibalism, performed both unintentionally and, in some cases, deliberately. for example, in the 19th century in the congo there were multiple reports of european men trading slaves to cannibal groups in exchange for ivory tusks. they were aware of the fate of the people they were trading but chose to turn a blind eye in exchange for expensive goods (pp.52-56). social pressures can be seen in the case of the jameson affair, where a european explorer paid for a young slave girl who was then immediately butchered by congolese cannibals for food in front of him (p. 151). these reports lead the author to a discussion of the obeyesekere conjecture. this is the idea that cannibalism was relatively rare as a practice outside of human sacrifices until european explorers appeared, “unsetting and disrupting traditional social structures” and spreading cannibalism (p.164). siefkes debunks the majority of this theory but uses the basic concepts behind it to discuss how the slave trade did in fact help to further promote cannibal practices in africa. 3 chapters 11 and 12 discuss foreigner poaching, a form of xenophobia resulting in acts of violent cannibalism against outsiders. this practice historically has been reported in new guinea, fiji, and central africa. chapter 13 focuses broadly on the commercial aspects of cannibalism and how this translated to practices of “corpse exchange” in melanesia and parts of africa. this includes trade of human flesh that was already dead on the market, straying from the typical practice of trading living people who will then be killed when convenient for consumption. this practice was typically shaped by the availability of victims through either war, slavery, or capture. chapters 14 and 15 analyze commercial and culinary evidence of cannibalism in china, discussing multiple instances of these practices in times in famine and war. these chapters examine the feelings of desperation caused by starvation, giving the book’s first example of a defined state resorting to cannibalistic practices, and showing the fluidity of social acceptance in terms of cannibalism. the book makes it clear that there is also a strong gendered aspect to acts of cannibalistic consumption. in almost every case reported in edible people, women and children were the preferred victims of cannibalism. in addition to this, the marginal status of women as “outsiders” in cultural groups put them in constant danger. a man could decide to “punish” his wife if she misbehaved, allowing her to be eaten. the husband could also die, leaving her vulnerable to the rest of the group. men’s place as a member of the group was permeant, while women’s status was more likely to be fluid. beyond the gender of the victim, the gender of the consumer was often significant as well. women were often limited, if not completely excluded, from joining cannibal meals or feasts. they were offered less “choice” pieces if any at all. although the hook of edible people is certainly in the dark nature of its subject matter, i found this book to be a fascinating analysis of both morality and humanity. it confronts historical reports of practices that go against our contemporary understanding of what it means to be human, showing how various cultures have had different definitions of humanity over time. the people that these groups killed and ate were not considered to be on the same level of being as their consumers. they were socially understood to be commodities, not full people, and therefore there was no guilt felt when they were utilized in that way. although it is important to recognize that there is a modern universal rejection of cannibalism, these historical examples show social 4 flexibility in where the line is drawn when defining humanity. ultimately, siefkes rejects the idea of total cultural relativism to explain the differences in this moral line, but instead agrees with a combination of it alongside a limited version of moral universalism to deal with the phenomena. together they allow for an understanding of cultural diversity that avoids concepts such as “cannibalism denial” while also admitting that there is some universal idea of morality that is being broken when it comes to acts of cannibalism. the book targets both academic and general audiences, making it a great resource concerning the history and ethnographic analysis of cannibalism. the author gives an impressively unbiased survey of the practice to get to the root of the “why,” making the book both historical and anthropological in nature. it would be appropriate for a very specific seminar class on either cannibalism or slavery but may be too in depth for broader anthropology courses. the book itself is well-written with engaging figures that add greatly to the material. julia johnston is a ph.d. student at louisiana state university. she studies bioarchaeology, currently focusing on commingled skeletal collections and mortuary sites in northern peru. she also has research interests in museum curation and skeletal evidence of trauma. © 2024 julia johnston microsoft word the wisdom of traumarevised version 2nd (1).docx benazzo, zaya and maurizio benazzo (directors). the wisdom of trauma (film). science and nonduality, 2021. 1hr., 27 min. https://vimeo.com/762456491 keywords: trauma-informed, addiction, compassionate inquiry, unconventional, generational trauma the documentary wisdom of trauma, directed and produced by zaya benazzo and maurizio benazzo, is immersed in the work and philosophy of dr. gabor mate: an author, physician and distinguished figure in the field of addiction and trauma. renowned for his empathetic perspective, which drives to build a trauma-informed society, his observations gleaned from long-term interactions with trauma and addiction survivors constitute the center of the documentary. the film’s narrative lens is primarily from the point of view of mate’s observations that our childhood experiences often weave our understanding of the self. through this perspective, the film taps into trauma and addiction, and their implications. as a way of reiterating this belief, the film begins and ends with the image of an infant, hinting at the cycle of life. furthermore, the ethnographic take of the film is reflective in its presentation of time spent by mental health professionals with the survivors of addiction and trauma. the perspectives of survivors in connection with the society at large is also equally foregrounded. the interactions with prisoners, survivors, and homeless people, provide eye-opening insights about the influence of trauma in everyday life. the film's intention is made quite clear from the beginning. the voice-over by mate resonates with the idea that suffering and pain can lead to trauma and it is through the journey of healing that one gains wisdom. by presenting a montage of people's faces through close-up photographs, an exhibition of various subtle expressions occurs, allowing scope for reflection. without preaching, the film smoothly and convincingly, through individual narrative clips of survivors, depicts various facets of their lives, which have shaped their worldview. the narrative is neither quick-paced nor slow, giving the viewers time to take in the emotions expressed by the individuals. mate’s careful analytical observations about generational trauma, and the link between physical ailment and a disturbed mental state is one of the focal points. the observations are amalgamated through videos of him being interviewed, either on stage or on a podcast, or through his conversations with his patients suffering from addiction. thus, the film is an excellent primary source for students studying mental health. it not only presents concepts that lead to and trigger trauma but also offers insights into ways to approach people undergoing trauma. the film raises the question of human life and social ties touching upon the profound power of physical touch and the soothing effect of a listening ear. offering a deep outlook on the inner workings of trauma and the social structures that induce addictive behavior, the film invites an open-ended subjective understanding of mate's technique of 'compassionate inquiry.' through the empathetic conversations between mate and the traumatized people, and their individual narrations of their lived experiences, a vision of healing through a non-judgemental recognition of the source of their hurt is sensitively reflected upon. this is accompanied by a melodic instrumental background score that gently tugs the viewers’ emotional chords. while the narrators share their experiences, their voice-over is interspersed with a montage of digital sketches, which has a video-like quality to it. it explicitly represents the abuse and suffering they’ve gone through. however, there are also layers of meaning to this art etched through its symbolic representations of fire/rage, water/sorrow, and the like, opening the scope for compassionate meaning-making. human consumerism is critically viewed through the cinematic lens, shedding light on the larger response of addiction and trauma. this link is crucial in the ever-escalating consumer culture. moreover, a moral evaluation of human degradation and, in turn, the actions that cause the earth's degradation is traced, drawing a grim picture of societal and collective trauma. the lack of education about trauma in institutions like schools, medical academia, and prisons is also severely critiqued by mate to show that a change in policies is necessary for a brighter future. the idea of pharmaceutical companies acting as corporate giants in the system of global materialism projects highlights the risk of sole reliance on medication while neglecting psychological and social factors in healing. similarly, the hard reality that medical professionals are still trained only in biological psychiatry and not psychotherapy is also woven into the narration. mate’s self-reflection of his own trauma is traced through his memories of the horrors of persecution during the holocaust, hinting at an intense understanding of generational trauma. this is further colored by his wife's nostalgic ruminations of their life together—both good and bad times. their journey together over the years is picturized through a montage of photographs and it has a black-and-white color palette to it. in contrast, a vibrancy comes in when the wife's art studio is shown, where her colorful paintings not only reflect her way of coping with difficulties but also counterbalance the dim and serious tone that the film most often imbues. as a token of exposing a secondary approach to trauma, the film shows mate’s unconventional method of treatment that includes using the psychedelic brew, ayahuasca. it is hinted that this opens the mind into a world of illusions and hallucinations, allowing one to deeply connect with the self. it is in this instance that the scene shifts to indigenous practitioners of healing; alongside the change in spatial dynamics from the modern, urban way of life to one around a bonfire, with the additional effect of native song and people. these small scenes also emphasize a nonjudgmental approach to unconventional and traditional methods of treatment. it shows how mate combines this indigenous tradition with his own modern style of treatment. though the film destigmatizes a common paradigm for all, it falls short in its presentation of transcultural and socio-political influence. this is because the narrations are just short excerpts from individuals of varied races and genders, but belonging to the same geographical vicinity in canada (in and around vancouver). yet, it is possible to connect the dots of people’s individual narrations owing to the flow in editing and the overall theme of the collective nature of trauma. this is both its beauty and its bane, as it offers varied perspectives that are also unfortunately repetitive. the film ends with a gratifying sense of optimism. though for the most part, the film is focused on mate's observations of addiction and trauma, and his role as the subject of the director's lens, the interview-like conversational take interspersed with digital art that the film has crafted during the narrative, offers a wonderful dive into the world of wisdom that trauma taps into. it shows that we create the world with our minds. bio-note: prasadita l. raveendran is a research scholar in cultural studies, at the department of humanities and social sciences, indian institute of technology palakkad. she loves to teach and has also served as the resident editor of a bilingual, tri-monthly film magazine filmography, recognizing the space visual narratives occupy in the contemporary world. other than academic publications, she also pens poetry, writes film criticism, and often enjoys translating articles from malayalam to english. besides being a passionate literature and language lover, she is also a trained student of bharatanatyam, folk dance, and classical music. acknowledgement: i sincerely thank sudarshan r. kottai, assistant professor, department of humanities and social sciences, indian institute of technology palakkad, for his invaluable guidance, feedback, and corrections, which greatly improved this review. © 2025 prasadita l. raveendran 1 colligan, sumi, & anna, jaysane-darr. (eds.). (2025). the disabled anthropologist. new york, ny: routledge. 240 pp., isbn 9781032760278. keywords: disability, positionality, field methods, auto-ethnography, medical anthropology what does it mean to be a disabled anthropologist? what barriers do disabled anthropologists encounter in their careers, and how have the methodological innovations and theoretical insights of disabled scholars enriched the field as a whole? while medical anthropology has a long history of analyzing impairment and there is a growing movement to bring insights from critical disability studies into conversation with anthropological theory, the voices of disabled anthropologists themselves are often missing. the disabled anthropologist, featuring ten autoethnographic chapters by disabled anthropologists from a wide variety of subdisciplines and career stages, sheds light on the rich experiences of disabled ethnographers. this publication fittingly coincides with the 35th anniversary of the passage of the americans with disabilities act (ada) and captures a moment when disability anthropology is beginning to be embraced by mainstream anthropology. as the volume’s introduction by sumi colligan and anna jaysane-darr explains, the collection was inspired by the early covid-19 moment where disabled anthropologists who had long been dismissed for using digital, remote, or “patchwork” ethnography (boellstorff 2020; günel, varma, and watanabe 2020; rogers 2023) suddenly found themselves turned to as experts for how to conduct fieldwork amidst lockdown. while such newfound recognition can be validating, it also served as a reminder of the ways disabled ethnographer's innovations are dismissed as “mere accommodations” rather than celebrated as a way to make the field more humane and inclusive to all body-minds. by centering the experiences of disabled ethnographers, the volume invites the reader into a project of reimagining ethnographic methods and the discipline of anthropology as a whole. https://proxy1.library.virginia.edu/login?url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003476726 https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?ctppca https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?ctppca https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?ctppca 2 the volume starts off with disabled anthropologists theorizing the ableist underpinnings of anthropology. valerie black (ch 1) unpacks the figure of the “intrepid anthropologist:” the mythical malonaskian archetype of the hyper-mobile white cisgendered heterosexual male, blithely unconcerned for their own wellbeing or access needs. black explores how intrepid ethnography is reified in anthropological discourse, how it shaped her own fieldwork, and suggests a move to more inclusive “un-intrepid” methods. similarly, alana ackerman (ch 2) details her process of unlearning the glorification of in-person fieldwork as she sought methods that worked for her disabled body-mind. ackerman calls for cripping ethnography by rethinking what counts as “being in the field.” amanda votta (ch 3) unpacks the ableism inherent in university time, with its deadlines, class schedules, and funding models all tightly tied to the academic calendar. votta examines the conflict between university and “pain time,” defined as the way “chronic pain shapes and reshapes the pace of life, the capacity, and the concerns of those who live on it” (62). the collection also celebrates the methodological innovations of disabled ethnographers. erin l. durban and miranda joseph’s chapter details how collaborative cross-disability ethnography can make fieldwork more accessible. their creative use of multiple modalities combined with the incorporation of access into the analysis process allowed students and professors alike to participate in ways that centered their respective access needs and strengths. other chapters, such as those by heidi kelley and kennen a. betsalel (ch 8) and colligan (ch 10), provide examples of what is often referred to as “disability expertise” (hartblay 2020), detailing how non-normative body minds create new possibilities for connecting and engaging with participants. kelley and betsalel demonstrate how the changes in kelley’s speech and movement after a stroke allowed them to see the way their galician and affrilachian interlocutors valued community and refused to “throw away” things, be they at the scale of sub-par cornbread or aging community members. similarly, colligan reflects on how her long career in the field examining embodied vulnerability served as a source of insight and allowed her to forge connections with her interlocutors. several chapters, most notably chapters 2, 3, and 9, build on critical disability studies’ reckoning with the particularities of chronic pain. these chapters point to the interplay between physical and psychological triggers for chronic pain flare as an example of the “leakiness” of bodies (44), and the blurred boundaries between the ethnographer and their interlocutors. ackerman describes the way conducting fieldwork led to a relapse of her chronic pain condition: https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?noy7yd 3 “my pain was not a personal, individual experience contained within my own bodymind; it was triggered by the social environment within which i found myself. i had spent several months listening to refugees’ testimonies of horrifying persecution and violence…my body began responding to and incorporating the trauma i was witnessing” (44). rachel parks takes this insight in a slightly different direction, using her own experience of having chronic pain dismissed, as a way to understand the difficulties her interlocutors have in quantifying pain, and the impossibility of ever fully comprehending another’s experience of pain. the volume also contributes to the anthropology of care and care work. kim fernandes (ch 4) explores the grief and helplessness of conducting fieldwork with disabled people in india as a severe wave of covid-19. she asks us to consider what ethical fieldwork and care look like in the midst of an unfolding crisis. krisjon rae olson (ch 6) uses her experience as the parent of a disabled child to inform her ethnography of parents' mutual support networks and the desire to seek care outside of formal institutions. finally, in a deeply personal chapter, susan seizer (ch 7) turns to ethnography as a way to process her own experience with multiple sclerosis, shifting care needs and the impact on relationships with her wife and family. while this book is not a handbook or methods guide for how to conduct fieldwork as a disabled individual (nor does it pretend to be), it will likely appeal to instructors of methods courses and those mentoring graduate students. as a multiply-disabled anthropologist myself, this is the book i wish i had had before i embarked on fieldwork. i see disabled students and faculty turning to this volume for validation, as a source of collective wisdom, and a tool to articulate their experiences to colleagues, granting agencies, and committee members. for non-disabled scholars, the concluding mini-manifesto by megan moodie offers both tangible steps for allies and a call to join us in making anthropology a more accessible and humane discipline for all. references: boellstorff, tom. 2020. “the ability of place: digital topographies of the virtual human on ethnographia island.” current anthropology 61 (s21): s109–22. https://doi.org/10.1086/704924. günel, gökçe, saiba varma, and chika watanabe. 2020. “a manifesto for patchwork ethnography.” society for cultural anthropology. june 9, 2020. https://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/a-manifesto-for-patchwork-ethnography. hartblay, cassandra. 2020. “disability expertise: claiming disability anthropology.” current anthropology 61 (s21): s26–36. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/705781. https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://doi.org/10.1086/704924 https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/a-manifesto-for-patchwork-ethnography https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/705781 4 rogers, emily lim. 2023. “8. virtual ethnography.” in crip authorship, edited by mara mills and rebecca sanchez, 93–98. new york university press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479819386.003.0011. aron seegers marie (he/they) is an assistant professor in the departments of anthropology and american sign language at the university of virginia. as a medical and linguistic anthropologist, his work examines how disabled people and their allies create political movements and communicate in innovative, non-normative ways. his current projects focus on how deaf leaders and sign language interpreters interdependently advocate for the growth of sign language interpreting in hà nội, việt nam, and how dyslexic scholars like himself crip existing writing technology. © 2025 aron seegers marie https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479819386.003.0011 https://www.zotero.org/google-docs/?euqioo microsoft word brennan final.docx 1 locating the materiality of anxiety and magical practices in puritanical new england c. riley augé, 2020, the archaeology of magic: gender and domestic protection in seventeenth-century new england, gainesville: university press of florida, 304 pp., isbn 9780-81306-611-0. keywords: magic, apotropaic practices, religion, gender, puritans ritual and magic have long been subjects of anthropological fascination, though while extensively explored in historical studies (especially regarding the consequences of witchcraft), archaeological inquiry with such a specific focus is rare. c. riley augé’s present study aims to explore how seventeenth century british colonists, new to new england, engaged in magical practice, specifically apotropaic (protective) practices, and whether that practice differed across gender. in compiling evidence from primary documents and folklore, augé seeks to develop criteria for identifying gender specific apotropaic magical practices in the archaeological record. the book is organized into nine chapters, an introduction (chapter 1), chapters that serve as the foundation with definitions, theories, and background information (chapters 2-5), three chapters of data (chapters 6-8) and a conclusion (chapter 9). the first chapter serves as an introduction, in which augé outlines the need for such a study on the intersections of protective magic and gender, given the lack of previous studies in historical archaeology, as well as how such a study contributes to the understanding of human responses to perceived dangers. augé situates her book as a contribution to the emerging field of the archaeology of anxiety and affective experience. as fleisher and norman (2016) summarize in the introduction to the archaeology of anxiety, the senses, which include feelings, have a bearing on the construction and reconstruction of our everyday lives. archaeologists can do better as far 2 as theorizing and identifying the potential materiality of emotions (tarlow 2000), a task which augé undertakes in the present study. this book specifically examines how magic was used as a response to certain stressors and as a strategy of risk management in puritan society from 1620 to 1725. as explored in chapter 2, magic and ritual have been variably defined by anthropologists over the years, and many definitions are context-dependent and rely on a contrast to definitions of religion. augé herself does not offer a working definition of magic, only that her focus is of magic as an “inclusive, systemized, ritualized practice” (13). as explained in this chapter, the book’s focus is apotropaic practices utilized in the domestic space and the material culture reflects what dušan borić (2003, 48) calls a “technology of protection,” namely as they are structured around the most vulnerable places of homes: thresholds. chapter 3 details the theoretical underpinnings of the book that traces the theory of identifying magical material culture archaeologically to the difficulty of abstracting both gender and magic from such material culture. since apotropaic practices were used by new englanders as a supernatural solution to certain stressors and uncertainties, augé brings attention to the psychology theory of fear, how gender influences what we fear, and what approaches were taken to mitigate that fear in the past. the subsequent discussion of agency theory contextualizes the ability and choice of new englanders to practice magic during a time when it was religiously and secularly sanctioned. in chapter 4, augé effectively explains the puritanical world view, one governed by strict religious doctrine coupled with a belief in the supernatural and magical ritual, especially of rituals related to risk management and conflict resolution with specific references to numerology and magical symbolism. then in chapter 5, augé describes the multi-faceted struggle which guides the reader in appreciating the stressors faced by the puritans landing in a new world that was not at all what they expected. coupled with an understanding of their world view from the previous chapter, augé highlights the high-stress and risk-filled environment of the early colonists. here augé argues that archaeologists must extend their parameters of study beyond the witchcraft trials of salem in order to comprehensively understand the role of gender in magical practice, while at the same time (in 3 the next chapter) situating the present study around new england precisely because the witchcraft persecutions offer an abundance of historical evidence. in chapters 6, 7, and 8, augé presents data collected from each of three sources respectively, primary documents (court records, diaries, letters, etc.), folklore, and archaeological excavations. in chapter 6, tabulations from salem witchcraft trial papers revealed that both men and women accused women of boundary violations far more often than either accused men. based on this evidence, augé suggests that both men and women feared a woman who does not follow appropriate gender norms as outlined by social and religious boundaries as they are most likely to use supernatural destructive power. the following chapter summarizes the data found from folklore regarding how men and women differentially utilized magic as protection from supernatural forces. the folklore data, especially, delves into beliefs regarding the apotropaic qualities of plants. here augé highlights the importance of examining a variety of datasets and how collaboration with ethnobotanists can further identification of ritual practices in the archaeological record. chapter 8 is then dedicated to the archaeological evidence of apotropaic practices, namely to the artifacts of previous homestead excavations. the chapter reads like a cautionary tale for excavation methodology, since some of the official reports are from excavations conducted over 50 years ago and contain artifact descriptions void of context. the final chapter serves as a conclusion of how fear of breached gender norms may have contributed to differential use of apotropaic practices. much of the gendered apotropaic practices identified are centered around the gender roles and division of labor between men and women in puritan society. in this regard, a more theoretical grounding of gender or feminist theory as it has been applied archaeologically (e.g., gilchrist 1994; meskell 2002; sørensen 2013) would strengthen augé’s analysis of the gendered use of apotropaic practices. additionally, considerations of power dynamics and the patriarchal implications of both genders fearing the misuse of supernatural forces from women would bolster the analysis of agency. 4 as augé explores in chapter 2, the practice and belief in magic is ubiquitous across time and cultures, so that the methodological and interpretative practices outlined in this book can serve as a template even to archaeologists studying disparate locals. anthropologists seeking to analyze archaeological evidence, or conduct their own excavation, to uncover the materiality of magical practice, will especially appreciate the framework outlined here. while the framework and methodological considerations are well founded for the topic, the analysis of why men and women differently utilized apotropaic practices is not fully flushed out in the present study. with three major sources of data (primary written documents, folklore, and archaeology), it is hard to organize the presentation and subsequent analysis in a way that completely satisfies the questions posed. overall, the book is successful in its endeavor, as augé lays out a logical and straightforward method to not only designing an archaeological approach that is specific to the excavation of magical material culture but also ways in which to examine past excavations for such evidence. works cited: borić, dušan. 2003. ‘deep time’metaphor: mnemonic and apotropaic practices at lepenski vir. journal of social archaeology, 3(1), 46-74. fleisher, jeffrey and neil norman. 2016. the archaeology of anxiety: the materiality of anxiousness, worry and fear. new york: springer. gilchrist, roberta. 1994. gender and material culture: the archaeology of religious women. routledge. meskell, l. 2002. the intersections of identity and politics in archaeology. annual review of anthropology, 31(1), 279-301. sørensen, m. l. s. 2013. gender archaeology. john wiley & sons. tarlow, sarah. 2000. emotion in archaeology. current anthropology 41 (5): 713-746. emily brennan is a ph.d. candidate in the anthropology department at the university of south carolina. her research focuses on the health dynamics of late medieval and early modern berlin in the context of urban growth and climate change. she is also interested in how gender, power, and agency inform morbidity and mortality trends seen in the past. 5 © 2022 emily brennan 1 jessica halliday hardie, 2022, best laid plans: women coming of age in uncertain times, california: university of california press, 274 pp., isbn 9780520970052 keywords: planning, educational attainment, women, student debt, higher education ‘work hard, and you will get there!’ this is something that we as young students hear so often. the undue stress that is put upon individuals to achieve their goals often tends to lose sight of structural constraints that discourage people from achieving their purpose. when people discuss tales of success or sob stories of failure, the constraining conditions rarely find mention. jessica halliday hardie’s best laid pans is a significant intervention into these discussions. through this work, she questions the existing scholarship that considers planning for the future and goal attainment merely as a function of individual aspirations and hard work. she argues that we need to move beyond the ‘planning paradigm’ to see the multiple economic, social, and political factors that determine the chances of upward mobility and career achievement during the transition from adolescence to adulthood among school-going students, particularly those from underprivileged groups and disadvantaged social classes. the study is based in the united states and follows the trajectory of several young women who are on their journey to achieve their ‘american dream.’ through seven chapters, hardie follows the career paths of young women from middle, poor, and working classes to find out how successful they have been in being able to achieve their adolescent dreams and plans. interestingly, the book sustains a distinction between the three classes. working class women are employed at low-paying jobs while poor women are coming from familial backgrounds in which everyone is struggling to get even a low-paying job. middle class women come from familial backgrounds in which one or both the parents are in decent paying jobs and have a pretty reliable social circle. 2 despite having realistic and well-thought-out plans, her study reveals that young women particularly from economically underprivileged backgrounds find it difficult or sometimes impossible to realize their goals. middle-class women fare slightly better. for hardie, the underlying factors that generate this difference are the availability of economic resources, issues of accessibility, and the social connections that working-class and poor women often lack. the planning process and execution are embedded and shaped by the larger web of background socioeconomic conditions and the reasons for non-fulfillment of the plans are more structural than are commonly understood. can everyone afford education? economy as a structural constraint in the united states, the diverse higher education ‘market’ offers various kinds of institutions and courses for students. the students from poor and working-class backgrounds, because of lack of affordability, tend to miss out on the most ‘sellable’ and ‘asked for’ courses. for them, even the bare minimum of educational attainment would mean drowning in the sea of student debt. ranging from financial to intimate relations, there are multiple costs that families across the united states have to pay, just to be able to send their younger members to higher educational institutions (zaloom 2019). attaining higher education in the united states is too costly an affair for certain groups of people which ultimately lands them in bad financial situations and many of them end up dropping out (goldrick-rab 2016). this question of affordability is one of the prime factors for the ever-widening gap in educational and career achievement of middle and working-class students, particularly women. even if one begins with the same level of aspiration and equally ‘well-laid plans,’ hardie shows how even then the socio-economic marginality of certain groups tend to deter them from achieving what they aspire. the crisis becomes even graver for women because of the multiple burdens that women carry. the class bias in the american job-market is also well known. it is mostly the students from the elite sections of society who are able to reach the highest and most well-paying positions (rivera 2015). no matter how carefully and effectively they plan, the discouraging force of socio3 economic compulsions extinguishes the potentiality of upward mobility towards which such plans aspire. ‘packaged’ and ‘repackaged’ futures this is significant in hardie’s study. school-going girls across classes had similar dreams but the plans they could make and their paths towards attainment varied. hardie attributes this to their embeddedness in the respective socio-economic and familial contexts. white middle-class women dreamt of an already packaged futureexamples of which they have seen all their lives and the path to achieve that future is already known to them, almost as if their present is already a part of that future. for others, however, such a future is aspirational and the path to attain that future is unknown to them. they mobilize their resources and contacts to their limited capabilities. they know where to go but the question of ‘how to get there’ always needed more investigation and perhaps greater investment. such a lack of generational privilege which is available to white middle-class women is absent for middle-class black women along with poor and working-class women across races. therefore, they dreamt of an unpackaged future. added to this is the hostility of american higher educational institutions towards people of color and racial minorities which hurt the women from these communities in the worst ways possible. adam harris’ work is a very recent account of how colleges and universities in the united states are deeply discriminatory towards black students (harris 2022). unlike women who look forward to a packaged future, the struggle for poor and working-class women is more tenuous, tiring, and taxing. these girls have also encountered severe physical and mental health issues more frequently than their counterparts in a higher social class. all of this has a severe impact on their educational and occupational prospects. from adolescence to adulthood: three paths the young school-going women that hardie interviewed for this work took three different paths toward their career and educational attainments. among the women who have remained ‘on track’ 4 and could achieve what they planned, the majority happened to be from the white middle-class. for the remaining ones, the journey has not been as easy as them. in the ‘holding on' category, women across classes could not achieve what they had initially planned and therefore readjusted and reoriented themselves to their goals through a longer, sometimes similar looking destination. yet in this group as well, despite several personal and professional impediments, the middle-class women got what hardie calls a ‘soft landing’ than women of poorer and working classes who had to ‘climb a rock wall.’ among the group of women who are navigating ‘the rough seas,’ majority happened to be from working class or poor backgrounds. numerous of them were lesbian and bisexual. in a heteronormative order, they had a hard time dealing with their families and incurred high emotional and financial costs which made their journey to achieve their dreams almost impossible. this explains why among those interviewed, women who did not subscribe to dominant sexual orientation across classes and races found themselves navigating ‘the rough seas.’ hardie’s core conundrum was to understand why for certain women, their ‘class origins’ also tend to be their ‘class destinations.’ during their transition from adolescence to adulthood, despite having the ‘best-laid’ plans and hopes for upward mobility, they find it difficult, sometimes impossible to break free of the processes of what she calls ‘class replication.’ according to the author, mere individual planning does not suffice. at a time when job and economic precarity are rising and people across classes are finding it difficult to retain their current economic status, there is a need to look at the larger structure that tends to deny marginalized women all the possibilities of upward mobility. keeping this in view, the book argues that instead of placing the responsibilities on individuals to ‘work harder’ to be high achievers, we need to work on certain background conditions that can be made enabling and encouraging to young people working towards their goals. accessible and equitable education for ‘all’ is certainly central to such a resetting of background enabling conditions. references 5 goldrick-rab, sara. 2016. paying the price: college costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the american dream. chicago: university of chicago press. harris, adam. 2022. the state must provide: the definitive history of racial inequality in american higher education. harpercollins publishers. rivera, lauren a. 2015. pedigree: how elite students get elite jobs. princeton: princeton university press. zaloom, caitlin. 2019. indebted: how families make college work at any cost. princeton: princeton university press. khushbu sharma is a doctoral candidate at the centre for political studies, jawaharlal nehru university, delhi, india. her doctoral research lies at the intersection of gender studies, political science, and sociology. she works on politics of ‘right to choice’ and her subsidiary areas of interest include students’ movements and the political economy of higher education. © 2023 khushbu sharma 1 augé, c. riley. 2022. field manual for the archaeology of ritual, religion, and magic. new york: berghahn books, 188 pg. (hardcover)/274 pg. (ebook), isbn 978-1-80073-503-3 (hardcover)/isbn 978-1-80073-504-0 (ebook). field manual for the archaeology of ritual, religion, and magic by c. riley augé is a recent addition to a growing body of scholarship that could, potentially, redress some of the shortcomings of archaeology as a discipline by taking a critical look at the material culture associated with spiritual belief systems. as many undoubtedly remember from their introductory courses or seminars, there is the reoccurring joke in the archaeology community that stated that any unidentified artifact that was used for an unknown purpose will always be labeled as ‘ceremonial' by the professional archaeologist. while this is always said with humor, the truth of the matter is that many archaeologists have labeled artifacts as ‘ceremonial’ when they are ignorant of the actual religious beliefs of the cultures or communities that they are attempting to study. this issue is legitimate cause for concern and has, in fact, resulted in a poor understanding of the actual spiritual beliefs, religions, and rituals of past cultures. in regards to this, augé even states, “not all unknown, enigmatic, or supposedly anomalous objects are ritualistic,” on a list entitled, “the basics: what everyone should know” (p.2). this edition is a compact 188 pages for the hardcover and approximately 274 pages for the ebook but the latter may vary depending on the device that is being used to read the ebook. regardless of format, the book is organized into an “introduction”; defining ritual, religion, and magic (chapter 1); classification and typology (chapter 2); ritual, religion, and magic functions and devices (chapter 3); ritual, religion, and magic by ethnicity and religion (chapter 4); ritual, religion, and magic at particular site types (chapter 5); ritualistic, sacred, and magical landscapes (chapter 6); ritualistic, religious, and magical material culture by material type and attribute (chapter 7); sensory elements in ritual, religion, and magic (chapter 8); forms and templates (chapter 9); technologies, methodologies, and analyses (chapter 10); resources 2 (chapter 11). the majority of the chapters of the book are organized with short introductory sections before presenting lists and charts with information relevant to the associated chapter. in addition to the chapters, the book has three different glossaries: glossary of ritualistic, religious, and magical gems and other stones; glossary of ritualistic, religious, and magical plants; glossary of ritualistic, religious, and magical terms. finally, there is a section entitled “further reading” and an index. the book has no bibliography as there are no in-text citations or references. at a time when the field of archaeology is looking for increased specialization on subject matter, geographical area, and methodology for books, conferences, and peer reviewed papers, augé's book stands out in the literature for the geographic width and temporal breadth that it covers. rituals and magical beliefs from all continents, excluding antarctica, are included in the book. in regards to the temporal range that the book covers, augé doesn’t included any specific dates or time periods throughout their work. instead, the reader is offered sections entitled “ancient world” (pp.38-9), that includes mesopotamian, sumerian, babylonian, and egyptian rituals and religious beliefs among others, while other chapters mention the magical beliefs and rituals of french, american, and british soldiers during world war ii. in addition to this, augé does a commendable job of covering a wide range of religious beliefs. while covering the main religions of christianity, judaism, buddhism, islam, and hinduism, there are separate sections for some of the less acknowledged religions such as rastafarianism, shinto, and vodou as well as several others. the lists and charts of the book are useful for an overview of the ritualism, religions, or magical beliefs of a given area or group. however, augé mentions throughout the book that rituals and beliefs vary among different regions, time periods, ethnic groups, and communities. it is stressed that rituals, and the beliefs that such rituals embody, are highly complex and volatile cultural expressions. it bears repeating here, as well, because ethnic groups and people of color living in north america have been subjected to systemic racism, stereotyping, and media misrepresentation. the rituals and religious beliefs of native americans, indigenous peoples, asians, and africans have been presented in popular media as a homogenous mass with no regard for accuracy, understanding, or regional variations in cultural practices and beliefs. the archaeologist, historian, or anthropologist working in north america needs to keep such things in mind when attempting to study the sites and the related material culture of these groups. furthermore, while augé thoroughly describes ritual sites associated with organized religions and spiritual beliefs, they also 3 identify that secular spaces are commonly organized around rituals as well. this is especially applicable to sites associated with military, educational, and civic functions. in the introduction, augé states that their book was written as a resource for historic preservationists, renovators, and construction workers as well as professional archaeologists. it should be stressed that it is also very applicable for those archaeologists and architectural historians working in cultural resource management (crm) and heritage management. crm, as an industry, is highly competitive and professionals are expected to produce high-quality work in a timely manner while practicing ethical businesses practices and respect the interests of clients, the state or federal government, and members of the public and affected communities including native american tribal governments. augé has created a great resource for crm that is practical, easily understood, and easily referenced. the book contains an entire chapter for forms (chapter 9) that can be copied, altered, and utilized to document ritual sites and cultural material as well as a useful introduction to applicable terminology for the study of rituals. the terms include; intentionally concealed objects (icos), traditional cultural properties (tcps), culturally modified ecofacts (cmes), and culturally modified trees (cmts). for many readers, even the professional archaeologists, this book will likely be the first time they have been presented with such terms and their subjects. additionally, the book also provides wonderful summaries and overviews of new technologies and methodologies that are highly applicable for the archaeology of rituals. this is especially true for augé's descriptions of 3-d scanning, chemical residue analysis, metal detecting, and ground penetrating radar (gpr) (pp.183-5). for the archaeologist or anyone else concerned with destruction and vandalism at archaeology sites, there are some great guidelines for the preservation and protection of pre-contact rock art (pp.118-20) in the book. for the students or the lay person, there are sections for additional resources that include scholarly journals, scholarly organizations, and the material culture of magic (mcm) database that are relevant to the study of archaeology and rituals. the fact that the book is largely organized in a series of lists and charts has been previously discussed in this review. this format can be easily referenced and studied for the reader who may want to identify ritual patterns specific to one ethnic group or religion. alternatively, this format also highlights rituals related to other things such as gender, mortuary practices, health and wellness, and business success. however, this also means that the book presents a large amount of information with hardly any context. it would have been more ideal to include case studies in some of the chapters that identify real ritual, religious, or magic-related 4 sites that have been documented by archaeologists. regardless, augé's book is still a valuable resource for the archaeologists, scholars, and anyone working in construction and crm. as a whole, this book is a timely and practical contribution to a growing body of archaeological knowledge and scholarship. the current understanding of religions, rituals, and magical beliefs in the archaeological record is limited but augé's work is quality research on the subject and it can assist other archaeologists with both fieldwork and cultural study. field manual for the archaeology of ritual, religion, and magic would be a wonderful addition to an academic library and to the personal library of the archaeologist. jamie m. meinsen, m.a. independent scholar. she holds a b.a. in anthropology from suny new paltz and earned her m.a. in anthropology from the university at albany. she has been working as an archaeologist in cultural resource management since 2017. she has collaborated on projects with entities such as the new york state museum, power engineers, and wsp usa inc. throughout the northeast region of the united states. she has presented her research on the pre-contact occupation of the perry site in kingston, ny to the new york state archaeological association in 2011 and her research on historic ceramics to the society for historic archaeology in 2016. she taught a noncredit course in archaeology for mount saint mary college and instructed children’s classes in archaeology for the wallkill public library and suny schenectady county community college. © 2023 jamie m. meinsen microsoft word verstraete_final.docx 1 1 challenging the idea of abundance monica l. smith, 2017, abundance: the archaeology of plentitude, boulder: university press of colorado, 261 pp., isbn: 978-1-60732-593-2 keywords: economic anthropology, economic archaeology, north america, social institutions, social interactions concepts of large-scale consumption and complex trade routes are not new entries into how anthropologists and economic historians view pre-colonial societies. however, the realm of ‘abundance’ and ‘mass consumption’ is often mistakenly viewed as a result of post-industrial societies. monica smith, editor of abundance, intended the volume to be a dialogue about the concept of abundance what it is, and what it isn’t. smith has previously approached the idea of abundance in her works on consumption and urban environments (2014; 2007). this edited volume is a natural extension of her work on pre-colonial societies and their urban structures and societies. in her introduction smith makes a compelling point, that pre-colonial societies are frequently viewed as ‘poor’ and constantly operating on a notion of scarcity. this view ignores the premise that artifacts and objects have been a mechanism for cognition and linguistic advancement, material things that are central to human social life in various ways. smith seeks to use the volume to “address the distinct effects of object plentitude as seen in the archaeological record of both natural objects and deliberately created artifacts” (p. 4). the term ‘abundance’ is carefully considered throughout the book. in comparison to the more ideologically heavy connotations of ‘surplus’ and ‘excess,’ ‘abundance’ seems to indicate a more “value-neutral term that describes accumulations that are quantitatively large and/or diverse in 2 2 their composition” (p. 11). in order to properly situate the definition of abundance, smith also defines the key terms of scarcity and sufficiency. the text notes that either supply or demand can cause something to be scarce and the threshold of sufficiency is more than a number; it is shaped by social parameters since what is sufficient for a couple is not enough for a household of five. smith is meticulous in her efforts to set the stage for the chapter authors to interrogate the western-capitalist notion of abundance, fostering discussion such as moore and schmidt’s discussion of hunter-gatherer perspectives on nature in chapter 3. the authors note that many hunter-gatherer groups have viewed the earth as “giving parent,” which demands that “neoclassical models based on the notion that humans have unlimited wants cannot be uncritically applied to the past” (p. 48). throughout the volume the authors are mindful to position their interpretations of past societies within a context that respects notion of abundance from each culture individually. notable investigations of preconceived notions about past societies are included in chapters 4, 8, and 11. varien et al., consider abundance in the american southwest, utilizing a critical lens of the pueblo world view to further breakdown the ideas of scarcity and abundance. they note that while modern peoples rely heavily on the influence of economic thinking to define abundance, the concept can be viewed cross-culturally to challenge the inherent value of these terms and bring a more nuanced understanding to what it means to have ‘enough’ in a location that stretches agricultural capacity. on the flip side, twiss and boggard use chapter 8 to discuss challenges (both past and present) to having an abundance. having more food than necessary is near-universally considered a good thing, however the logistics of storing the food and keeping it edible for long periods of time is a huge issue to contend withespecially if you are attempting to conceal your excess or ensure equal distribution and access. either of these approaches would have been socially complicated, adding another dimension to early agricultural societies as they navigated creating a social environment built around an agricultural system. chapter 11 serves as a notable departure from previous discussions on chinese porcelain production, using archaeology to drive home a salient point about how value changes the perception of worth. pierson highlights the reality that while porcelain ceramics may have been hand painted art objects of a great perceived value in western europe, they were still mass produced at their place of origin. hand painted porcelain vases signaled power because of the expensive blue pigments 3 3 used to paint them, but archaeological investigations at production sites indicate middens with hundreds of these ceramics rather than a studio where each vase was produced individually. other chapters of the book cover symbolic abundance, social status, and the way abundance impacts a society’s ability to expand or become more complex. rather than focusing on just food or nutritional abundance, the volume also considers the abundance of spiritual goods, and trade items as things that can exist in abundance. the case studies are detailed and well thought out and would serve as a comprehensive look at economic archaeology in pre-colonial societies for an upper level undergraduate or graduate level seminar. it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that a genuine excess of food or prestige goods is a post-colonial phenomenon due to advances in technology and this volume stands as a counterpoint to that notion. existing dialogue surrounding the economic and social intricacy of pre-colonial societies is greatly improved and bolstered by the authors’ contributions. overall, the book serves as an interesting exploration of what ‘abundance’ might look like in non-western capitalist systems. as varien et al note in chapter 4, economics is the most frequently referenced social science when it comes to major policy decisions. archaeologists are uniquely positioned to comment on the social impacts of differing economic systems and this volume highlights all the ways in which material abundance of any type can be a benefit, and occasionally a hindrance. the chapter distribution includes three chapters on north america, two entries each for the maya and europe, a single representation for asia, africa, and south america. the volume might have benefited from a more diverse group of locations, but smith does an admirable job of covering a massive breadth of human history geographically and temporally in a single volume of case studies. human history encompasses a stunning array of values perspectives, and abundance works to highlight some of these differences in an attempt to form a dialogue with the reader about what their personal concept of sufficiency and abundance reveals. economic anthropologists would be well-served to review the volume and question how their interpretations of field sites or excavation assemblages might change if approached with a theory of abundance beyond a simple economic mandate. works cited: 4 4 smith, monica l. “inconspicuous consumption: non-display goods and identity formation.” journal of archaeological method and theory 14, no. 4 (2007): 412–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-007-9040-6. ———. “the archaeology of urban landscapes.” annual review of anthropology 43, no. 1 (2014): 307–23. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-025839. emma verstraete is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign. she specializes in consumer studies and the history of medicine in historical archaeology. © 2021 emma verstraete warner review 2 final 1 safet hadžimuhamedović, 2018. waiting for elijah – time and encounter in a bosnian landscape. new york: berghahn, 294pp. isbn: isbn 978-1-78533-857-1 ebook. “syncretic poetry” and particular synergies: a review of safet hadžimuhamedović’s waiting for elijah keywords: uncertainty, schizochronotopia, time, in-other, syncretism, festivals, former yugoslavia while moving through the introduction of safet hadžimuhamedović’s engaging work of research and resistance, readers familiar with anthropology can be forgiven for wondering what realms of the discipline the author decided not to engage with in waiting for elijah – time and encounter in a bosnian landscape (2018; volume one in “articulating journeys: festivals, memorials, and homecoming”). the expertly-crafted opening salvo of encounters-to-come moves through (cosmological) time, ethnicity, nationalism, post-conflict sociocultural considerations, waiting, friction, a multi-dimensional meditation of landscape, and “crosstemporal syncretic forms.” indeed, “syncretic” is a concept hadžimuhamedović returns to repeatedly in a treatise that delves into the interplay of encounter, time, and proximity with(in) one particular landscape of bosnia today. in particular, “encounter” comes to encompass for the author “exchanges, alliances and intimate proximities between the bodies of ‘different’ characters” (2018, 234-235). in assembling its own (self-reflexive) syncretism, the introduction (re)turns the reader to the works of tim ingold, michel de certeau, alfred gell, e.e. evanspritchard, anna tsing, ghassan hage, and mikhail bakhtin. their voices and hadžimuhamedović’s initial remarks build a frame of engagement for what the author refers to as “the field.” a field that is host to the celebrations for the titular “elijah” – a georgic harvest festival day that relates a nexus of waiting, time, uncertainty, and communitas. clearly enjoying and employing a double entendre, hadžimuhamedović follows with his interlocutors in taking “the field” as general reference to the field of gacko, a wide plain in the southeastern highlands of bosnia, while also signaling the more abstracted notion of the “field” with regard to ethnographic engagement and participant observation. refreshingly, hadžimuhamedović carefully unpacks and articulates his asserted structuring of multi-sited 2 ethnography within the field of gacko thereby opening the field to multiple considerations and “disruptions” (2018, 30) of the “site” concept. a concept that is thus found in time, in the virtual, and in the physical manifestations of geography and post-war ethno-religious politics today. as such, “multi-sited” means in one regard to follow “time through space” (2018, 31) or to move through “different locales, which experienced no active interchange” (2018, 32). “from following place through time,” writes the author, “the investigation thus extended to following time (the annual cycle) through space: it was like piecing together a time puzzle using a particular multi-sited approach [that] allowed for more elaborate questions” (2018, 4). in looking and listening for answers to these elaborate questions, hadžimuhamedović discerns alternative dimensions of the field and develops a discursive toolkit that speaks along the lines of “sacroscapes,” “ethnoscapes,” “chronotopes,” and, “in-other.” while i will refrain from any spoilers regarding the scapes, i will touch on two other concepts from the toolkit. for hadžimuhamedović, chronotope – first used by mikhail bakhtin to indicate the indivisibility of spatial and temporal categories (2018, 58) – is employed “as a heuristic device to think of the divergent social currents in the field” thus each “chronotope has its own story” (2018, 58). moreover, he introduces that “people and landscapes are sometimes trapped between discursive timespaces and thus ‘schizochronotopic’ (from the greek σχίζειν – skhizein – ‘to split’)” (2018, 58). as intended by the author, both chronotope and schizochronotopic frame the reading of what he refers to as “the syncretic poetry of the field’s warm season” (2018, 7) that is the central theme of chapter five. however, a brief endnote touches on a reservation that i apparently share with one of his colleagues who “reproached [hadžimuhamedović] for ‘pathologizing’ the field through the apparent similarity of the terms ‘schizochronotopia’ and ‘schizophrenia’” (2018, 77-78). certainly not unique to waiting for elijah, it is a valid point that cuts across the social sciences and speaks to an often uncontested habit of medicalizing terminology. moreover, this reaches out to another concern with schizochronotopic as reflective of what his interlocutors experience: would they see themselves in such a word? does the term retain viability or veracity if released from what is, at times, an academically dense work? hadžimuhamedović himself notes the “anthropological advantage of spatial and temporal closeness and in-depth inductive analysis helps researchers avoid the abyss of ideological projects” (2018, 115). while he may be speaking of “ideological projects” in a different sense than myself here, i cannot help but wonder if “schizochronotopic” does not also further deepen the “abyss.” without wanting to sound overly critical, we (anthropologists) must constantly question what is the use 3 of “closeness” if when we seek to amplify life-worlds we do so in a manner that defies transparency for a spectrum of audiences. speaking of closeness, if chapter three is “the heart of the book” (2018, 6), then hadžimuhamedović’s concept of “in-other” is the heart of chapter three. as his development of in-other runs for several pages and engages several conceptual horizons, i will but excerpt a brief selection: given that i want to primarily focus on difference that is not positioned as antithetical, but inclusive of proximity, difference reiterated by my interlocutors as integral to the meaning making of the self, i invent here another handy term, ‘in-other’, which should be read interchangeably as a noun, verb and an adjective. … i tell my self and grasp the flux of my self by way of in-other, which includes all the ‘human’ and ‘nonhuman’ outsideness by which my body is anchored into the world. so, it is ontological through and through. … time is in-other in shifting proximities – a landscape moving through the body – approaching and engaging the world of the i. (2018, 115-116) hadžimuhamedović is clear in his sense of imperative vis-à-vis the development and deployment of in-other. and the in-other is embedded and operationalized throughout the rest of the work thus emerging as a central trope aligning many of the grounded reflections presented in the book. with this in mind, i am led to reflect upon the conceptual utility (or, perhaps more accurately, the conceptual clarity) that the author places with(in) the in-other. for example, as hadžimuhamedović brings forth for readers an intricate discussion of kumstvo, a concept that “resists its english translation, as it carries certain idiosyncrasies in bosnian contexts” but can be “translated as ‘godparenthood’” (2018, 129), a captivating narrative emerges that can be held up as an example of exemplary ethnography. the narrative is populated and propelled by such detail, research, and integration of interlocutor life-stories that one is carried along quite freely. yet when hadžimuhamedović returns to in-other at varying points in the kumstvo discussion, it appears considerably more a “disorientational device” (to employ the author’s own dialectical framing of intent (2018, 237)) than a revelatory point of “orientation” toward encounter for the reader. it is difficult to tease out of the text exacting illustrations of this (dis)orientation, but one segment highlights the “memories of communication between serbs and muslims,” and moves to show “how the in-other positions 4 not only the self in ontologically specific time, but also how it establishes the substance and structure of time as such. this proximity with the in-other is ritually confirmed, for, without in-other one is timeless and placeless” (2018, 120). though i accept that i cannot do full justice to a term that is a noun, verb and adjective in this review, the above excerpts will hopefully engage a potential reader’s curiosity as well as demonstrate the cause of my hesitation; a hesitation that i leave open to swift remediation depending upon future writings or integrations of in-other1. shifting gears, i would like to suggest but one possible positioning of waiting for elijah within the broader reaches of social science research.2 admittedly, this suggested positioning emerges from my own research within anthropology of peace (see kwon 2020; sponsel & gregor 1994) and the constellation of connections developing between anthropology and peacebuilding (see belloni 2020; denskus & kosmatopoulos 2015; richmond 2018). as time is a core theme for hadžimuhamedović while his fieldwork facilitates deep insight into what peace(building) literature has come to call “the local” or “the local turn,” i see in his research crucial lines of consideration. for example, christie & algar-faria (2020) argue that the “direct engagement with the conceptualization and enactment of time has been remarkably absent from the study of peacebuilding” (2020, 155). furthermore, there is an understanding of “localisation not simply as a tool of peacebuilding, but as fundamental to an emancipatory peace” (2020, 155). placed into conversation with these claims, hadžimuhamedović’s work acts as counterpoint yet engaging partner to christi & algar-faria’s considerations of timescapes framing methodologies of peace. all considered, waiting for elijah will resonate with anthropologists working within peace studies while those in intersectional disciplines will be driven to ask hard questions about their own methodology, ethics, and encounters. i noted in my introductory paragraph the book’s intimate research and resistance that in the end argues for “two anthropological ‘turns,’ toward affect and proximity” (2018, 235) and i want to conclude by returning to my use of the word “resistance.” traces of what i call resistance can be encountered throughout the text, such as in hadžimuhamedović’s articulated hope that his “grounded” research has “softened [his] own generalizations, and made [his 1 full disclosure: though waiting for elijah was published in 2018, this is my first encounter with the term “inother” and i have intentionally not sought out nor searched for any other potential usage or development of the term in social science literature prior to writing this review. 2 as noted in the introduction, the book is volume one of “articulating journeys: festivals, memorials, and homecoming.” so noted and in the interest of policing the length of this review, i point back to this designation in a footnote to briefly but clearly indicate that researchers engaging festivals as spaces to encounter and examine cross-communal/ethnicity/religious proximities and uncertainty (especially in post-war societies) will find waiting for elijah a rich, if not mandatory, read. 5 research] project useless for the prevalent forms of identitary violence in bosnia” (2018, 31). as he continues to frame waiting for elijah, there is recognition-thus-resistance to “ethnicized research” that implicitly accepts a “nationalist modus operandi” (2018, 38) while the work is “significantly divergent from the nationalist imaginations of pure traditions” (2018, 47). read as such, hadžimuhamedović states the “’success’ of this work will lie in its uselessness for the various identitary and developmental projects on the gacko horizons” (2018, 174). speaking specifically to anthropology, the author also sees his research as attempting to “offer a ‘grounded’ comment on the ethics of anthropology of the fictitious ‘post-conflict’ space” (2018, 77). and it is in these notes of resistance to the normative or the “known” that i find another dimension to the “syncretic poetry” of hadžimuhamedović; a dimension of metanarration that further aligns proximities and provocations in the field with particular synergies of anthropological praxis and ethnographies of time, encounter, and the other. works cited: belloni, roberto, ed. 2020. the rise and fall of peacebuilding in the balkans. cham: springer nature switzerland ag. christie, ryerson, and gilberto algar-faria. 2020. “timely interventions: temporality and peacebuilding.” european journal of international security 5:155-178. denskus, tobias, and nikolas kosmatopoulos. 2015. “anthropology & peacebuilding: an introduction.” peacebuilding 3(3): 219-223. kwon, heonik. 2020. “anthropology and world peace.” hau: journal of ethnographic theory 10(2): 279-288. richmond, oliver p. 2018. “rescuing peacebuilding? anthropology and peace formation.” global society 32(2): 221-239. sponsel, leslie e., and thomas gregor. 1994. the anthropology of peace and nonviolence. london: lynne rienner publishers. charles o. warner iii is a doctoral researcher with the faculty of social & cultural anthropology and leuven international & european studies (lines) at the university of leuven, belgium. he holds a fundamental research grant from the research foundation – flanders (fwo) with research emphases on veterans studies and strategic peacebuilding in former yugoslavia. prior to his turn to academia, charles served as an explosive ordnance disposal (eod) technician in the u.s. air force for six years, conducting counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and force protection missions in south korea, iraq, germany, and the united states. charlesoscar.warner@kuleuven.be © 2023 charles o. warner iii microsoft word valles review.docx stephen paul mumme, 2023, border water: the politics of u.s.-mexico transboundary water management, 1945-2015, new york: the university of arizona press, 414 pp., isbn 978-0-8165-4830-9 instantly, one feels how border water: the politics of u.s.-mexico transboundary water management fulfills the most elusive of all scholarly intents – finding a lacuna in the literature. mumme begins his expansive and exhaustive monograph by signaling that the reader would find it difficult to come across such a holistic historical account of water governance on the u.s.mexico border from 1945 to 2015, though his latter chapters move beyond that period. the three main waterways stretching from the pacific to the gulf of mexico – the tijuana, colorado, and rio grande – required binational cooperation to supply the regions along the border with useful water. following the creation of the 1944 water treaty, which would manage these sources and establish institutional control of the national boundaries, binational cooperation was crucial in spurring development on both sides of the border. the result was a treaty, though modified over the decades, that drew in governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders, and which mumme claims was negotiated on more equitable grounds than the divisive border treaties of the 19th century. border water is a work of political science and frames the recounting of history using paradigms of international change, public policy, and social movements. mumme organizes the monograph chronologically, most chapters beginning with an outline of the metapolitics affecting mexico and u.s. relations broadly. the first section, which encompasses chapters 1 and 2, centers on the 1944 water treaty between the two nations, and administration by the international boundary and water commission (ibwc). chapter 1 looks at the genesis of the 1944 treaty in a potentially tense political environment into and directly after wwii. roosevelt’s good neighbor policy approached mexico and other latin american nations as strategic post-war partners. chapter 2 follows the ibwc’s management after the war, including irrigation, sanitation, and boundary disputes. chapters 3 and 4 outline the salinity conflict on water sourced from the colorado and later the rio grande. chapters 5 through 8 constitute the second section’s focus on environmental challenges after 1973. chapters 5 and 6 explore changes in transboundary riparian management after the salinity conflict. the border region saw exponential population growth and industrial development through the 1980s. following the devaluation of the peso, the mexican side of the border became increasingly industrialized through maquiladoras, foreign owned factories in the border region that make largely tariff-free, export-bound products. chapters 7 explores the impacts of nafta, the north american free trade agreement. mexicans moved at increasing rates into the border region, further producing environmental and industrial waste, which drew in environmentalists to address a variety of negative ecological impacts. chapter 8 moves on to the post-9/11 era. changes in the political environment on both sides of the border led to decreased funding for environmental institutions and increasing public-private development. the final sections comprising chapters 9 and 10 review what readers can learn from the history of binational water management. chapter 9 looks at the ebb and flow of water management as well as the impact of the broader political climate. chapter 10 considers the current moment and future challenges. mumme reflects on the legacy of the 1944 water treaty and characterizes the binational agreement as a “quasi-constitutional treaty,” an international joint-venture that has become an unalterable cornerstone of political and infrastructural logic. reading through mumme’s extensive book was thoroughly enlightening. the juxtaposition of broader political concerns and the enactment and evolution of the treaty vividly depicted the complexities of managing resources on such a massive scale. the slow evolution and encounters of governmental and nongovernmental organizations and actors demonstrates the myriad factors involved in producing and maintaining infrastructural projects crucial to agricultural, industrial, and urban development. as a scholar of immigration in texas, i was struck by my lack of consideration for the physical border as a potentially fluid boundary, as a river left unmanipulated by humans will continue to change shape. moreover, the history of mexico and the u.s. borderlands is magnified by an understanding of binational resource management and its resulting conflicts. my family is from northern mexico, and i spent my summers knowing that potable water was limited to a few hours in the morning. water management touches the lives of millions on both sides, but the experience of scarcity remains concentrated in mexico. this leads me to a potential limitation, or at least a question arising from the author’s analysis of equitable negotiations. mumme absolutely acknowledges the factors contributing to unequal standards of living on the mexican side with an analysis of nafta and a conversation on the maquiladora industry. however, there remains a tone of reverence on the decades-long evolution of resource management that i would like to see problematized, though i understand that is beyond the scope of the work. perhaps this is the point where this work becomes exciting for scholars that concentrate on the borderlands in general. the macro lens employed by mumme is just one piece that can be used by qualitative researchers that study border communities. border water helps clarify issues of resource scarcity and uneven economic remuneration for those working in a relatively new urban region. for scholars of the u.s. borderlands and those who lean on the works of anzaldua among others will find the banality of resource management unsettling, i contend it is a necessary inclusion for framing the mexico-u.s. relationship. finally, the narrative of political action stemming from a treaty will inform how researchers can frame institutional actors and their aims working within the confines of infrastructural development. border water was truly an engaging read that motivated me to think about the broader political landscape of binational cooperation. researchers on immigration tend to view the border as a space that produces clear adversarial encounters when undocumented immigrants attempt to cross. yet, the role of mexico tends to be left out in favor for villainizing the u.s. role in managing the region. this work shows that that there are many players involved in enacting legislation and binational agreements. as such, mumme’s book is a worthwhile read for any scholar of the border regions or of immigration. furthermore, scholars of environmental anthropology will find this resource important for contextualizing different types of actors and their roles in border dynamics. biography: i recently defended my dissertation in education policy studies at the university of wisconsin-madison. previously, i completed a masters in anthropology at iowa state university. my research explored students participating in a college-readiness program from a latino immigrant community in dallas, texas, as they transitioned out of high school. © 2024 edgar valles 1 omolade adunbi, 2022, enclaves of exception: special economic zones and extractive practices in nigeria. bloomington: indiana university press, 256 pp., isbn 9780253059567. keywords: enclaves of exception; special economic zones; extractive practices in nigeria; technological innovation; ‘social death ’ of the environment. enclaves of exception: special economic zones and extractive practices in nigeria is an ethnographic book which addresses, in an intriguing and didactic way, the complex network of social, political, state, and economic actors involved in nigeria’s oil extraction. omolade adunbi’s work has focused on the processes of oil extraction in nigeria. in his previous book, “oil wealth and insurgency in nigeria” (2015), he explored the ways in which ngos, activist groups and community organizers invoke ancestral property to defend land disputes, justify disruptive actions and organize against oil corporations. the argument of ancestral land and insurgents returns in enclaves of exception from different perspectives, in which these actors become part of the “special economic zones” (sez) without opposing the existence of the space of production. this book is divided into six chapters, a preface, introduction and conclusion, which progressively present the complex political, economic, sociocultural and historical layers that constitute the niger delta region as enclaves of exception. in the preface, adunbi addresses the advances in china's operations on the african continent, and their partnership involves infrastructure development in exchange for natural resources’ extraction. in the introduction, the author masterfully illustrates the complexity of oil extraction and refining processes. such processes take place through partnership between nigeria and china in implementing free trade zones (ftz) ogun-guangdong ftz and lekki ftz and developing artisanal refineries managed by members of local communities (before insurgents against the government), who operate without government regulation. both forms of extraction make up what the author defined as “enclaves of exception,” which are economic zones that operate based on technological innovations, creating spaces of sovereignty, innovation, and environment social death. the purpose of these enclaves is to extract economic value not only from oil extraction but from natural, human and creative resources, free of charge, in order to increase oil extraction and 2 refining. both extraction models ftz and artisanal refineries are a reflection of nigeria's painful insertion into the neoliberal global economy, in this description. the result has been a trail of destruction left by the failed promise of oil as an engine of development and social prosperity. some former insurgents in the region, who once challenged the implementation of extractive processes in the area in an attempt to appropriate their ancestral heritage, began to engage in oil extraction through what adunbi called “crude recapture.” that is, former insurgents take oil from pipelines operated by the state and its corporate allies using innovative techniques to refine it before it is sold. however, the impact of these zones’ creation can be observed in forced migration of population where the ftz and artisanal refineries were implemented, in reduction of arable land and in what the author called the social death of environment extreme environmental degradation. in the first chapter, the author conceptually defines what an enclave of exception is by ethnographically demonstrating the actions of the consortium between chinese companies, the nigerian government, their collaborators, and the young and former insurgents who work in artisanal refineries. the chapter's argument makes two concomitant moves, that of presenting enclaves as one of the neo-liberal developed models within the scope of sezs and that of expanding and complexifying the scope of the sez based on new forms of interaction among enclave actors. the second chapter presents how the chinese state consortium in the ogun-guangdong ftz and lekki ftz has operated in partnership with the nigerian state. the chinese consortium has developed infrastructure for the transport, refining and export of oil produced in the ftzs, which is called “infrastructure of convenience,” as part of the agreement for modernization and local economic development. however, this infrastructure has resulted in violence, socioeconomic inequalities, and land dispossession for the population around ftzs. infrastructure of convenience is based on chinese state intervention in an economic model focused on job creation and industrialization. this chinese development model adopts the importation of qualified chinese labor to occupy high-level jobs in the ftz’s, leaving nigerians with underemployment. the third chapter addresses sovereignty of fzt facilities, which is granted by the nigerian state so that chinese corporations can manage the territory where companies are located and regulate oil extraction. that is, by ceding sovereignty to these chinese corporations, the nigerian state transferred to them the legislative, police/armed force and economic administration of the territories. adunbi, when narrating his visits to the ftzs, describes an organized security network, which controlled people's access to the place through armed police. for this reason, the fzt’s were considered as “this place is not nigeria”, since local administration, territorial protection and wealth produced belonged to the corporations. the corporations are, therefore, new self-regulated sovereignties in the nigerian territory, acting independently of government. the fzt area is where all commercial transactions begin and end, with profits not necessarily belonging to the nigerian 3 state. for this reason, the author argues that sovereignty has become a commodity in the context of searching for nigerian economic prosperity. that is, the nigerian government “sold” its sovereignty in exchange for an ideal of development. the fifth chapter discusses negative sociocultural impacts of refineries on niger delta streams and negative impacts on the quality of life. refineries’ multiple functions in reinventing technologies and mimicking government production structure when producing oil demonstrate their inherent complexity and, finally, as actors that deepen and intensify environment’s death. accordingly, refineries occupy the limbo between the free trade zone – because of administrative functioning distribution of kerosene to the community and promotion of living conditions’ extreme degradation, thus highlighting how development practices can be contradictory. the sixth chapter focus on how environment death is inherent to enclaves of exception, as the environment becomes the source of profit in the rapid development model. on one hand, ftzs are part of the economic prosperity sham touted by the chinese development model that will take nigeria out of the 19th century (p. 258). on the other hand, refineries, by entering the neoliberal system of exploitation that imitates state organization, end up undermining the quality of life of the very community to which they belong. the great potential of this ethnography is to present the complexity of nigerian neoliberalism and the new configurations brought about by the chinese economic model and the subtlety of understanding the nuances of claiming land as ancestral land. this work is one of the most relevant academic texts for understanding the contemporary transformations of capitalism and exploitation models underway on the african continent, due to its conceptual, theoretical, and ethnographic depth and richness. ana carolina de oliveira costa holds a phd and master’s degree in social anthropology and is an independent researcher. her master’s research focused on child soldiers and youth initiation during the civil wars in sierra leone and liberia. her doctoral work examined marxist-leninist agricultural policy in benin and the state-led persecution of vodun practitioners. she is currently beginning a new research project on the notion of a “frontier to capitalism” and the intersections of economic and religious moralities. recent publications include the article “cosmological marxism-leninism: an unfinished project.” her latest book is frontier to capitalism: cosmology, persecution and agrarian policy in benin (both in portuguese). © 2025 ana carolina de oliveira costa 1 tarini bedi, 2022, mumbai taximen: autobiographies and automobilities in india, seattle: university of washington press, 248 pp., isbn 9780295749860 in mumbai taximen, tarini bedi holds open the door for readers to hop into a kaalipeeli taxi with her. together, in the classic “black and yellow” padmini taxis of mumbai, india, bedi and readers “follow how people make lives through driving work and how they participate in a city’s economic, bureaucratic, and political shifts amid the noise, vibrations, emissions, dust, scrapes, and bumps” on the road (9). en route, readers are introduced to several main protagonists in the chillia caste, a hereditary claim to a specific sunni muslim momin kin network of male taxi drivers and their families in mumbai who have been migrating from palanpur, gujarat since the early twentieth century. bedi closely relays a story of mumbai’s world of driving work from the perspectives of these drivers and their fabled kaalipeelis. the book’s attention to chillia drivers, specifically, and to their taxis as integral extensions of them, offers a rich and sensuously curious ethnography that pushes readers beyond classical issues of the city about poverty and the politics of labor. the fluid ecology described in mumbai taximen draws readers into concerns and contentions of value, care, kinship, technicity (fisch 2018), modernity, nostalgia, and knowledge production. mumbai taximen is signposted by a number of orienting questions and provocations in the introduction that re-surface throughout the following six chapters in light of specific moments in the stories and lives of her chillia interlocutors. what do taximen’s stories of driving [in mumbai] teach us about how urban workers inhabit, debate, and refuse change, especially when change is happening everywhere? how do taxi drivers live honorable, ethical, and sensually fulfilled lives? (4). in a mobile and migrant profession like driving work, what can we learn about kinship and locality-based relationality? what do the relational networks of chillia taximen reveal about the ways labor is differentially imagined and embodied across genders? how does a road connect 2 people to other urban ecologies to imprint itself on the senses and bodies of those who drive for a living? (13). addressing these questions, bedi works through a number of nuanced arguments to ultimately develop a theorization of what she calls indian automobility (193). indian automobility is presented as a postcolonial phenomenon that bounds together the working-class car culture, taxi trade, and roadbuilding that emerged globally in the twentieth century with the specifically emplaced sensorial and social labors associated with automobiles in india. the global elements surrounding this automobility take a back seat, though, in the ethnography. instead, bedi writes that her intentional focus is to dwell with and inhabit the immediate sensory worlds of chillia taximen on the mumbai roads, drawing on the ideas of sensuous scholarship (stoller 1997) from a number of anthropologists (howes 2003, ingold 2000, laplantine 2015, munn 1992). with its wonderful attention to the sensuous, mumbai taximen productively channels attention to competing regimes of value encountered in driving work that are expressed through the emic analytics of joona (original, old), jaalu (web/ecology), dhandha (profession), and dhekbhal (care), which respectively form four of the six chapters. other gujarati terms like dhooli (dust), ghulami (slavery), naka (crossroads), and maal (commodity) also play important roles in revealing chillia commitments and the author’s analysis of value and automobility. the glosses here offer some orientation to the terms’ meanings but a review cannot do justice to how the book closely inhabits the semiotic layers and embodied entanglements of their concepts across drivers, family members, mechanics, passengers, police officers, bureaucrats, cars, and the road. for those unfamiliar with south asia and the polysemous usages of terms across languages, some readers may find the many terms distracting. readers will quickly recognize, though, that bedi’s reliance on these terms in the ethnographic writing is inspired by, if not to say accountable to, the language necessitated in her ethnographic practice attending to the open edges and ambiguities taximen shape in their daily navigations of the road. a key anchor to mumbai taximen’s ecology is joona (chapter 3), which encapsulates ideas and connotations about older people or objects. debates around joona between taximen and police officers or bureaucrats hinge on anxieties of originality and obsolescence. joona taximen claim their rights to the city through generations of embodied road knowledge as original drivers of the taxi trade, their service-orientation, and responsibility for the roads and its passengers as they drive their classic kaalipeelis. officials, on the other hand, often accuse joona taximen as being stuck in 3 the past, driving their outmoded taxis that don’t satisfy modern technological and pollution regulations mandated by the city and so-called global standards of modernity. bedi and her interlocutors shuttle readers through the ways these tensions jam and viciously entangle questions and ambivalences of morality, subjectivity, capital, and technology. the intricacies of the taxi dhandha (chapter 1) and the chillia jaalu (chapter 4) emerge out of these tangles. the profession of driving work (dhandha) occupied by chillia, bedi shows, relies on a tightly knit, socially regulated and distributed kinship network of responsibilities and obligations (jaalu) that includes sharing cars, re/selling permits, car maintenance, loans, marriage arrangements, housing, and other forms of aid and care (dekh-bhal) for people and cars. the jaalu network of chillia connects drivers, their families, and mechanics, such that drivers are not positioned as masculine subjects individuated professionally and physically away from everyone else, but instead as one among many interdependent agents operating within the collective kinship network. in turn, jaalu offers interesting insights into gendered labor and economic opportunities, cultivations of pious chillia muslim subjectivity, and the mutual dependence between human bodies and machine bodies, all of which would not be as evident without bedi’s attention to the sensuous relationalities of the taxi trade. mumbai taximen’s attention to joona, jaalu, dhandha, and dekh-bhal is a welcome move in a growing body of decolonial and feminist literature that thinks and feels with local knowledges and practices on their own linguistic and sensory terms. thus, the work is an excellent example to ethnographers of one way to bridge the gap often felt between the immediacies and aliveness in the happening of research and the temporal and energetic delay of reconstructing that research through writing. furthermore, the book is a wonderful addition to extended studies of mumbai’s social and material infrastructural worlds, as well as for researchers of urban labor across the globe. of special note, with its close following of the main protagonists, the book’s storytelling is reminiscent of the microcosmic grittiness and detail of the documentary stories in bombay brokers (2021), edited by lisa björkman. since the chapters are hyper-focused to the specific experiences of chillia drivers in mumbai, one might be left wanting more extended engagement with other studies of neoliberal infrastructure and modern subjectivity within india and elsewhere. with acknowledgment of this opening, though, bedi’s study is an invitation to comparative research on especially auto-rickshaw drivers’ worlds in mumbai and other cities of south and southeast asia, passengers’ experiences 4 of driving work, app-based rideshare and delivery drivers, other spaces of muslim labor, and generally hereditary labor. what goes unstated in the book’s introductory reflections about nostalgia is that bedi’s account herein may very well be one of historical significance, documenting the possibly final generation of such hereditary drivers. since the book’s publication in 2022, the joona padmini kaalipeelis met their official, legal phasing out in october 2023. works cited: björkman, lisa, ed. bombay brokers. durham: duke university press, 2021. fisch, michael. an anthropology of the machine: tokyo's commuter train network. chicago: university of chicago press, 2018. howes, david. sensual relations: engaging the senses in culture and social theory. ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2003. ingold, tim. the perception of the environment essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. london: routledge, 2000. laplantine, françois. the life of the senses: introduction to a modal anthropology. london: bloomsbury, 2015. munn, nancy d. the fame of gawa: a symbolic study of value transformation in massim (papua new guinea society). durham: duke university press, 1992. stoller, paul. sensuous scholarship. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 1997. drew kerr is a phd candidate in anthropology at the university of california, san diego. his research worlds revolve around cultural production (primarily poetry), the politics of feeling, senses of collectivity, and semiotics. to explore these topics, his dissertation research dwells with the contemporary social lives of urdu poetry in urban north india. © 2024 drew kerr anthropology book forum skip to content home about focus and scope journal history author guidelines contributors contact anthropology review database archive open source publishing new reviews forum archives volume 11 volume 10 volume 9 volume 8 volume 7 volume 6 volume 5 volume 4 volume 3 volume 2 volume 1 books available for review request a book or film for review support the forum donate search search search search … menu home about focus and scope journal history author guidelines contributors contact anthropology review database archive open source publishing new reviews forum archives volume 11 volume 10 volume 9 volume 8 volume 7 volume 6 volume 5 volume 4 volume 3 volume 2 volume 1 books available for review request a book or film for review support the forum donate about us the anthropology book forum publishes a broad range of conversations focused on discussing and evaluating newly published work relevant to anthropological audiences, broadly conceived.     we publish online every monday. learn more the anthropology book forum will be at the aaas this year in new orleans come check out our roundtable! specters of academia: demystifying the book publishing process this roundtable brings together editors from leading anthropology presses to offer insights into the monograph publishing process. designed for early-career researchers, the session will offer guidance on the steps involved in transforming a dissertation into a publishable book, from crafting compelling book proposals, preparing manuscripts for submission, to understanding the peer review and revision process. participants will also discuss emerging trends in academic publishing, such as open access, digital dissemination, interdisciplinary collaboration, and 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intelligence, new haven: yale university press, 336 pp., isbn 978-0-30026-463-0 on march 22, 2023, the future of life institute wrote an open letter to all the labs developing ai technologies and appealed to them to pause “giant ai experiments” for at least six months. the authors and signatories of the letter tell us that ai developing companies are locked in an endless race to develop new systems that no one, including their developers, understand. nevertheless, the letter failed to raise fundamental questions about power and freedom concerning these ai technologies in our current moment. just like human methods of governance and population control, ai assisted technologies are increasingly being used to surveil, contain, and profile vulnerable populations. therefore, instead of solely focusing on potential threats to our liberty and autonomy in the future, it is necessary to critically evaluate the meaning of freedom and rights with regards to these technologies in the present. it is this orientation toward ai technologies that kate crawford’s book atlas of ai: power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence introduces us to at this epochal moment. the mainstream discourse about ai is surrounded and shrouded in enchantments; we know of ai systems as unknowable and beyond our comprehension, yet at the same time deterministic in a way that they surface patterns that can be applied with predictive certainty to shape everyday life. when we think about artificial intelligence as an omnipotent being devoid of any material context, it gives it a certain magical and theological quality. crawford points to other unequal and material histories of ai that we have been led to forget due to “strategic amnesia” (26). through this relational and material analysis of planetary computation, the book so cannily problematizes the conception of ai as intelligent and artificial; it is not artificial because it is made up from earth’s 2 deepest layers and neither is it intelligent because it is fed and trained on the data that humans produce. the atlas of ai is a timely intervention in the emerging wave of socially attentive and critical scholarship in the science and technology studies field. crawford’s book compliments safiya nobel’s algorithms of oppression (2018), ruha benjamin’s race after technology (2019) and shoshana zuboff’s the age of surveillance capitalism (2020). all of these works challenge and unearth assumptions about ai as a neutral, equal and just technology and bring forward the discriminatory, unequal, and racist codification of social problems under modern computation. crawford’s book differs from the aforementioned works because it points towards the planetary material infrastructures and labor that is required for modern computation and ai technologies to work on a global scale. with an interdisciplinary background in computer science and cultural studies, crawford divides her book around the themes of “earth,” “labor,” “classifications,” “state,” “affect,” and “power.” while the discussions in these chapters are historically informed, theoretically rich, and ethically attentive, the power of crawford’s work lies in framing her chapters through her field journeys to multiple and disparate sites. these sites include warehouses, mines, government archives, immigration centers, police stations, and museums. by talking about mining of lithium that power computers and smartphones, the underpaid mechanical turk workers, who continuously build, maintain, and test ai systems through crowd work and the billions of dollars private and public investment into surveillance infrastructure, crawford provides valuable insights into contemporary ai infrastructures’ material sites and political economy. although atlases are colonial devices to school the eye and help empires intervene in contested spaces in order to draw borders directly, crawford invokes the atlas to suggest “that we need new ways to understand the empires of ai” (10). in chapter 1 “earth,” by narrating her journey on a minivan from the heart of san francisco to the mining sites of clayton valley in nevada, where an “underground lake of lithium” now proffers “the stuff” of which ai “is made” (24–25), she documents the harmful environmental practices involved in the mining of lithium that powers computers on a global scale. although these two spaces are geographically close, crawford 3 forcefully illustrates how far apart they are regarding wealth. as the tech giants situated in san francisco became more and more wealthy and the city a tourist attraction, people forgot that all of this would not have been possible without mining lithium and in return destroying ecologies and uprooting populations of clayton valley. through such journeys, crawford rejects the dominant discourse about ai as an immaterial technology inhabiting the proverbial “cloud.” in this sense, ai is a registry of power (8), which continues to remap, contaminate, and uproot ecologies and communities by taking the form of “politics by other means” (20). from the lithium mining in nevada required to power computation to the trees in malaysia harvested to produce latex for the transatlantic undersea cables, fundamental to the planetary extraction which is required to power ai infrastructures is human labor. thus chapter 2 is focused on the brutal realities of mining and iphone factory suicides from which we are so detached due to the spectacular display of endless software and hardware innovations. by documenting the strict work practices under the gaze of surveillance technologies in amazon warehouses, crawford brings forth the harsh labor conditions that are required to maintain “the myth of automation” (65). detailed discussions about the theories of jeremey bentham, charles babbage, and henry ford in this chapter provides the necessary historical perspective regarding the management and disciplining of workers. chapter 3, titled “data,” elaborates how the unlimited collection and capturing of data without our informed consent to train ai systems on a planetary scale has become “moralized” (112) and it amounts to a “capture of the commons” (119). though this chapter does an excellent job at introducing the readers to everyday data practices that we are part of, it is in no way a comprehensive take on the vast world of data that machine learning algorithms require. the subsequent two chapters on the atlas of ai deal with the classifications and affective technologies that this mass data makes possible. by analyzing mugshots from “special dataset 32” and face recognition data, crawford argues that these systems’ classifications and detections are not objective. these neutral technologies impose existing social orders and magnify inequalities. as ai systems require increased data for “learning” and as big tech companies push the logic of “bigger is better” (43) to increase their profits, the research field of ai has become strategically blind to ethical concerns. 4 the last node on the atlas of ai is “state.” in this chapter, crawford takes us into the fascinating and horrifying world of ai under the command of the nation-state. by charting the history and evolution of public-private partnerships in the development of ai technologies, she maps out the geo-political landscape of the twentieth century and the genealogies of cyber warfare. in a powerfully written conclusion, crawford says, “over and over, we see the ideology of cartesian dualism in ai: the fantasy that ai systems are disembodied brains that absorb and produce knowledge independently from their creators, infrastructures, and the world at large. these illusions distract us from the more relevant questions: whom do these systems serve? what are the political economies of their construction? furthermore, what are the wider planetary consequences?” (215). at the core of crawford’s book is a message that artificial intelligence is not an objective, universal, or neutral computational technique that makes determinations without human direction. its systems are embedded in social, political, cultural, material and economic worlds, shaped by humans, institutions, and imperatives that determine what they do and how they do it. chapters like “classifications” show us that these technologies are designed to discriminate, to amplify hierarchies, and to encode narrow classifications. when applied in social contexts such as policing, the court system, health care, and education, they can reproduce, optimize, and amplify existing structural inequalities. this is no accident: ai systems are built to see and intervene in the world in ways that primarily benefit the states, institutions, and corporations that they serve. in this sense, ai systems are expressions of power that emerge from wider economic and political forces, created to increase profits and centralize control for those who wield them. although crawford never terms her disparate but connected fieldwork as ethnography, she explains it more in terms of journeys to various parts of the world that can unearth the material sites of ai. these journeys provide different nodes throughout the book on which we as anthropologists can expand and bring forward more locally specific and grounded ethnographies of ai and the various infrastructures associated with it to better understand the questions of power and discrimination that algorithms are perpetuating. for example, vijayanka nair’s an eye for an i: recording biometrics and reconsidering identity in postcolonial india (2018) and ursula rao’s biometric bodies, or how to make electronic fingerprinting work in india (2018) around india’s 5 biometric id and aadhaar scheme for welfare services bring forward the more intimate and micro effects that the interaction of ai assisted technologies and humans are producing. my name is zahid ali and i am a first year phd student in the anthropology department of rice university. my research questions lie at the intersection of the violent encounter between fossil fuel modernity and the desert life in thar, pakistan. through ethnographic exploration, i aim to understand how mega development projects in the context of coal-powered energy infrastructures shape and reshape everyday life in the thar desert. my focus is to study the ways in which the desert space is produced as a global resource for exploitation while simultaneously serving the dual purpose of entrenching state power and developmental regimes. © 2023 zahid ali microsoft word a book of waves_discussion-2 (1).docx / review of “helmreich, stefan. 2023. a book of waves. the lewis henry morgan lectures. durham: duke university press.” cultural anthropologist stephan helmreich’s steady oumlow of brilliant ideas in part is tesomony to his deep knowledge of theoreocal whims, allowing him to uncannily release fresh work just when people seem to ore of the latest fad. like when everybody is ored of understanding or anocipaong the next turn in anthropology, helmreich offers the “oceanic churn!” “a book of waves,” the third monograph by helmreich, shows how to think with waves. helmreich first learned to read waves as a bodysurfer. as an ethnographer of science, he set out to study them in depth. the result is a thorough reading of waves and how they “convolve” ocean scienosts’ subjecovioes, markets, and planetary crises. the book is the result of his lewis henry morgan lectures at the university of rochester, which were presented about ten years ago. beauofully designed and typeset, it situates itself somewhere between science and technology studies, infrastructure studies, and new materialism, introducing us to a mode of thinking and wriong that deals with scienofic concepts and material forces that “rescript worlds and futures” (304). to collect data for his ethnography, helmreich follows waves around the globe, a lixle like the white surfers in the “endless summer,” the 1966 american surf documentary that “glorified the virtue of exploraoon and glossed over the viewpoints of the local populaoon it portrayed” (hough-snee and sotelo eastman 2017:98). only helmreich turns the gaze back at scienosts, funding bodies, and surfers, finding alluring examples of waves at conferences, in archives and laboratories. in parocular, wave simulaoon centers capture his axenoon as they produce avatars of waves that variously act as reminders or harbingers of looming disaster. readers learn to ponder waves like wave scienosts, the main figures of the book. they hold significant knowledge, since waves govern mariome traffic, erode port infrastructure, or produce good surf. waves carry code for geomorphological movement and chemical propagaoon. knowing waves thus translates into specific forms of power: military, territorial, and ecological. the book might want to teach readers how to become waveliterate themselves, to read something that is not wrixen, but that carries substance, that is, meaning, announcements, and subject (maxer). over ome, we begin to understand that the wave is much more than a natural or material phenomenon. it is a cultural phenomenon, or as helmreich puts it, a kind of media. if we were wave-literate, we’d see that human kind is enmeshed with the wave and it is breaking. to understand waves as media, helmreich mobilizes a plethora of methods: visual analysis, studying media and video material, interviews, parocipant observaoon. most oeen, he is “studying across” at conferences, on research vessels, and at wave simulaoon centers. the diversity of his methods is in line with his message: there is a muloplicity of waves. despite six meaty chapters, the perspecove of scienosts predominates. in the following, i will outline the chapters, while trying to spotlight moments where non-scienofic perspecoves on waves glimpse through. in chapter 1, helmreich explains how waves became an object of study in europe. studying human axempts at understanding and domesocaong waves led him to the netherlands, a naoon “that sits, one third of it, below sea level” (31). the dutch have a long tradioon of monitoring waves. the dutch waterloopkundig laboratorium, established in 1927, allowed scienosts to aroficially generate wave flumes and observe their effects on miniature models of ports. visiong this lab, a monument to modern wave modeling, helmreich reflects on dreams of “doubling, shrinking, and taming the wildness of water” (35). but complex mathemaocal and computaoonal wave models seem unfit to capture the complicated behaviour of waves. they are animate enooes. while this animacy sneaks into wave models, it also requires brackeong coastal dynamics, “keep[ing] nonwatery infrastructure in stable focus” (54). the lab’s waves allow helmreich to trace out a process of enculturaoon reaching deep into the fabric of dutch naoonalist idenoty. he rightly points to the imperial character of this wave knowledge, since dutch hydro-experose is now marketed all around the world, especially in flood-stricken countries of asia. here, dutch wave knowledge and alleged cohabitaoon with water legiomizes internaoonal markeozaoon of flood control. as such, the chapter makes interesong links between dreams of governing the sea and dreams of forming society. universalizing wave knowledge, by introducing a standardized measurement of wave propagaoon to diagnosocate “surf similarity” across oceans, provides legiomacy and access to resources. basins rebuilt to scale in dele enact potenoal flooding scenarios, but this enactment not just anocipates domesoc risks – it also generates profits in far-flung places. helmreich catchily suggests seeing aroficial waves as “zombies,” uncanny doubles that are resurrected from the dead only to be crushed again. a surplus populaoon in the army of the postcolonial master. the chapter certainly helps familiarize waves, but other than learning about scienosts and their gadgets, we don’t get acquainted with the dutch – what is their relaoon with historical killer waves; are they haunted by monstrous waves? do they themselves consider waves as infrastructure, a compelling idea that helmreich pitches at the end of the chapter, where the sand motor enrolls seawater to engineer sand deposits to shore up dutch claims to cohabiong with the north sea? early on in the book, waves that oscillate between immaterial media and material impose their ambivalence on the clarity of the argument. aeer being introduced to a formalist knowledge of waves that tries to understand their varied semiooc and cultural roles in rather abstract terms, we board the flip, another astounding and swimming lab. aboard this futurisoc vessel, researchers find themselves amidst real waves, or “moving ecologies” (58). reading them means commanding an array of instruments, such as buoys and a fleet of underwater vehicles and planes. “flipping the ship” is not about the ship stripping business in the afrasian sea, but researchers’ changing orientaoons to their work which requires recalibraong the demands of wave science to personal ambioons, values, and one’s career. given the problemaoc provenance of funding for flip (the military-industrial complex), helmreich acknowledges the necessity to navigate one’s career and poliocs (100) around such quesoonable support. just what this orientaoon exactly means for his own research remains a mystery, which feels like a wonderous oversight given the author’s long-term employment with mit, an insotuoon infamous for raking in hundreds of millions in research contracts with military and corporate actors. in this chapter, helmreich also pays axenoon to the gendered nature of this labour as well as its imperial origins, seizing the moment to lay bare the origins of his own infatuaoon with waves. looking back, helmreich tenderly describes them as “shimmering promises, hyperreal translaoons of the virtual (the perfect wave) into the actual” – “as invitaoons to self-actualizaoon across an open future” (99). his obsession with and romanocizaoon of waves stands in contracts with treaong them as infrastructure, which is something us insotuoons commonly do. their imperial projects relied and cononue to rely on beneficial environmental condioons for, say, military invasions or expanding the reach of diplomacy. today, scienosts also turn to waves as composite infrastructures of bacterial spread to understand the health of the sea and “possible ocean futures.” i liked the contradictory role of waves for actualizing and prevenong certain futures. waves can be conduits to personal utopia and collecove dystopia. operaong wave-making infrastructure to transpose hydrological models onto reality forms the empirical backbone of the third chapter. here, another open-air lab is allowing “textbook wave guys” (which is how one civil engineer refers to himself, p. 174) to make waves come alive – this ome eerie simulaoons of tsunamis. helmreich convincingly shows how simulaong waves means claiming a specific knowledge of places. through reverse engineering, engineers want to approximate the potenoal destrucoveness of tsunamis for coastal oregon, a region threatened by the consequence of large earthquakes that might cause the sea floor to displace massive quanooes of water. lab engineers pracoce a “back-and-forth between such models and the world,” not that different from anthropologists trying to ground theory in the vagaries of everyday life. “thinking at different scales, in other words, makes similarioes and differences slide in and out of view.” once again, readers might wonder what locals do with this knowledge? we get glimpses of this through a shop owner’s prepped emergency pack and restaurant names. just how this spike in awareness is turned into profits remains unexplored. how significant are tsunami scenarios for elecoons, homemaking, and coastal life, in general? how does one live with the massive seawalls that are being constructed in japan, indonesia, and, perhaps soon, in the pacific us? what is perhaps missing from the bigger picture presented in this book, then, is captured by an interlocutor portrayed in the next chapter, when they talk about the “coastal side of things, […] where what you might call the anthropological aspects actually start to drive the research…” (219). how computaoonally modeled waves help ‘stand watch’ in a world in and consotuted of flux is discussed in the following chapter. based on hanging out with employees of wavewatch, “the world’s most widely used simulaoon and predicoon plamorm for ocean waves” that can accommodate high-speed numerical analysis of recent ocean monitoring and make predicoons, helmreich shows how wave forecasong requires re-mediaong and re-formalizing waves. remediaoon and re-formalizaoon interlace human and technological renderings of waves while leading to rather abstract representaoons. it is abstracong waves from their temporal and spaoal context that makes them interchangeable and comparable. the work ethos of the company is parocularly interesong: they want to keep soeware accessible and universally available so that it can recruit people in “communioes of pracoce” (217). helmreich accurately calls this community a “wave polity,” a realm of sovereignty constructed from traded knowledge, predicoon, and a shared ethics of accessible technology. of course, computaoonal knowledge of waves doesn’t neatly map onto reality. as the previous chapter showed, nearshore currents produce highly specific, idiosyncraoc waves. on page 228, the sediments and pollutants-carrying river allows helmreich to remind us that water is always “convolved with the material world” and escapes full raoonalizaoon. these excesses and disturbances of models are what fascinates wave scienosts, it doesn’t frustrate them. it also fascinates a growing community of ciozen scienosts whose involvement in observing the sea introduces an embodied and localized knowledge of waves. of course, excess water can mean doom for millions of coastal dwellers living in chronically flooded downstream areas, who closely monitor the specific dynamics of shore waters. this is what the next chapter tries to take up. here, helmreich describes how wave scienosts working in the southern hemisphere paddle against biases and trends in a discipline dominated by western physical oceanographers. helmreich is curious whether there might be proponents for a southern penchant in wave theory, which means thinking futures from waves in neglected oceans. in addioon to being less mixed up with human endeavours or centralized, capitalist mariome infrastructure (273), wave heights and other biological specificioes of the southern hemisphere oceans also make them stand out. anthropology has certainly played a role in differenoaong southern from northern seas in the global climate imaginary, as they predominantly documented threats to insular lives and tsunami recovery in this region of the planet. the southern oceans were, then, both a proxy for empire and for theorizaoon. aware of the legacies of colonizaoon, struggles for independence, and internaoonal development efforts, helmreich presents wave effects in the bay of bengal as “vital enooes through which to query and reorient wave theory” (285). today, waves write stories that tell global tales of climaoc upheaval as much as they conjure the “planetary,” as helmreich convincingly argues, since waves condense geological as well as global forces to the extent that “waves – rising surging, rolling – can now be read as materializaoons of climate changes in lixoral asia” (280). importantly, they materialize as swells of trash and polluoon that lasongly transform nearshore habitats into sickened ecologies, ailing from “churning, confused ome” that harbours chronic risk and disease. and yet, chalking waves off to climate change is a misreading, as helmreich points out, drawing heavily on camelia dewan’s (2021) work on hydrological intervenoons into the bengal delta. water literacy is a skill that ethnographic work can help develop, as this book shows. a book of waves teems with materialist understandings of animacy and agency. and yet, the literacy that this book develops doesn’t sufficiently center the material side of things. if these brackish, sluggish, chimeric enooes constantly exceed nomenclatures, computaoonal possibilioes, and formula, how does their behavior also quesoon baseline nooons of materiality, of both water, ground, and waves? instead, we are lee with waves as harbingers or messengers – in other words, remediated media. but how significant is a book about “significant” waves when it skirts quesoons about material outcomes? bibliography dewan, camelia. 2021. misreading the bengal delta: climate change, development, and livelihoods in coastal bangladesh. culture, place, and nature. seaxle: university of washington press. hough-snee, dexter zavalza, and alexander sotelo eastman, eds. 2017. the cri9cal surf studies reader. durham: duke university press. lukas ley is an environmental and urban anthropologist at the max planck institute for social anthropology in halle, germany, where he leads a dfg-funded emmy noether research group on the infrastructural lives of sand in the indian ocean world. ley’s first book, “building on borrowed time: rising seas and failing infrastructure in semarang” was awarded the social science prize by the european association for southeast asian studies and received an honorable mention for the benda prize of the association for asian studies. /© 2024 lukas ley 1 holly high, 2021, projectland: life in a lao socialist model village, honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 265 pp., isbn 978-0-82488-874-9 this excellent book is an ethnography of an indigenous katu village in sekong province in the highlands of southern laos near the vietnam border. the katu comprise about a quarter of the population of sekong province in laos (47), and a significant concentration in quang nam, the adjacent province across the vietnam border. the author, holly high, once pursued research in the agrarian studies program led by james scott at yale, and today is an anthropologist at the university of sydney in australia. the uplands of southeast asia have long been notoriously difficult to study.1 the inhabitants of the katu village here, kandon, once had a taboo against allowing guests to stay within the village perimeter or to enter their homes (76). in the region, languages and even language families can differ over brief distances. the mountains were only partially controlled by colonial forces until the military loss and exodus of the french from the region after diên biên phu in 1954. during the second indochina war, often called the vietnam war but also involving cambodia and laos, bombing by the u.s. forced the abandonment of highland villages for years at a time.2 as high observes, 'the bravery, fortitude, and suffering of kandon and the other highlanders of laos who bore the brunt of the american bombing is extraordinary' but not central to most 'english-language accounts of war' (45). in addition to its history as a war zone, the physical geography of the area is forbidding. the mountains are so steeply sloped that farmers work at constant risk of falls from a height, and outsiders must undergo strenuous hikes to reach villages. vietnamese communists who sought recruits in the highlands starting in the 1940s characterized the area around kandon as a 'vast land, sparse people' (54). but this was by comparison with the 2 densely occupied lowlands of the vietnamese coast. a kandon village elder echoes french archives in describing villages of the uplands in the 1930s, including kandon, as 'small cities' that existed 'in liaison with satellite villages' with as many as '500 inhabitants' that could contain 'several dozen long houses' (55, ft. 10). today, indigenous people are a declining share of the population of the highlands of laos and vietnam as both countries pursue policies that seek to integrate minorities into the modern state. in vietnam, this means transferring lowland populations more accustomed to modern agriculture to upland areas. in laos, there is military employment and inculcation of indigenous villages into modern folkways. the latter is the main focus of projectland. the current border between laos and vietnam was not settled until an agreement between the two countries in 1977. after this, with the encouragement of the lao government, many villages in sekong province moved in response. for kandon, its westward re-siting put it more firmly within the orbit of the laos state, and the move from old kandon to new kandon is narrated by high as a transformation from tradition to modernity. the transition plays out under a regime in laos that has been socialist since 1975 when the monarchy was overthrown. laos is the only landlocked country in southeast asia, depriving it of easy access to ocean-going trade and international markets. because of its geography, and other factors, laos has not undergone an opening to markets (25) similar to that of vietnam under doi moi in 1986. high’s principal informant, an indigenous leader named wiphat, led the move of the village to its new location and became an interlocutor for the village with state officials. wiphat is an ardent believer in the civic religion of lao socialism, and the author shows how this way of thinking is 'lived, discussed, and deployed' in daily life (24). in laos, she argues, socialism is a fundamental source of legitimacy for the government. even collectives in agriculture, adapted to current conditions that include market mechanisms, remain ‘foundational to the agrarian economy’ (25). this argument pushes against prevailing english-language interpretations that assume socialism is over and laos is in ‘transition’ to what will be a free market economy. it also lends nuance to the ethnography that follows. 3 the village leaders who espouse what high calls the ‘metalanguage’ (92) of lao socialism are not without their critics. wiphat spars with a group of fellow katu who reject aspects of modernization and decide to return to old kandon. the reverse migrants are led by wiphat’s brother-in-law, a man identified as canphon, who explains his return to the original village by listing the problems that accompanied the move to new kandon. these included cholera from a contaminated water supply (65), the addiction of a family member who stole food from relatives to pay for drugs (21), and, crucially, 'less land than expected' (218). in vietnam, land reform was the main driver of resistance to successive governments before unification. in laos, where about 70% of workers were farmers in 2020, the issue of land allocation remains important. thus, the comparison between new and old at the heart of the book makes clear that the huge benefits that come with modernization, including the socialist variety, are at a cost. in 2012, the author hiked to the original village to interview those who had decided to return. at this point, old kandon housed 150 people, all of whom supported themselves through farming (39). shifting cultivation of manioc and corn, horticulture, trapping and gathering in the forest, and animal husbandry were the main economic activities in the old village. by contrast, in new kandon, swiddens had been replaced by wet rice fields as a condition of resettlement (62) so that yields in the new area were almost a ton an acre. thriving households in new kandon held up to seven acres and could ‘hire out agricultural equipment, run shops, and lend money’ (38). not surprisingly, the old village is classified as poor by the lao government. it lacks 'electricity, piped water, road access, and a biomedical clinic' -'four of the five indicators determining if a village is poor' (39). these are all, by contrast, present in new kandon (pop. 1,261). in addition to adequate food, basic education, and agricultural and military work, the villagers of new kandon can now access a hospital, for example. in another example, the new village won open defecationfree (odf) credentials–a certification that wastewater facilities are adequate–under the program originating in bangladesh, supported by the lao government. but the core assumption of anthropological research in this arena is that development indicators do not adequately express human experience. high, writing here in the mode of scott, is attuned to the costs of this transformation for the katu. a village myth told in both kandons recounts a 4 time when ‘rice would harvest itself by following a string tied from a rice stalk to the granary door,’ and those who died could be brought back by being ‘buried in the trunk of a soft tree’ (216). but, the myth relates, people came to want more food. as the desire for food grew, the old, easy system of self-harvesting rice and revivifying loved ones suddenly stops. people no longer ‘die from leech and insect bites,’ the tale goes on, but they become ‘less delicate’ and must work hard. it is hard to avoid reading the myth as a collective comment on change in the village. the economic development of new kandon, with its regular exhortations to conform to norms set by the lao state, comes at a tragic cost: the loss of katu culture. many of the expectations set by lao officials are arbitrary. one of the conditions of resettlement, for example, was the construction of separate family homes to replace longhouses in which household work was shared among women in an extended family (63). even prohibitions that have clear health benefits such as the discouragement of buffalo sacrifice–a great expense for poor households where the buffalo is eaten raw–diminishes a ritual long foundational to katu village life. similarly, now that they inhabit a less remote area, the villagers of new kandon encounter people with different norms, and higher social status, more frequently. the campaign against open defecation, while it no doubt improves drinking water quality, uses what high terms ‘sanctioned bullying’ of the poorest in the village who are the ‘least likely to have toilets’ (91, 97). more seriously, pregnant women often avoid using the local hospital for prenatal treatment and childbirth because they fear 'criticism and judgment' from lao medical staff (108). resettlement to new kandon also brings the villagers into part of sekong province where land is more valuable, and competition over land begins as they arrive. ethnic alaks, highlanders who had been resettled earlier to the same area, had already been granted part of the katu parcel. the alaks are relocated again but fight successfully to reduce land allocated to new kandon by onethird. the state later allocates more new kandon land to a vietnamese rubber operation. cultural destruction, discrimination, and competition with fellow highlanders for scarce land in a new place all these are part of the katu experience under economic transformation. but one of the greatest harms to the people of new kandon comes from development itself. in old kandon, 5 alcohol had to be home-brewed and so was ‘only available at festivals’ (217). in new kandon, cheap, mass-produced alcohol enables heavy drinking among many of the village men. the free flow of alcohol is associated, high believes, with greater domestic violence. certainly, modernization has the potential to improve the status of women through access to work outside the village, and socialist officials forbid forced marriage, bride prices, and the imposition of fines for women who seek divorce. but abundance has pitfalls too. the title of the book, projectland, refers to the lao people’s democratic republic, and how its state projects, including resettlement for uplanders, ‘reach into the most intimate expressions of people’s selves and their personal agency’ (223). in its critique of the costs of transformation, the book continues in the vein of scott’s the moral economy of the peasant: rebellion and subsistence in southeast asia (1976). in contrast to much work on southeast asia by u.s.-based social scientists, high is critical not only of the effects of the socialist state on villagers but also of neoliberal modernization gambits such as wastewater facility programs. it thus avoids slipping into ideologically driven observations about villagers new to modern practices of both left and right. notes 1. oscar salemink, “sedentarization and selective preservation among the montagnards in the vietnamese central highlands,” in turbulent times and enduring peoples, ed. jean michaud (richmond, surrey: curzon, 2013), 139–64. 2. ben kiernan, việt nam: a history from earliest times to the present (new york city: oxford university press, 2017). bibliography kiernan, ben. việt nam: a history from earliest times to the present. new york city: oxford university press, 2017. salemink, oscar. “sedentarization and selective preservation among the montagnards in the vietnamese central highlands.” in turbulent times and enduring peoples, edited by jean michaud, 139–64. richmond, surrey: curzon, 2013. 6 scott, james c. the moral economy of the peasant: rebellion and subsistence in southeast asia. new haven: yale university press, 1976. laura pangallozzi, phd, is an instructor in the geography department at binghamton university teaching environmental and water planning, as well as regional geography. © 2023 laura pangallozzi 1 bruno j. strasser & thomas schlich, 2025, the mask: a history of breathing bad air, new haven: yale university press, 288 pp., isbn 9780300276039 at a time when masked officers from the us immigration and customs enforcement agency carrying out immigration raids are in the news and memories of the covid-19 pandemic remain fresh, the mask is a timely contribution. covering a broad sweep of history, strasser and schlich offer a thoughtful reflection on what masks say about both the wearer and society. masks, as they point out, can be deployed for multiple purposes – as a means of protection, form of transformation, comedic tool, mode of resistance, and mechanism of provoking fear. they examine the use of masks to mediate the flow of air in and out of bodies, drawing on a wide range of sources, from comics and novels to medical texts and paintings, with rich illustrations throughout. the focus is primarily on western europe and north america, but one chapter on japan and china extends the geographic coverage. through a discussion of how masks have been used to counter various kinds of bad air over the years, the authors demonstrate the deeper significance of this technology and the ramifications of its uptake. their narrative is peppered by many fascinating nuggets. i was struck, for instance, by the accounts of the experiment in which medical assistants had to fill their mouths with coal dust and move around a room emitting strange sounds so as to model how far bacteria could travel (p. 118) and the us executive who saw the commercial potential of applying bra cup technology to mask design (p. 211). i would have liked to see more discussion, though, of what exactly it is about covering the mouth and nose that provokes the response that it does. how does this differ from the masking of other parts of the body, such as the covering of the eyes with dark glasses, ears with headphones, hair 2 with a headscarf, or hands with gloves? the book made me ponder the resonances attached to different body parts and the culturally and politically shaped ideas of what we should, or should not, bare to others. is there something about the sensorial ways in which we interact and connect with one another that influences the meanings we attach to the body parts through which we speak, hear, smell, touch, or see and their covering? i would have been interested to read more theoretical reflection on this. ultimately, however, this is not the authors’ project. strasser and schlich set out to offer an overview of the history of how masks have been taken up as technological fixes to various societal problems, and this they do well. the mask is an engaging read, which would be of interest to the wider public and a valuable addition to an undergraduate or graduate course on the history of science, science and technology studies, medical anthropology, or health geography. jessica barnes department of geography, university of south carolina © 2025 jessica barnes 1 vaibhav saria, hijras, lovers, brothers: surviving sex and poverty in rural india, fordham university press, 2021, 249pp., isbn 9780192873767 keywords: queer ethnography, sexuality and desire, asceticism and eroticism, temporalities of desire, hijra identity "why do men have sex with men?" …….the answers further link the anxieties of pleasure with the substratum economy of semen as it is inherited and understood through the hindu-muslim cosmogony, offering reasons such as "anus is tighter than vagina and gives more pleasure" "protecting a girl's virginity, maintaining chastity" and "no commitment to marriage." other reasons given are "play" and "curiosity." (pg. 10) the book hijras, lovers, brothers: surviving sex and poverty in rural india by vaibhav saria presents a profound ethnographic exploration of the lived realities of hijras. it delves into the nuanced connotations of the term hijra, often associated with transgender identities, and examines their complex social and cultural existence in india. drawing on twenty-four months of ethnographic research conducted between 2008 and 2019—including sixteen uninterrupted months of cohabitation with a hijra community—the study focuses on two of india’s most economically disadvantaged regions, bhadrak and kalahandi, in the eastern state of odisha. bhadrak, the primary field site, provided a rich setting for understanding the economic strategies hijras employ for survival. they sustained themselves through various means, including selling goods near the shrine of a revered muslim saint (mazar), soliciting alms aboard trains, participating in customary rituals related to childbirth and marriage, performing at religious festivities, and engaging in sex work. saria’s investigation was driven by three primary objectives: to analyze the complex dynamics between hijras and their biological families, to examine how rural settings increasingly provided more sustainable opportunities for hijras compared to urban environments, and to explore the nature of sexual interactions and intimate relationships within rural communities, where limited anonymity shaped social and personal dynamics. conceptually, saria frames hijra identity as a form of political theology that both exists within and transcends the liberal political framework. the ethnographic immersion becomes palpable from 2 page six, where the section desiring men vividly portrays the affirmation of sexuality. the text introduces specific linguistic expressions used within hijra communities, such as batli to denote the rectum, offering deeper insight into their lived realities. expanding on these themes, the study further examines the politics of penetration in hijra relationships, emphasizing how semen is symbolically invoked as never being wasted. saria weaves personal experiences into the narrative, detailing both moments of engagement and obstacles encountered in the field: “it was not only my sexuality but also my long hair and feminine attire that identified me as a hijra, allowing me to remain among them by the highway, where we engaged in long conversations during their sex work” (pg. 16). the book is structured into five chapters, beginning with an introduction that situates hijra sexuality within the framework of global public health and hiv prevention. the concluding chapter revisits this issue from the perspective of hijras themselves, while the intervening chapters provide an indepth exploration of their daily lives, challenges, and moments of joy. the first chapter, a prodigious birth of love, explores how hijras employ laughter, flirtation, and seduction (pg. 26) to validate their romantic inclinations toward men. laughter, presented as an invitation, reveals two key dynamics: the moral influence of kinship on both social and bodily realms and the interplay of liberty and restriction within desires for anal intimacy, challenging kinship norms. the chapter then examines flirtation, illustrating it through a poignant episode. a particularly striking passage states: “a hijra can never build a home with a man. he needs children, heirs, and society (dinduniya). with a hijra, he will have neither heirs nor a traditional household. yet, on rare occasions, one in a million forsakes these conventions and marries a maichiya.” (pg. 30) a conversational exchange follows (pg. 47), positioning hijra experiences within broader ethical frameworks of endurance and preservation. saria identifies four key perspectives: first, ironic speech cultivates sringara (romantic love) through laughter while interwoven with melancholia, hope, sorrow, and elation. second, recurring discussions of “babies” allow the articulation of an otherwise unattainable longing, even in the face of mortality. third, sexual relationships disrupt yet ultimately reinforce male domestic obligations. lastly, hijras embody a distinct form of caregiving, acknowledged individually and collectively, particularly through blessings believed to facilitate sexual and reproductive aspirations within societal structures. chapter 2, in false brothers, evil awakens, examines hijras' fraternal ties, positioning them as pivotal in renegotiating kinship, given their transition from male identities. saria contends that their presence within families, particularly regarding inheritance and property rights, necessitates a redefinition of kinship, care, and asceticism. while hijras claim ancestral property, their rejection of marriage and biological reproduction disrupts traditional lineage structures. however, some do marry, maintain wives, and raise children—whether biologically theirs or adopted—blurring the boundaries of domestic belonging. despite societal suspicion, hijras actively engage in household 3 transactions, contributing emotional and nonreproductive affective labor that sustains familial and social structures. a particularly compelling section, the mahabharata of this world (pg. 72), further explores these complexities. the interlude (pg. 100) critically examines hijras' placement within the male-female binary, challenging conventional classifications such as the third gender or transgender. saria proposes alternative frameworks—asceticism and eroticism—that move beyond gender-based contradictions. the discourse revolves around authenticity, where being asli (real) or nakli (false) is context-dependent, shaping gender and sexual expression. additionally, the chapter explores hijras’ engagement in sex work, highlighting its intersection with ascetic practices. the fluidity between clients, friends, and lovers complicates distinctions, reflecting the economic entanglements that define hijras' social world, a theme further explored in the subsequent chapters. the next chapter examines the financial practices of hijras, challenging conventional moralreligious exchanges such as daan, dakshina, bhiksha, dalaali, and haq (pg. 109–110). the intersection of poverty and sexuality has hindered broader social change, as hijras sustain livelihoods through begging and prostitution. efforts to address these stigmatized roles through legal reforms have largely failed in odisha, as such interventions strip hijras of agency and impose a bourgeois ideal rooted in colonial legacies. additionally, the chapter highlights the overlooked presence of hijra politicians, whose participation at local levels contrasts with their exclusion from mainstream lgbt advocacy. saria argues that reducing hijras to mere beggars ignores their political agency and calls for a reevaluation of the ethical frameworks surrounding their societal role. chapter 4 explores the complexities of romantic and sexual relationships between hijras and their male partners, illustrating how sexual encounters transcend fixed notions of time, space, and experience. saria argues that intimacy cannot be confined to physical acts alone, which contributes to the reluctance to use condoms. despite efforts to destigmatize hiv, the existential threat it poses does not deter the pursuit of love, as relationships in south asia intertwine physical and spiritual dimensions. love and financial exchange, though seemingly oppositional, serve a shared function of valuation (pg. 169). by mapping hijra narratives onto medieval sufi-hindavi romances like madhumalati and mrigyavati, saria highlights a sacred geometry in love that dissolves rigid boundaries of sex, attachment, and temporality. rejecting identity-based classifications such as "high risk" or "msm," they instead portray hijra intimacy as a profound, life-defining force. drawing from literary criticism, queer theory, and anthropology, saria demonstrates how sexuality, shaped by class disparities, reconfigures poverty’s perceived marginalization through the transformative potential of desire. chapter 5 concludes the book by revisiting the discourse on hiv through the lens of the preceding chapters, examining the inherent risks hijras navigate within their socio-moral landscapes. saria 4 contrasts these lived risks with the risk-averse framework of public health, highlighting the dissonance between hiv prevention narratives and the realities of rural odisha. the chapter critiques both public health policies and contemporary queer theory’s emphasis on temporality and futurity. by framing love affairs not merely as expressions of queer desire but as temporal experiences, saria argues that sexual encounters function as events rather than discrete acts, resisting linear notions of the future. instead of being confined to an inevitable trajectory of marginalization, relationships with hijras reframe time itself—transforming it from an oppressive continuum of hardship into a vibrant, immediate present. this work will undoubtedly be remembered as a landmark in the history of queer ethnographic writing. saria's meticulous documentation offers an immersive journey into the lives of hijras—one that moved me deeply. i laughed, i cried, and i felt every moment come alive through their words. this ethnography is not only a valuable addition to existing anthropological studies on hijras but also bridges critical gaps in the discourse. through compelling first-hand narratives, seamlessly interwoven with theory and rich connections to indian mythology, saria crafts a vivid and multifaceted portrait of hijras. a truly remarkable and necessary contribution! abhijeet singh dewari is a young researcher, writer, and anthropologist pursuing postgraduate studies at the university of delhi. he authored a novel at 13, published in 2019, and has contributed research to high-impact journals like ageing research reviews. his ethnographic work among the jaad bhotiyas of uttarkashi has gained recognition. a cultural ambassador for kumaon and a kathak representative at national and international forums, his research spans kinanthropometry, physiological anthropology, dance aesthetics, spirituality, and himalayan studies. he has been affiliated with carta, usa, and has published book reviews in esteemed journals, including the anthropology book forum of the aaa. his work explores the cognitive benefits of kathak, biocultural aging, and himalayan ethnography. © 2025 abhijeet singh dewari microsoft word lenkart book review.docx 1 flores, andrea. the succeeders: how immigrant youth are transforming what it means to belong in america. oakland, ca: university of california press, 2021. the succeeders: how immigrant youth are transforming what it means to belong in america is an intriguing and insightful ethnographic study of a program called “the succeeders,” which supports latino high school students in nashville, tennessee. the author, andrea flores who is a white-presenting, half-latinx american does not directly relate to the students in the succeeders program, as she came from an upper household where pursuing college was always an option. instead, she found a deeper connection to the students’ experiences through her mother’s background. in the ethnography flores focuses on latino students’ sense of belonging in high school and the support they receive to pursue higher education. the book is divided into three parts: context of belonging, learning to belong, and unlearning to belong. flores provides an in-depth exploration of the students’ perspectives on latinidad stereotypes and how their culture and individual experiences shape their sense of belonging in high school and their pursuit of higher education. she helps us understand that each student has their own definition of success, even if that does not mean the student pursues higher education. this work is important for the field of higher education, as it highlights ways to better support both undocumented and documented latinidad youth, challenge stereotypes, and foster a greater sense of belonging within academic spaces. part one focuses on how students navigate their sense of belonging in both the community and in the succeeders program. there is a discussion on how the students perceive and define themselves within the framework of the american dream. additionally, flores introduces the students, and how they are welcomed in both the succeeders program, their community, and their school. part two focuses on chapter two and chapter three, which have the greatest impact in the book by shedding light on the stereotypes students face. chapter two describes a complex version of duck, duck, goose which the students engaged during class. in this activity, a student would stand up, state a word, and see their classmates' reactions. in one scenario, a student stood up and said the word undocumented. the student’s first reaction to this word was associated with criminality, highlighting how stereotypes contributed to feelings of exclusion at school. flores explains that some students she interviewed were undocumented and struggled to navigate both school and their communities at home. she also explored how they “understand their membership in the united states” (flores, 2021, p. 81). as the students reflected on their identities, they began to define culture in their own way, embracing their latinidad heritage and 2 identity through family and kinship. in the latinidad community, kinship is strong and plays a significant role in students’ academic success and classroom performance. this scenario is important for current administrators and faculty in education to understand the impact of stereotypes on latino students in high school. in addition, these factors influence their hesitation in pursuing higher education. this discussion transitions into chapter three, which examines the students’ use of language and how their personal lives and cultural backgrounds influence their pursuit of higher education. chapter three strongly resonates with flores’ argument, as it examines both the students’ culture and how their home lives impact their education. flores explores the students’ use of language and how they navigate between standard english and what they refer to as ghetto to express themselves. standard english is used for writing papers and communicating in academic settings, while ghetto is the language they use at home or in more informal conversations. the way and context in which students use these language styles allows them to express themselves authentically. flores writes, “your essay is your chance to tell your story. the essay is your ticket into money, into school. knowing who you are. your story is your ticket" (flores, 2021, p. 93). this quote encourages students to share their personal stories in their admission essays, allowing them to express their lived experiences and cultural identities. encouraging this form of expression brings authenticity to their writing and empowers students to embrace who they are. this insight is especially valuable for advisors in higher education, as it underscores the importance of supporting students in discovering and affirming their own identities, both inside and outside the classroom. it also encourages advisors to engage with students as individuals rather than make assumptions based on racial or cultural stereotypes, ensuring that each student feels seen, heard, and valued for their unique experience. part three covers chapters four, five, and six, along with an exploration of where the students went after graduation. all three chapters focus on kinship and its connection to the students’ success. flores distinguish relationships between parents, siblings, and friends by highlighting how familial responsibilities impact students' educational journeys. understanding the students’ cultural heritage and their connection with family and kinship helps explain why a student may prioritize their siblings or children over their own aspirations. kinship is a central aspect of latinidad culture and plays a key role in helping students balance family responsibilities with their schooling. when a student finds friends and a support system, it significantly enhances their sense of belonging and their confidence in achieving graduation and pursuing higher education. in the conclusion, flores discusses the students’ graduation and their paths afterward. while some students pursued higher education, others were unable to do so due to various challenges. these included not only financial limitations but also struggles with inclusion, navigating nativism, and the impact of intergenerational caregiving responsibilities. flores talks about one student she engaged with, emma, who attended college after high school but faced financial struggles while taking eighteen credit hours of classes and working three jobs. despite these challenges, she graduated college, though it took time to balance her jobs and coursework while succeeding in higher education. emma formed close friendships with two fellow students from the succeeders program, who supported her throughout her journey. her experience highlights the importance of kinship in achieving academic success. 3 another student from the succeeders program, janitza, graduated from high school but did not pursue higher education. when flores met with her two years after completing the program, she learned that janitza had become pregnant during high school. tragically, her husband “was killed in a random act of violence” (flores, 2021, p. 193). due to these hardships, janitza decided that higher education was not an option for her. however, she redefined success on her own terms, stating that for her, success meant “being a good latina mother” (flores, 2021, p. 194). when flores revisited the students' stories, it became evident how much they had grown and embraced their own definitions of success. success was not dictated by the traditional ideals of the american dream but rather by what each student viewed as their personal achievements after high school. the students’ individual definitions of success and their post-high school paths highlight the importance of recognizing each student’s unique experience. reading and analyzing this ethnography helps both administrators and faculty support younger students in latinidad communities to pursue higher education while understanding their own definitions of success. it also acknowledges that not all students will be able or want to continue their education and emphasizes the importance of understanding each student’s individual needs and desires for their future. katherine lenkart currently serves as an enrollment services specialist and immigration advisor at the international english center at the university of colorado in boulder. she is also pursuing a master’s degree in higher education at the university of colorado boulder, with a concentration in global education. © 2025 katherine lenkart 1 being everywhere and dreaming about possible places: an interview on danya fast’s the best place introduction: in the wake of the best place in the summer of 2024, i returned to toronto to trace the daily movements of somali canadians experiencing homelessness and a history of substance use. as i became interested in developing methods that attended to spatial histories and invitations to life stories offered through somali canadian movements, i encountered dr. danya fast’s the best place. the best place is an ethnography that explores how youth in vancouver dream of a place amid systemic exclusion, overdose risks, and housing precarity. fast offers a compelling example of the possibilities that emerge when ethnography and public health interventions take communities’ dreams and imaginations of place seriously. in the fall of 2024, i was fortunate to interview fast to explore themes of place, field sites, writing, dreams, and the anthropology of the future. what follows is a glimpse into our conversation. the interview hannah: i’d like to begin with how you organized the best place. i appreciate how your ethnography begins in a particular setting (e.g., a shelter) and moves towards this concept of ‘everywhereness,’ highlighting the multiple ways youth experience place in vancouver. what did you want readers to take away from the structure of the book? 2 danya fast: the chapters in the book reflect where i began, in downtown vancouver, and how i was drawn into the evolving possibilities of places for young people. from the outset, i was compelled to write in moments when young people refused assumptions about belonging to “street youth community” tied to a specific inner-city neighborhood. it took me some time to realize how their mobility could be read as a refusal of confinement—within poverty management and public health infrastructures, as well as assumptions about vancouver’s downtown eastside neighborhood as the “proper” place for those experiencing addiction. instead, my young interlocutors had big dreams and their geographic mobility through the city continually ruptured bounded notions of who they were, where they belonged, and what they were reaching for. i hope the book’s structure shows that i was catching on to what young people were telling me from the outset: “i'm everywhere. i'm not in one place.” i also made the decision to end with this sense of ‘everywhereness’ to underscore how those who have died from overdose have their names etched in graffiti across city buildings and remain present in the lives of those who live on. hannah: as you cataloged the rhythms of these youths' lives during fieldwork that spans more than a decade, how did the meaning of the book change? danya fast: my writing is increasingly inspired by my work with young drug users and family member activists in vancouver who are fighting for change. currently, six people a day are dying of overdoses in the province of british columbia, where vancouver is located. we've lost over 150 young people under the age of 19 to overdose. if we expand the age range to include youth up to 29, the number rises into the thousands. we're involved in this life-or-death fight for the kinds of support and care that young people need to keep themselves and those they love alive. by the time i completed writing this book, i was much more involved in political advocacy alongside youth drug user activists than i had been when i began researching and writing the best place. i was more critically considering the place of my book within the political landscape and loss of life i was witnessing. 3 hannah: another political move i see your book making is it articulates young people’s big city dreams beyond the language of resistance and submission. i wonder how do you theorize an alternative to being that isn't defined by the grammar of resistance? danya fast: i wanted to foreground these youths’ dreams and desires in the city, which engaged with yet also existed outside of grammars of control and resistance. at the same time, i am aware that people may read my work and argue that these youth’s dreams are a form of resistance. what i really wanted to explore was that, even as life became more dire, and it became clear that youth might not realize their dreams of place in the city, dreaming was still a way of generating an affective sense of forward momentum. for example, i remember those final, heartbreaking moments with terry – the last time i saw him before his death – when he was so unwell and yet still dreaming about having a girlfriend who understood him. part of my theoretical and methodological aim for this book was to stay close to how young people's articulations of their big city dreams constitute a meaningful way of being in this world— one oriented toward moving forward, and that is far more complex than resisting regimes of oppression. hannah: the way you describe dreams prompts me to consider the possibilities these youth envision, which leads me to my final question: how does the best place contributes to discussions on the anthropology of the future? questions of future in your ethnography dawned on me as i read your emotional last chapter which featured patty’s photography of the beach that showed “everything that she loved about the city” (p.179). i could not help but notice how the water in patty’s image was flowing—with what i assumed to be different tempos of currents—toward a horizon, perhaps beyond the mountains pictured. as a reader i found this image epitomized youths’ forward movements which also unfold through the uncertainty, the highs and the lows of ordinary life, friendship, and substance use. i'd like to know how your focus on this idea of forward movement opens up your thinking about the temporalities of the future. danya fast: i think about what these young people’s desires to move forward can teach us about how to live in troubled and uncertain times, where many of us may feel like we're sinking into 4 stagnation. my book explores how the interventions intended to ameliorate trouble and uncertainty can also create forms of stagnation that actually prevent communities from moving towards imagined futures. however, perhaps it also gestures to how communal care can generate a sense of momentum and futurity. we don’t think about this enough in policy and practice. we’re so focused on saving lives. and i, as much as anyone, don’t want to see more young people die. but what my interlocutors have told me is that staying alive is not enough. they frequently described a desire for a sense of forward momentum — and if they couldn’t find it in school or work or homemaking or services, they would look for it in substances, crime, and volatile romantic relationships. i think these young people offer crucial insights into the kinds of cities we want to create—namely, places where everyone can have a sense of being part of something rife with potential and forward momentum. an unending: the now and unfixed futures as dusk settled in for me, and our conversation dwindled into a lingering closure, dr. fast and i sat with the ways drug ethnographies contextualize the future. we thought about the futures that become plausible through the ways communities stay in a moment, relinquish concerns of a future anticipated, and reach into what stretches beyond current affairs. references fast, d. (2023). the best place: addiction, intervention, and living and dying young in vancouver. rutgers university press. danya fast: dr. danya fast is an assistant professor in the department of medicine (division of social medicine) at ubc and a faculty associate of the department of anthropology. she is also an investigator at british columbia children’s hospital research institute and foundry. her research focuses on the relationship between health and place among young people who use drugs in the margins of the city. 5 hannah ali: hannah ali is a phd candidate in medical and cultural anthropology at cornell university. her doctoral project explores the various ways somali canadians draw on religious and cultural repertoires while enduring toronto’s drug toxicity crisis. more broadly, hannah’s research interests include art-based methods (such as play), care, psychoanalysis health, and religious constructions of healing within the somali diaspora. © hannah ali microsoft word 851-article text-2659-1-2-20250523.docx 1 daiana sanchez, 2024, the children of solaga: indigenous belonging across the u.s.mexico border: stanford university press, 202pp., isbn 9781503641389 key words: auditory epistemology, diaspora, belonging, resistance, indigenous ontologies. how does one belong to a community in an epoch of multiple colonialities and highly militarized borders, where bodies are highly surveilled, analyzed, and hegemonized? in the children of solaga: indigenous belonging across the u.s.-mexico border (2024), dr. daina sanchez offers a deeply personal monograph demonstrating how the descendants of zapotec migrants from san juan solaga, oaxaca, transcend borders, lineages, and kinship networks to maintain their indigenous identity, community practices, and relational sense of belonging, while navigating life in diaspora. as the first book-length ethnographic text written by a native woman from the community being studied (5), sanchez explores how indigenous epistemologies, and communal values, such as comunalidad and practices of convivencia are sustained and fortified across borders and multiple settler-states. by emphasizing the voices and lived experiences of indigenous migrants, who through creative forms of multisensorial resistance refuse to be erased or assimilated by national and colonial structures, this work makes an important contribution to indigenous studies, migration scholarship, and identity politics. chapter one, “the cargo system and indigenous belonging,” challenges conventional anthropological interpretations of the cargo system in mesoamerica by reframing it not as a punitive or hierarchical system but one centered on membership and belonging. sanchez offers the solagueño term comunalidad to describe this dynamic, emphasizing an indigenous way of knowing and being through which individuals demonstrate belonging and are inducted into el goce comunal, the feeling of communal joy through collective contribution and participation (4). this intervention is significant because it centers indigenous cosmologies in defining the function and importance of communal systems, resisting eurocentric frameworks that have 2 historically pathologized indigenous governance structures. patron saint celebrations, or fiestas, exemplify this paradigm shift as solagueños transform spanish colonization and missionization histories into dynamic, embodied spaces where they affirm collective identity and community belonging, transcending geographic and generational barriers. specifically, diasporic solagueños transcend the highly militarized u.s.-mexico border by capitalizing on modern technology and contributing monetarily as mayordomías (fiesta sponsors), granting them the opportunity to participate in el goce comunal, affirming their community connection. in doing so, solagueños reject settler-state notions of indigeneity that seek to invalidate identity claims for indigenous peoples outside their ancestral homelands (42), demonstrating how identity and belonging are affirmed through communal participation. in chapter 2, “home of the oaxacans,” sanchez examines how hybrid hegemonies, formed by the intersecting colonial structures of the u.s. and mexico, work to exclude diasporic solagueños through practices like enclavisation. these structures confine indigenous migrants to marginalized social and geographic enclaves, marked by limited access to resources and heightened exposure to structural violence, including the prevalence of gangs, which further complicates notions of collective belonging and safety. this analysis is vital as it challenges ideas that promote los angeles as a multicultural mecca, and exposes how deeply embedded ideas centered around race and place continue to inform racial logics and neighborhood demographics. through the hybrid hegemony framework, ethnic solidarity is also problematized, as solagueño living in los angeles confront social exclusion from both anglo and latinx communities. although this dual exclusion informs how solagueño youth regard themselves and the relationships they have to their ancestral homeland (66), these enclaves become sites of cultural production, as adversity produces a desire for many youths to be actively engaged in the traditions of their parents’ hometown. music, in particular, becomes an ontology of care, manifesting from its powerful history as a tool of refusal against colonial imposition. oaxacan brass bands have emerged as powerful symbols of identity, belonging, and cultural pride, reshaping how oaxacan communities are imagined within los angeles. they serve as an auditory affirmation of solagueño lifeways, sustaining generational knowledge, and fostering communal values across geographic and diasporic divides. 3 the third chapter, “returning to the land of the fallen leaves,” addresses how solagueño families, with mixed citizenship status mobilize settler-created legal identities to maintain relations with sagara, their pueblos, and affirm convivencia, or the practice of living and engaging with community, fortifying communal belonging (83). increasingly restrictive immigration policies combined with racial, social, and economic marginalization force many indigenous peoples to migrate to the united states without authorization. this reality manifests as legal violence, where the responsibility to maintain kinship, or convivir, across borders falls to diasporic children whose citizenship status allow them to traverse transnationally without contestation. this legal maneuvering resists the settler state’s attempts to limit indigenous movement, addressing larger structures of colonial erasure. solagueño being is rooted in experiential, embodied knowledge where place, community, and collective responsibility are integral to identity. although language and gender expectations occasionally create tensions between locals and returnees, the moral ethos of convivencia transcends these differences, fostering a shared appreciation for their pueblo and culture. by leveraging the legal status of u.s.-born individuals to sustain kinships and collectives across borders, solagueños transgress state control and practice convivencia in diaspora, strengthening ties to their homeland, indigenous identity, and the vitality of their community. in chapter four, “music follows serranos,” autochthonous modalities of communication, such as voice, music, and dance, allow solagueños living in los angeles to transcend geographic and generation lines and form webs of relations the facilitate indigenous placemaking practices connecting those living in diaspora to their pueblos. these sonic spaces cultivate an auditory culture through which solagueños affirm their indigenous distinctiveness and strengthen communal belonging, transforming any place where community and music converge into a site of home-making and cultural continuity. bands composed of diaspora youth leverage their unique lived experiences, family histories, and collective cultural affiliations to create an amalgamation of audio histories, eliciting memories and feelings of being in solaga, connecting generations regardless of linguistic ability. as not all solagueños can return to their homeland, music becomes an 4 embodied experience that allows individuals to feel life in solaga again. these bands operate as auditory sites of decolonial praxis, offering a culturally embedded modality to sustain communal lifeways and enact belonging. by contributing to an auditory epistemology that transmits memory and identity, oaxacan brass bands facilitate intergenerational relations and produce counter-hegemonic spaces where indigenous presence endures across colonial borders and temporalities. drawing on work by chicana feminists, critical latinx indigenous frameworks, and scholars like shannon speed, maylei blackwell, and patrick wolfe, sanchez extends conversations on the transborder lives and practices of indigenous migrants. yet by emphasizing joy, or el goce comunal, she illustrates how youth are active agents in fortifying and cultivating diasporic solagueño personhood and community life. for these youth, music represents a powerful tool of refusal as they reclaim a colonial method of evangelization to affirm communal futurities through continued marginalization. these sensorial spaces are dynamic, vibrant, and unapologetically oaxaqueña forms of resistance against colonial erasure (121). circling back to the posed question, in an era of colonial borders and surveillance, the children of solaga shows that belonging endures through embodied practices of comunalidad, multisensory resistance, and the relational care of convivencia. sanchez demonstrates what it means to conduct engaged, relational research. she acknowledges her positionality and leverages her embodied memory to create lush sensorial descriptions, inviting readers to experience convivencia and solagueño ontologies of care. sanchez illustrates that decolonization is an embodied, relational practice transcending settler-imposed borders, socioeconomic barriers, and generational divides. by refusing static conceptions of identity and rejecting the treatment of indigenous peoples as passive “ethnographic others,” sanchez instead centers them as theorists, speakers, and agents of their own experience. this monograph offers an insightful lens for those interested in decolonizing ethnography, illuminating the possibilities of community-rooted scholarship and indigenous epistemologies in unpacking transnational and intergenerational identity formation. 5 authors biography: zoe caple studies cultural anthropology at the university of washington, seattle. her research interests center around indigenous epistemologies, food sovereignty, ontologies of care, and multi-sensory anthropology. © 2025 zoe caple 1 shailaja paik. 2022. the vulgarity of caste: dalits, sexuality and humanity in modern india, stanford: stanford university press, 422 pp., isbn 9781503634084 shailaja paik’s the vulgarity of caste delves into the lives of dalit women engaged in tamasha, a theatrical art form prevalent in maharashtra, western india. drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, paik examines how these women’s lives are shaped by the shifting dynamics of casteist and patriarchal systems, as well as the sociocultural frameworks of value and hierarchy within broader maharashtrian and indian society. the monograph is structured into three sections and eight chapters, offering a historical and analytical perspective on the interplay between tamasha and the women who perform it. paik focuses particularly on the notions of vulgarity, stigma, and discrimination, revealing how these are employed by dominant communities in placing the dalit women who performs tamasha at the most alienated position. simultaneously, paik highlights the agency of these women, exploring the dialectics of oppression and resistance. she portrays tamasha not only as a site of discrimination but also as a powerful form of resistance, emphasizing its role in challenging societal norms and asserting agency. in exploring the lives of tamasha women, paik stresses on the intricate interplay of gender, caste, and sexuality, arguing that the sex-caste-gender complex naturalizes and perpetuates their characterization as ashlil, often translated as vulgarity, which became a dominant discourse in the late 19th century. dalit women in tamasha posed a dual threat to victorian morality and the brahmanical caste structure, both of which perpetuated hierarchical social relations. paik examines how this idea of ashlil positioned tamasha performers as vulgar, immoral, and undisciplined, necessitating their reform and control. this framing, as paik argues, marked the dalit women’s bodies as sites of regulation and policing, reinforcing caste and gender hierarchies. in addition to ashlil, paik critically examines two other vernacular concepts from maharashtrian society—assli and manuski—to analyze how colonial and post-colonial transformations in india intensified both structural and symbolic violence against women. within the ashlil-manuski-assli framework, ashlil—associated with dishonour, immorality, 2 and inferiority—stands in direct opposition to assli. assli represents the notion of authenticity as defined by the victorian and brahmanical ideals that shaped the nation-building projects of colonial and post-colonial india. interestingly, ashlil is constructed as a byproduct of this very assli ideal. dalit tamasha performers were inherently denied inclusion in the assli (authentic), referring to the upper-caste individuals who claimed to embody the ‘modern, respectable maharashtrian/indian identity.’ on the contrary, the tamasha women’s caste and class locations rendered them intrinsically ashlil, with ashlil serving as a structural antithesis to assli. paik highlights the paradox of colonial modernity’s ‘civilizing missions,’ which, while claiming to elevate society, simultaneously marginalized and devalued the arts and cultural expressions of those on the margins, particularly dalit women. paik thus reveals the deep entanglement of caste, morality, and modernity in perpetuating the marginalization of dalit women in maharashtra. the ambedkarite movements in postcolonial india adopted the concept of dalit manuski (humanity/human dignity) as a framework to resist the long exploitation and stigmatisation of dalit labour, including that of tamasha performers. at times, this resistance extended to advocating for the eradication of tamasha, viewing it as a site of systemic oppression and stigma against dalit women. although these efforts were progressive, they faced challenges, such as addressing tamasha performance as stigmatized labour without further stigmatizing the tamasha women themselves. despite these challenges, the ambedkarite movements emphasized the centrality of dignity, advocating for giving up stigmatized labour and calling for equitable work opportunities for everyone. one notable example of this commitment is the dalit panthers’ activism in the 1980s, when they joined forces with sex workers to demand education, healthcare, and an end to police harassment. this solidarity reflects the broader manuski project of ambedkarite movements, which stood in direct opposition to the upper-caste-driven notion of assli. while assli was rooted in notions of cultural authenticity and caste-based exclusivity, manuski emphasized universal human dignity and egalitarian principles. at times, it would seem that the elements of manuski and assli appear to overlap, such as in their engagement with the concept of honour. however, the two diverge significantly in their interpretations. for the ambedkarite manuski project, honour is intrinsically tied to the dignity of life and labour, celebrating the worth of individuals regardless of caste. in contrast, the assli framework links honour to sub-nationalist pride and cultural exclusivity, reinforcing hierarchical structures. i would stress that this distinction underscores the radical humanism of the ambedkarite vision in challenging systemic inequalities. 3 while tamasha is ostensibly a performance art, paik highlights that it extends far beyond occupational labour, deeply intertwining with the performers’ personal lives. this conflation of performance and personhood shows the overarching nature and intense stigmatised subjugation these women endure. they simultaneously perform their caste roles, which alienates them, and find a sense of belonging in their performances, as these constitute both their life and livelihood. drawing on judith butler's distinction between performance and performativity, paik underscores the dual nature of tamasha. the women not only sing and dance but also create and convey meanings about caste, gender, and sexual identities through their performances. in other words, they live through their performance, embodying and demonstrating that life to others. this duality—creating meaning for themselves as artists while also generating stigmatized alienation within and for the society they perform for—is central to their experience. paik observes that these women perform both their caste roles and caste identities for navigating a world of labour deeply embedded in the stereotypes of caste, gender, and sexuality. these stereotypes reflect and reinforce the moral fabric of india’s caste society. while foregrounding the oppressive sex-gender-caste complex that perpetuates the marginalization of tamasha-performing women, paik also highlights their everyday agency. paik explores how these women creatively navigate and engage with the social world they inhabit, carving out a life and livelihood despite systemic constraints. in doing so, paik contends that tamasha women occupy an inherently ambivalent position regarding their belonging and personhood. within the oppressive structure, tamasha women find ways to capitalize on their occupation, which becomes more than just work, as their labour and personal lives seamlessly transcend into one another. their ambivalence is further marked by their capacity to transgress caste-based moral boundaries. while this potential for transgression is a source of empowerment, it also distances them from possible kinship and social connections, creating additional layers of marginalization. this contrast highlights the complexities of their existence, as they both navigate and challenge the oppressive structures around them. by employing vernacular categories to unpack the ambivalent positions, paik moves beyond rigid binaries and essentialist conceptualizations. she argues for a nuanced theory of ambivalence, capturing the complexity of tamasha women’s lived realities and their navigation of a deeply stratified social world. in summary, the book focuses on the dialectical relationship between tamasha women and the socio-political forces of caste and brahmanical patriarchy, charting their transformations from the 19th century onward. through this lens, it makes a significant contribution to the intersecting fields of dalit studies, gender studies, and south asian studies. 4 more specifically, this book contributes to the critical dalit feminist literature that examines the intersection of caste, gender and sexuality, with notable contribution from m. swathy margaret and smita m. patil, among others. smita m. patil’s early interventions (2013 & 2014) resonate with paik’s analysis, particularly in their focus on the existential dimensions of sexuality within the caste-gender framework. drawing on the works of gopal guru (1993) and sharmila rege (1998 & 2002), patil examines how the history of lavani performance reveals the patriarchal, caste-based division of sexual labour, where lower-caste women were portrayed as having wild sexual urges and coerced into performing for upper-caste men. both patil and paik, alongside other dalit feminist scholars and activists, emphasize the importance of understanding dalit women’s practices and performances as complex sites of oppression and resistance. the dalit women continually challenge the efforts of state structures and dominant caste societies to reinforce the stigma of the caste-gender-sexuality complex. paik’s nuanced engagement with these issues further extends the critical dalit feminist literature, offering new insights into the intersections of performance, agency, and oppression. references guru, gopal. 1995. dalit women talk differently. economic and political weekly 30 (41/42): 2548-50. patil, smita m. 2013. revitalising dalit feminism: towards reflexive, anti-caste agency of mang and mahar women in maharashtra. economic and political weekly 48 (18): 37 43 patil, smita m. 2014. reading caste, gender and sexuality in dalit writings. intersections: gender and sexuality in asia and the pacific. 34. rege, sharmila .1998. dalit women talk differently: a critique of 'difference' and towards a dalit feminist stanpoint position. economic and political weekly 33 (44): ws39 ws48. rege, sharmila. 2002. conceptualising popular culture: ‘lavani" and ‘powada" in maharashtra. economic and political weekly 37 (11): 1038–47. jayaseelan raj is senior lecturer of anthropology and development at king's college london, and a fellow in the grnpp at soas, university of london. he is the author of plantation crisis: ruptures of dalit life in the indian tea belt (ucl press, 2022), and coauthor of ground down by growth: tribe, caste, class and inequality in twenty-first century india (pluto press, 2017). his research and writings focus on plantation system and labour, democracy and caste/racial capitalism, caste violence, agrarian capitalism and migration, and state and dalit question in india. 5 © 2025 jayaseelan raj microsoft word brito-mayor review.docx 1 brandi bethke and amanda burtt, eds. 2020. dogs: archaeology beyond domestication, gainesville: university press of florida, 273 pp., isbn 978-0-81305746-0 dogs: archaeology beyond domestication investigates a topic that has accompanied us since the late paleolithic, for more than 15,000 years bce (boschin et al. 2020): relationships between dogs and humans and their diverse manifestations. the book does not seek to offer a new explanation for how these relationships arose, instead it highlights their meaning and consequences for humans and dogs through case studies. the introduction establishes the framework for the following nine chapters of archaeological/anthropological studies and a conclusion that condenses general reflections and ongoing research areas. the book’s approach emphasizes the association between two species, extending beyond the functional aspects of yield and material rentability. it tries to apply a perspective defined as zoontology, among other concepts (overton and hamilakis 2013). it puts the animal at the same ontological level as the human in order to achieve a holistic analysis. thus, the dog in this volume is approached as an ‘other-than-human person’ with agency (hill, 2011). in chapter 2, the first empirical chapter, angela r. perri conducts a comprehensive review of ethnographic studies from diverse regions worldwide, where the dog plays a key role in hunting activities. the author expands the framework of hunting by incorporating additional roles that dogs fulfill, such as serving as pack animals, scaring off competing predators, protecting humans, or guiding hunters by tracking prey. additionally, perri explores the dog as a commodity for trade and mate exchanges. these examples are contextualized across a wide range of ethnographic cases, spanning, to name only a few, the amazon basin, the highland forest of ethiopia, siberia, japan, and native americans. 2 in chapter 3, victoria monagle and emily lena jones revisit archaeological material from an ancestral pueblo site in north america dating back to the 9th to 11th century ce. the authors conducted a faunal analysis while carefully considering the archaeological context. the results led to the identification of eight dogs related to foundation offerings. the location of puncture marks on bones suggests the use of dogs as eagle food, a relevant animal in puebloan rituals. furthermore, they identified several signs of violence and stress that match with a "street-like" life. unfortunately, the low resolution of the images illustrating this body of taphonomy evidence undermines the analysis. the use of high-resolution pictures would have enhanced this key part of the chapter. masson-maclean, mcmanus-fry, and britton study in chapter 4 the material remains from a frozen site in alaska that reflects the daily life of yup'ik people from 1620 to 1675 ce. this unique context allows for a deep level of data preservation that shows the diversity of functions and aspects in which dogs were involved. this animal played a crucial role in hunting strategies as well as food intake and raw material for several artifacts. noteworthy, canid fur was identified in clay temper exclusively used to make lamps suggesting a cultural choice (p. 84). this initial section of the chapter seems to overlook perspectives that extend beyond local boundaries. the reader interested in these chapters would certainly love to look for other contexts, such as mesoamerica where dogs have been documented in similar conditions (e.g. cabrero and valadez azúa 2009). chapter 5 aims to shed light on the dietary trend of two groups of dogs from late north american archaeological sites (900-1300 ce). amanda burtt and larisa r. g. desantis established a dental microwear texture analysis baseline from modern canids, which enabled them to create two analytical categories: provisioned consumers that were fed by humans, and non-provisioned scavengers that obtained their food on their own. the authors studied two assemblages from indiana (n=9, agricultural contexts) and wyoming (n=7, mobile hunter and gatherers). overall, the results suggest that humans deliberately fed the dogs with less frequency in settlements, thereby amplifying the role of dogs as waste processors among sedentary populations. 3 in chapter 6, nerissa russell conducted a thorough data analysis on the presence of dog remains across neolithic sites in the eastern mediterranean, with a particular focus on catalhoyuk. she observed that the relative frequency of dogs rises or remains consistent with the advent of agriculture and urbanization. dogs not only served as dwelling protectors but also as waste management aides, which arguably highlights their growing significance compared to previous periods. in chapter 7, brandi bethke offers a traditional anthropological analysis of the blackfoot people from the north american plains. she points to the role of dogs among them and how these roles changed after the horses' arrival. although blackfoot life turned to an equestrian-centered existence, the dogs were still used to carry low loads, camp guard, and as herders of horses, cattle, and sheep. in chapter 8 peter w. stahl takes us to south america, where pet caring goes beyond the limits of domestication. the indigenous population not only kept dogs as pets but cared for tamed wild animals that were treated from an anthropocentric perspective. this directly confronts us with how we perceive and relate with other living things, which also restricts our analysis of the past (viveiros de castro 1998). the ultimate aim is to understand human relationships with other species on their own terms. the dingoes of australia were also introduced by humans as companions, but they were never domesticated, as loukas koungoulos and melanie fillios argue in chapter 9. according to historical records, this canid was highly esteemed for kangaroo hunting until the arrival of european hounds. then the dingoes were relegated to hunting smallmedium size game, as the new breeds became preferred for larger prey. over time, these canids interbred and some became feral, creating ongoing challenges for native wildlife. the last chapter represents a well-structured zooarchaeological analysis with detailed information about dog findings in rome’s earliest temples, the area sacra di sant’omobono (6th bce). victoria moses reveals a sacrificial context of young animals, with puppies primarily represented by cranial elements. this suggests a nonconsumption practice intended as propitiatory offerings. through the study of antique sources, the author connects this ritual to the attribute of pureness as part of birth and 4 fertility rituals in the archaic roman religion at the core of what would become an empire. in short, this book illustrates how the role of dogs in our shared history extends beyond the issue of domestication. this objective becomes clear throughout the book, with material evidence of dogs and other canids such as coyotes, dingoes, and other animals. this work perceives the animal within a theoretical framework outlined before: as an active entity that acknowledges its existence and engages with it, shaping itself through a sense of dialogue rather than monologue in its interactions with humans. unfortunately, the material remains of this relationship between humans and dogs are not abundant in the archaeological record, so it is imperative to maximize the utility of the available evidence. over the last decades, the integration of archaeometry procedures (isotopes, geometric morphometrics, genetics, proteomics, etc.) has provided insights and could complement some of the topics addressed here. a broader geographical perspective that considers regions of utmost importance to the subject, such as asia and siberia, where evidence strongly suggests the origin of human-canid interactions, would also be useful. one of the further tasks that the book points us to is the creation of baseline data that would achieve the compilation and sharing of this kind of information (p. 258). lastly, this book provides nine detailed examples of our relationship with canids, illustrating a deep-rooted influence that has shaped who we are. our mutual journey over more than 15.000 years has forged a reciprocal bond between us. dogs have clearly changed from their wolf ancestors, yet the exact process of domestication remains unclear. even more intangible is our actual transformation as social beings in relation with dogs. this book testifies to some of the multiple ways it could manifest. this may not be the place for an exhaustive, geographically oriented analysis, but an eager reader interested in this topic would enjoy having this work in hand. wherever that connection to dogs comes, whether from a professional or leisurely perspective, the information would feed their curiosity. references: 5 boschin, francesco, federico bernardini, elena pilli, stefania vai, clément zanolli, antonio tagliacozzo, rosario fico, et al. 2020. «the first evidence for late pleistocene dogs in italy». scientific reports 10 (1): 13313. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-69940-w. cabrero, teresa, and raúl valadez azúa. 2009. «the dog in the archaeological site of pochotitan, jalisco four clinic cases affected by cryptosporidium sp.» ammvepe 20 (4): 85-94. hill, erica. 2011. «animals as agents: hunting ritual and relational ontologies in prehistoric alaska and chukotka». cambridge archaeological journal, 21 (3): 407-426. viveiros de castro, eduardo. 1998. «cosmological deixis and amerindian perspectivism». the journal of the royal anthropological institute 4 (3): 46988. https://doi.org/10.2307/3034157. aitor brito-mayor: my research delves into human-animal relationships among past societies through zooarchaeology and archaeometric approaches. i focus on two areas of research: (1) human and canids relation in western mesoamerica; and (2) livestock management on islands. currently, i am a phd student at ulpgc-ull program granted by aciisiesf+ scholarship. i am part of the tarha research group and isocan erc starting grant as manager of las palmas zooarchaeology (lpz) reference collection. © 2024 aitor brito-mayor microsoft word virtanen pirjo kristiina chao et al virtanenfinal (1).docx sophie chao, karin bolender, ebsen kirskey (eds.), 2022, the promise of mul/species jus/ce. durham/ london: duke university press, 284 pp., isbn: 978-1-4780-1889-6 this edited volume starts with the ques7on who benefits from mul7species jus7ce, and it remains a central ques7on throughout the book. drawing from western philosophy and the poli7cal science of rights, the star7ng points of the promise of mul/species jus/ce is thinking cri7cally about whose jus7ce is at stake and who seeks jus7ce. by bridging the human/more-than-human realms, the editors in the introduc7on demonstrate well how peoples and species create alliances, even though western legacies of colonialism con7nue to separate species and create hierarchies between them. the book contains an introduc7on, nine chapters, 2 poems, and an aierword, and the contributors are scholars from different fields and backgrounds, and ar7sts. the narra7ves of the book allow the reader to hear the stories of individuals and collec7ves entangled with diverse forms of life. the authors’ inves7ga7ons and interac7ons with their interlocutors have undoubtedly been long-standing, and the reader learns about the hanford nuclear reserva7on; the wanapun’s sacred sites; the toxicity of deep 7me; pes7cides, bananas and people in the philippines; trapmaker iddy and rodents in morogo, tanzania; feral dogs and amir in baku; a deceased gatu bull, his caretaker pushkar, and gatu’s spiritual journey; juridical and legal processes and the rights of amazon forest; indigenous leaders and judge tolosa in columbia; the effects of conserva7on; the effects of humans’ learning about ex7nct bird, and many other topics. the chapters offer in-depth descrip7ons and analyses of mul7species becomings and interdependencies. the book is ambi7ous and engaging. the authors offer a wealth of new informa7on even for those who thought they knew the cases and places well. clearly, the writers have worked on their contribu7ons for some 7me jointly, and the volume is in fact the fruit of a series of talks, and in that way there are a good number of references to other chapters in the book, making it coherently related. the introduc7on to the book is followed by a glossary species of jus7ce, which is very useful to analyze how inequali7es and claims for jus7ce can be experienced, constructed, and ordered. it includes those forms of jus7ce that emerge as concepts from the chapters of the book, and which allow an understanding of jus7ce from new ontological and temporal perspec7ves. the types of jus7ce drawn from localized cases, include spectral jus7ce (chapter 1 by govindrajan), transi7onal jus7ce (chapter 2 by lyons), mul7world jus7ce (chapter 5 by marder), and genera7ve jus7ce (chapter 7 by lee). many of these kinds of jus7ce, however, are not fully addressed in the book or are only men7oned in the introduc7on. in the mul7species approach and rela7ons, such ideas as intergenera7onal jus7ce, patchy jus7ce, and climate jus7ce might have opened up new avenues for theorizing. in indigenous contexts, for instance, climate jus7ce involves not only vulnerable humans, but diverse more-than-humans and other-humans (animals, plants, ancestral spirits) that are part of social rela7ons. similarly, intergenera7onal jus7ce among more-than-humans may open up noteworthy discussions about plants, which reproduce in different ways, from clones, from seeds, from being planted, and so on. the editors also men7on that indigenous socie7es s7ll ac7vely seek recogni7on for their interspecies rela7ons from the perspec7ve of species divide and their thinking on humans’ impacts on ecosystems and other species. the depth of the descrip7on on the historical and poli7cal contexts that situate the stories is fascina7ng. however, some7mes the reader wonders where they are being taken by the story, and it is not obvious if the wri7ng refers to asia, africa, the caucasus, or to america. in fact, this is not a major problem, as many of the species live cross borders, con7nents, na7on states, and at the core of this book are the possibili7es of mul7species jus7ce. the stories of loss, ex7nc7on, aboli7ons, destruc7on, longings, and claims for jus7ce are read with sadness, but there is also hope of new kinds of co-becomings, memorizing, and finally jus7ce of different kinds, especially jus7ce that is restora7ve, transforma7ve, and transi7onal. the contribu7ons are ethnographic essays and works of arts. the role of crea7vity and the arts played in this edited volume is highlighted and acknowledged. it unfolds naturally throughout the book, and becomes on integral part of the text-form contribu7ons. the illustra7ons that open the different chapters succeed in revealing new aspects of the range of topics the introduc7on men7ons in an innova7ve way interspecies’ intersec7onality, which seems a convincing way to understand how social and poli7cal ac7on can play a role in crea7ng different kinds of mul7species jus7ce. intersec7onality might have been addressed more thoroughly in the chapters, as it is an important aspect of mul7species jus7ce. in sum, the promise of mul/species jus/ce provides novel and thought-provoking perspec7ves concerning the experience of injus7ce and jus7ce. it is a compulsory read for scholars in many fields, from the diverse fields of human, social, and life sciences. it is relevant and valuable for anyone interested in how to transit towards a fairer society. pirjo krisrina virtanen university of helsinki © 2023 pirjo kristiina virtanen microsoft word anbert review.docx 1 garrett, andrew. 2023. the unnaming of kroeber hall – language, memory, and indigenous california. cambridge, massachusetts, the mit press. 472 pp. isbn: 9780262547093 keywords: settler colonialism, linguistics, salvage anthropology, memory contestation, alfred kroeber andrew garrett, professor in the department of linguistics at the university of california berkeley (uc berkeley), , sets out in this book to investigate historical accounts and recent controversies about the legacy of anthropologist alfred kroeber. garrett offers a nuanced, well-researched and detailed account of early-twentieth-century anthropology and linguistics, mainly by focusing on the work and life of kroeber – who arrived at the uc berkeley anthropology department in 1901. the institution of uc berkeley has, along with many other university campuses across the us, recently undergone scrutiny (internally and externally) for their role in upholding or benefitting from slavery, settler colonialism, and white supremacy not least after the renewed black lives matter protests that surfaced in 2020 (anbert 2024; fanshel 2021). as a reaction to mounting critique from students, staff, and faculty, uc berkeley has chosen to dename (what garrett refers to as unname) five buildings on campus, with potentially more to follow. one of the buildings to have undergone such a denaming, is the anthropology and arts practice building – previously known as kroeber hall. a decision that prompted garret to dive into the legacy of kroeber. alfred kroeber and his work have been the subject of several biographies, articles, and debates in which he is portrayed very differently: as a skillful ethnographer, as a supporter of indigenous rights, as a salvage anthropologist who portrayed indigenous ways of living as frozen in time, as a scrupulous academic who extracted indigenous knowledge for his own gain, and as an anthropologist who harmfully impacted federal government decisions in determining recognized tribal statuses (cf. barron 2020; deloria 1997; field 2005; foster 2003; t. kroeber 2004; k. kroeber and kroeber 2003; le guin 2004; scheper-hughes 2001; kenny, killion, and scheper-hughes 2002; starn 2004). more recently, other authors have 2 discussed kroeber’s contribution to anthropology in new ways, and offered perspectives on how we can understand former ethnographic standards in the light of our own times and moralities (see for example king 2020), and criminologist tony platt has written two books to “uncover” different scandals at uc berkeley, not least the scandal of housing and hoarding indigenous human remains at uc berkeley, with the aid of alfred kroeber and the anthropology department (platt 2023; 2021). garret’s book is therefore situated within a long and ongoing debate about the history of anthropology, early anthropology’s contribution to colonial practices and its entanglements with settler colonial projects. garret insists on retaining contrasts and contradictions in dissecting kroeber’s work and contributions, and thereby creates a carefully researched and nuanced narrative. kroeber argued forcefully against eugenics, uplifted indigenous scholars by referencing them as authors of work they contributed to (unlike many others, then, and today) (garret 2023, 146), but he also subscribed to the “vanishment idea,” that is, the assumption that indigenous languages and cultures in north america were destined to disappear (ibid.,41). kroeber engaged in language documentation and cultivated lasting and meaningful relationships with indigenous interlocutors, but hesitated to speak directly of the genocide of indigenous peoples that took place in california in the 19th century (ibid., 171). garret himself describes this as two competing narratives, one narrative in which anthropologists and linguists have been part of structural and state-sponsored genocide and dispossession of land, where kroeber’s salvage anthropological thinking (the idea that indigenous people would eventually become extinct) gave legitimacy to state violence. in the other narrative, kroeber showed humanity to all people and proved the existence of indigenous civilizations, in a time where this was otherwise inconceivable (ibid.,18). garret succinctly outlines these contradictions to make readers understand and appreciate the complexities of kroeber’s legacy in four parts. in the first part of the book garret contextualizes kroeber’s work by drawing a picture of colonial california, describing the invention of museums and universities and the displacement and genocide of indigenous populations. in the second part garret focuses on kroeber’s contributions to the field of linguistics, his language documentation and not least his collaboration with indigenous scholars. thirdly, garret discusses the collection of ancestral remains currently kept at uc berkeley, and the ethical implications of archeological and anthropological practices a 3 century ago. he also reopens the debate about the yahi man, known as ishi, who resided at the anthropological museum of uc berkeley from 1911-1916. ishi’s story has, like kroeber’s, been told and retold many times. in some narratives, ishi worked as a janitor in the museum, in others, he was kept as a human exhibition, or as an informant readily at hand for the anthropological faculty, and in yet others, he is described as a close friend of kroeber’s and his colleagues (cf. field 2005; t. kroeber 2004; scheper-hughes 2001; vizenor 2001). yet, garret manages to give more complexity to the narrative than what i have encountered before, he allows contradictions to coexist, and highlights ishi’s agency, while also emphasizing kroeber’s responsibility, empathy and paternalistic behavior. finally, in the fourth part, garret describes kroeber’s advocacy for indigenous land rights, and maybe most importantly, he argues that kroeber did not impact federal decisions on recognizing tribal status (garret 2023, 260-267). according to garret this common misunderstanding has been circulating for years among scholars and in the public sphere in general (including in my own work) (cf. anbert 2024; field 2003; orona and esquivido 2020). however, according to garret, this misunderstanding does not change his conviction that denaming kroeber hall at uc berkeley was the right decision, albeit not for the reason others have cited. garret argues that the discussion about denaming (or unnaming) kroeber hall was never really about kroeber, but about uc berkeley’s unacknowledged settler colonial legacy. rather, simply changing a name at “an institution that still celebrates its colonial projects and honors those responsible for colonial depredations was… a way to deflect attention from selfexamination” (garret 2023, 21). by this, garret refers to the unexamined early history of uc berkeley’s hires of white supremacists, dealings with donors that made their wealth through exploitation of the indigenous populations in the us and abroad, as well as the general colonial beginnings as a land grant university that inevitably displaced indigenous people. for example, three buildings on campus are named after the donors phoebe and george hearst, including the phoebe a. hearst anthropological museum, that has been at the center of debates about the lack of repatriation of ancestral remains. according to garret, there are no hints on campus that the hearst fortune was accumulated from indigenous dispossession, and that phoebe a. hearst herself participated in digging up ancestral remains and accumulating indigenous cultural heritage to be displayed or archived in the museum (ibid., 292). the denaming must then be understood as part of a larger justified anger directed at the institution of uc berkeley. institutional resistance to repatriation efforts have also played a major role in the denaming of kroeber hall. alhough, according to garret, kroeber played a 4 minor role in the actual collection and digging of remains, the anthropology department and the institution of uc berkeley have been reluctant to address repatriation requests or have actively fought against it. demands to dename kroeber hall therefore, was about much more than just alfred kroeber, but about institutional ignorance and misconduct. for garret then, working to right some of the historical wrongs have only just begun. lærke cecilie anbert is a phd candidate in educational anthropology at aarhus university, denmark. her research focuses on social-justice oriented student activism and epistemic justice in the us. she has conducted fieldwork among student activists at uc berkeley. she has previously worked with the construction of nationalism and memorialization in the uk. she received her msc in anthropology from the university of copenhagen in 2017, and an msc in gender studies from london school of economics and political science in 2015. literature anbert, lærke cecilie. 2024. “‘how do we name the air that we breathe?’ – the haunting presence of white supremacy and settler colonialism at uc berkeley.” globalisation, societies and education, no. 0, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2024.2355190. barron, nicholas. 2020. “proposal to ‘un-name’ kroeber hall.” history of anthropology review. july 9, 2020. https://histanthro.org/news/proposal-to-un-name-kroeber-hall/. deloria, vine. 1997. “conclusion: anthros, indians, and planetary reality.” in indians and anthropologists, edited by thomas biolsi and larry j. zimmerman, 209–22. vine deloria, jr., and the critique of anthropology. university of arizona press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1jf2d9c.18. fanshel, rosalie z. 2021. “the morrill act as racial contract: settler colonialism and u.s. higher education.” crnai project reports and working papers. berkeley, ca: uc berkeley: center for research on native american issues. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1cc0c4tw. field, les w. 2003. “unacknowledged tribes, dangerous knowledge: the muwekma ohlone and how indian identities are ‘known.’” wicazo sa review 18 (2): 79–94. field, les w. 2005. “who is this really about anyway? ishi, kroeber, and the intertwining of california indian and anthropological histories.” journal of anthropological research 61 (1): 81–93. foster, george. 2003. “assuming responsibility for ishi: an alternative interpretation.” in ishi in three centuries, edited by karl kroeber and clifton kroeber, 89–98. lincoln: university of nebraska press. https://www.williamdam.dk/ishi-in-three-centuries__1895088. kenny, alexandra k., thomas killion, and nancy scheper-hughes. 2002. “‘ishi’s brain, ishi’s ashes’: the complex issues of repatriation: a response to n. scheper-hughes, 17(1).” anthropology today 18 (2): 25–27. king, charles. 2020. gods of the upper air: how a circle of renegade anthropologists reinvented race, sex, and gender in the twentieth century. first anchor books edition. new york: anchor books, a division of penguin random house llc. kroeber, karl, and clifton kroeber. 2003. ishi in three centuries. lincoln: university of nebraska press. 5 kroeber, theodora. 2004. ishi in two worlds: a biography of the last wild indian in north america. berkeley: university of california press. le guin, ursula k. 2004. the wave in the mind: talks and essays on the writer, the reader, and the imagination. boston: shambala. orona, brittani, and vanessa esquivido. 2020. “continued disembodiment: nagpra, cal nagpra, and recognition.” humboldt journal of social relations, no. 42, 50–68. platt, tony. 2021. grave matters: the controversy over excavating california’s buried indigenous past. 2nd edition, first published 2011. berkeley: heyday. ———. 2023. the scandal of cal: land grabs, white supremacy, and miseducation at uc berkeley. berkeley: heyday. scheper-hughes, nancy. 2001. “ishi’s brain, ishi’s ashes: anthropology and genocide.” anthropology today 17 (1): 12–18. starn. 2004. ishi’s brain: in search of americas last “wild” indian. new york: norton. vizenor, gerald. 2001. “ishi obscura.” hastings west-northwest journal of environmental law and policy 7 (3): 299–306. © 2024 lærke cecilie anbert microsoft word renfrew review.docx 1 patrick o’hare. rubbish belongs to the poor. hygienic enclosure and the waste commons. london: pluto press. 2022. 218 pages. this lucid and engaging, at times amusing, ethnography of waste-pickers in montevideo, uruguay, challenges readers to think critically about the role of waste in contemporary society, the nature of informality within the local and global economies of advanced capitalism, and perhaps most poignantly, whether people should have a “right” to urban waste as a resource and as a commons. rubbish belongs to the poor thus serves as a summative title for this study, as an analytical point of departure, and as a normative affirmation for author patrick o’hare. the ethnographic world depicted in the book is as the waste-pickers see and value it, and as the anthropologist validates through a “defen[s]e of waste as a category” (180), a counter-invective against hegemonic and even progressive visions of waste elimination, hygienic cities, and circular economies. drawing from critical social theory and anarchist political leanings, this ethnographic study follows a long line of theorizing of, and fascination with, the urban poor, shantytown dwellers, the informal economy, and people living with and around garbage or waste. there is a particularly strong current of scholarship on these themes in latin america, much of it cited by the author, but it is also more broadly reflected in the classic anthropological formulations of the “culture of poverty” (oscar lewis) or “matter out of place” (mary douglas), which have been used, and at times misappropriated, to interrogate both the internal sociocultural dynamics of so-called “marginalized” communities, as well as their role and place within the broader social order. the primary strength of rubbish belongs to the poor, accompanying the work of others in the growing interdisciplinary field of “discard studies,” is in foregrounding the lived worlds and perspectives of these so-called marginalized people, and of centering and privileging the apparent marginalized spaces of urban informality as a taking off point, a staging ground from which to critically view and analyze society writ large. 2 the dominant, modern social order, what o’hare refers to as “bourgeois infrastructural modernity,” posits informality as a pre-modern economic anomaly. according to this logic, trash is in need of scientific management, concealment, or ultimately elimination. the informal wastepickers who cohabitate with trash, consequently, are primary agents of urban disorder and even criminality. waste, according to this dominant view, is inherently dirty, useless, and dangerous if left exposed. waste-pickers, who sift through bins and dumps, often transporting their goods by horse and cart, embody vestiges of tradition and backwardness hindering the forward march of modernity. for a middle-income country like uruguay nestled in the global south, these assumptions and understandings often take on politicized dimensions with almost existential undercurrents. waste-pickers become positioned as both an uncomfortable mirror reflected internally, and an embarrassing postcard to the outside world. for instance, the proliferation of street waste-pickers, disparagingly referred to as hurgadores, or rummagers, during the years of profound economic crisis at the turn of the millennium, became symbols and metonyms of national crisis. at stake then are not just questions related to the political economy of disposal and recycling, but also the “moral economy” that judges the human character of pickers as individuals and as a social category (22). in rubbish belongs to the poor, the protagonistsmontevideo’s clasificadores, or classifiers come alive as fully fleshed subjects. rather than matter out of place living in urban cultural enclaves of poverty, o’hare demonstrates why and how exactly their lives matter, whether as crucial cogs in the local and global waste economy, as protagonists in the national labor movement, or as complex human characters with relatable needs and desires. his account thus avoids the stigmatizing narratives of the suffering subject that predominate in media and some scholarly accounts of the urban poor and the waste economy. after detailing an interlocutor’s memories of the dump as a place of children’s play, swimming, picking flowers, and other bucolic summer days, for instance, o’hare concludes: “these images contrast sharply with the dystopian malaise of foul smells and creatures found in risk-based municipal and journalistic descriptions of dump sites” (64). 3 the author also depicts the intricate ways the lives of clasificadores are connected to local and global circuits of economic, political and symbolic capital. the book flips around the “waste-poor nexus” by highlighting a social world, “where rubbish is coveted rather than rejected, and where life is threatened by waste’s absence rather as opposed to its presence” (27). urban waste, the symbolically stigmatized material substance which normative assumptions suggest no one wants, is instead subject to at times intensely disputed political claims between the urban clasificadores, the state, and private corporations. one of o’hare’s central arguments is that the state attempts, often through public-private partnerships, to “enclose,” control and monopolize the urban disposal economy. rather than accomplishing a hygienic modernity, he argues, the result is more often new forms of dispossession and capital accumulation that do little to ameliorate entrenched forms of social inequality. “rubbish belongs to the poor” then is a rallying cry for the rights of the poor and the working class to the waste commons and through this to a means of livelihood, however complex and at times contradictory, that offers one of the few remaining avenues to evade the wage labor relationship and to “live freely” in a modern bureaucratic and stratified class society. a second, unique contribution of this book is o’hare’s comparative approach between experiences in uruguay and the uk. o’hare draws from the perspective not only of formal economics or (post)colonial politics, but of the commoners and marginalized. some of these comparisons, in a fascinating angle, are drawn from his personal experiences of “dumpster diving” as part of an activist community during his undergraduate studies at the university of st. andrews. while recognizing the significant qualitative differences in relative depravation and motivation for waste scavenging in uruguay versus scotland, o’hare nevertheless makes a compelling argument for comparison. as he states, the comparative approach recognizes a “common processes of enclosure in the global north and south that seek to restrain our access, and particularly that of vulnerable groups, to the excesses of production” (o’hare 2022, 4). the book flows well and its chapters are logically structured around various “sites” of the waste economy. chapter 1 provides a detailed history of montevideo’s “wastescape,” including the centrality of the municipal government in turning private discard into public waste and thus enacting its earliest forms of political sovereignty, as well as changing strategies over time in the 4 development of legal and material infrastructures to classify, contain, or eliminate waste. this chapter introduces the concept of clasificadores as constituting a “shadow infrastructure,” central to the waste economy yet discursively and politically marginalized from it. the historical angle offers fascinating insight into the ways the volume and character of montevideo’s waste and its various “technologies of enclosure” (51) change according to different political economic models, social democratic governments or military regimes, and evolving ideologies of public health and hygiene. while o’hare observes that uruguay’s long history of theorizing its modernity is usually not connected to waste, he nevertheless misses an opportunity here to engage more deeply with the vast uruguayan historical literature on early twentieth century foundational myths of uruguayan modernity and exceptionalism, and the growth of the hygienist public health movement in particular. chapter 2 focuses on felipe cardoso, montevideo’s largest landfill, referred to by clasificadores as the “mother dump.” felipe cardoso represents the ultimate hygienic enclosure where access to the waste is policed and restricted by authorities and local managers. o’hare also shows how the landfill, or cantera, has parallels to the english commons and serves as a safety net for the jobless, the politically persecuted, or the addicted. it is also a refuge from low-paid wage labor and menial service sector jobs. he introduces in more detail the economies of survival and care embodied by requeche, the found items valued and used domestically (e.g. food, clothes, building materials) or those that become “recommodified” goods sold in informal urban markets. chapter 3 focuses on the human relations of the waste commons, including practices of care and kinship. the sites focused on in this chapter include the municipal and ngo-run recycling cooperative, the family yard as a space of care, and the kin networks of what o’hare refers to as the space of the “landfill brothers.” here the author argues that access to waste is often based on pre-existing kinship bonds and is fused with acts of caregiving. i found chapter 4 to be the most interesting and compelling, with rich ethnographic insight crystalizing several of the central analytical themes of the book. here the focus is the aries recycling plant, where clasificadores’ “value recovery practices ran parallel and in opposition to municipal risk-based approaches to waste” (119). the public-private partnership of the recycling 5 plant was welcomed by some clasificadores, particularly some of the women, but in practice the number of workers incorporated into uniformed, formal employment was relatively minimal. there were tensions from the beginning between plant managers and the unruly, hyper-masculine ethos of some of the workers. another mismatch was over the ways managers tried to discipline clasificador labor into a taylorian system, and in the prohibition of use of the horse-cart and the collection of requeche. o’hare forcefully argues that authorities “misclassified” and infantilized workers by anticipating they would be happy with minimum wage formal work, not realizing what the workers were in fact sacrificing in terms of freedom, autonomy, and profits. the new forms of enclosure restricting requeche also violated longstanding practices and privileges associated with the waste commons. in chapter 5, o’hare turns attention to the labor practices and organizing of the waste-pickers trade union ucrus. this trade union is unique in the world in that it is the only one to be affiliated with a national labor federation. ucrus members struggled, however, to match their “mobile unionism” with the dominant “sedentary unionism” of the trade federation, as well as facing challenges in organizing among such a mobile and diverse urban population. the major struggles the trade union took on included efforts to resist or overturn prohibitions on circulation of horseand-cart classifiers in certain urban areas, laws prohibiting some businesses from supplying clasificadores directly, and multiple issues associated with the recycling plants. ucrus unionists engaged in various forms of protest and a tactical repertoire of roadblocks, marches, and most interestingly, urban circulation itself as an affirmation of belonging. the latter reminded me of the much discussed and controversial moment during the leftist coalition frente amplio’s first ascension to power in 2005. leading the procession were a handful of horse-and-cart clasificadores, who for the first time in history were afforded an officially sanctioned, public opportunity to enact their presence in urban space. rubbish belongs to the poor is a fascinating and provocative ethnography. it will be of direct interest to scholars and students of discard studies, but also broadly of latin american, urban, and environmental studies. the book is both theoretically sophisticated and highly readable, making it 6 suitable for both undergraduate and graduate courses, and its reflexivity and immersive ethnography could be of interest in ethnographic methods courses. daniel renfrew is professor of anthropology at west virginia university. he is the author of life without lead: contamination, crisis, and hope in uruguay (university of california press). daniel.renfrew@mail.wvu.edu © 2023 daniel renfrew 1 giovanni batz, 2024, the fourth invasion: decolonizing histories, extractivism, and maya resistance in guatemala, oakland: university of california press, 248 pp., isbn 978052040173 keywords: indigenous resistance, dispossession, extractivism, historical memory, violence giovanni batz’s the fourth invasion: decolonizing histories, extractivism, and maya resistance in guatemala is a poignant and unflinching account of the long, ongoing legacy of colonial dispossession in guatemala, specifically in the cotzal region. batz masterfully situates local struggles and indigenous resistance against contemporary economic megaprojects within a broader historical framework of colonial invasions and structural violence. his work, both ethnographic and political, offers a visceral narrative that interweaves historical trauma with present-day realities in a way that is both analytically rigorous and emotionally harrowing. the book’s most striking analytical contribution is the characterization of four “invasions” that structure the social, political, and ecological landscape of guatemala—and cotzal in particular. these include the spanish conquest, the liberal land reforms of the 19th century, the internal armed conflict of the late 20th century, and the current wave of transnational megaprojects. batz demonstrates how each wave builds upon the last, deepening dispossession and entrenching inequality. this framing captures the cyclical nature of violence and resistance, underscoring both the historical continuity of colonial structures and the adaptability of indigenous responses. structurally, the book is divided into two parts, comprising three chapters each, and is bookended by a powerful introduction and conclusion. of particular interest is the foreword by the b’o’q’ol q’esal tenam k’usal, which sets the tone for the book’s collaborative and community-anchored ethnography. this in itself exemplifies the political praxis of the text, showing ethnography as a form of resistance and alliance. 2 in the first half of the book, batz outlines the historical legacy of the first three invasions. the first invasion, spanish colonization beginning in 1524, introduced religious, cultural, and territorial domination. it marked the beginning of a long pattern of forced conversions, land theft, and the dismantling of indigenous governance systems. the imposition of christianity and colonial hierarchies laid the foundation for systemic racism and land dispossession that persists into the present. yet, even in this initial period, batz highlights the role of ixil women in preserving cultural and spiritual practices. their quiet yet deliberate refusals to abandon ancestral traditions constitute a powerful form of resistance, one that threads throughout the book. the second invasion came with 19th-century liberal land reforms and the rise of the plantation economy. during this period, vast communal lands were privatized and seized by local elites and foreign investors, including the establishment of fincas in cotzal. this era entrenched exploitative labor systems and displaced ixil communities from their ancestral lands, exacerbating economic dependency and social inequality. still, the ixil did not remain passive. batz details acts of resistance, most notably the 1936 uprising, in which community members organized against exploitative landowners and plantation conditions. this rebellion, though brutally repressed, reflected a continued refusal to submit to systems of racialized labor and land theft. the third invasion occurred during the guatemalan civil war (1960–1996), when the guatemalan state unleashed extreme violence on the ixil population under the pretext of counterinsurgency. entire communities were massacred, displaced, and terrorized through genocide, forced disappearances, and military campaigns. batz draws on survivor testimonies and his long-term fieldwork to convey the enduring psychological trauma and communal dislocation this period inflicted. and yet, resistance persisted. despite unimaginable violence, the ixil found ways to safeguard their knowledge systems, sustain kinship ties, and document atrocities—often at great personal risk. as batz shows, even acts of survival—of remaining on the land, of speaking the language, of remembering the dead—became political acts of resistance against a state attempting to erase them. the second part of the book explores what batz terms the fourth invasion: the arrival of multinational corporations and the imposition of megaprojects in the region. he focuses on the case of the palo viejo hydroelectric plant, constructed by the italian company enel green power 3 on the finca san francisco. despite promises of electricity and employment, the plant exports power to other regions while many cotzal communities remain without reliable energy access. the environmental and social consequences are severe. rivers were diverted, agricultural cycles disrupted, and sacred landscapes desecrated. community members who resisted faced militarization, criminalization, and surveillance. what enel and state officials called “dialogue” was in practice coercive and one-sided—what local leaders rightly described as “forced dialogue.” the use of security forces to suppress peaceful protests starkly echoes the repression experienced during the civil war. framed as development, these projects represent a new phase of colonial extractivism. the critique of the notion of “development” is one of the book’s most subtle yet impactful achievements. what is often presented as apolitical or benevolent is, in practice, deeply violent when imposed without community consent. batz’s critique resonates far beyond guatemala, compelling readers to reconsider how “progress” is defined and for whom. yet batz foregrounds resistance just as forcefully here. through road blockades, community assemblies, ancestral ceremonies, and legal challenges, ixil communities actively challenged the legitimacy of these megaprojects. the alcaldía indígena of cotzal—a traditional indigenous authority—emerges as a critical actor in organizing collective responses and asserting territorial sovereignty. far from reactionary, these forms of resistance are shown as rooted in ixil cosmologies and communal visions of the future. they are not merely defensive, but generative: efforts to protect the land are also efforts to protect language, memory, and intergenerational life. despite these powerful accounts of resilience, a sense of loss and grief permeates the text. batz’s conclusion notes that resistance continues but the scale of destruction, both environmental and cultural, is staggering. the people of cotzal are not only struggling for land or rights. they are fighting against the erasure of entire ways of being. in this sense, the fourth invasion transcends its local context, becoming a mirror to global struggles against extractivism and colonialism. the fourth invasion is a powerful and timely contribution to the anthropology of violence, resistance, and indigenous politics. it exemplifies engaged, ethical scholarship grounded in longterm collaboration and mutual trust. batz reminds us that colonialism is not a past event but an ongoing structure—and that resistance to it is not only necessary, but profoundly important. while 4 the book leaves the reader with a sense of mourning for all that has been lost, it also affirms the unwavering commitment of communities who continue to fight for their culture and community. taylah leathem is an independent researcher with a background in anthropological and archaeological research. her work explores critical events, alternative social movements, and the intersection of ritual and politics in protests. © 2025 taylah leathem microsoft word naked fieldnotes review.docx 1 elliott, denielle, and matthew wolf-meyer, eds. 2024, naked fieldnotes: a rough guide to ethnographic writing. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 320 pp., isbn 978-1-517916145 in naked fieldnotes: a rough guide to ethnographic writing, editors denielle elliott and matthew j. wolf-meyer seek to fill a gap in ethnographic instruction and literature on how to record and capture fieldnotes divorced from rigid pedagogy and how-to guides that provide little insights into the actual mechanisms and techniques. elliott, a sociocultural anthropology professor at york university, and wolf-meyer, a professor of anthropology and historical science and medicine at rensselaer polytechnic institute, pull together 38 accounts and examples of writing ethnographic fieldnotes across the world to provide novice researchers with intimate insights into an opaque process. in the preface of the seminal fieldnotes: the makings of anthropology, robert sanjek (1990) describes how his edited volume emanated from a dinner conversation among colleagues attending the american ethnological society in 1984. according to sanjek, james clifford remarked that “no one had addressed what anthropologists write before they write ethnographies—fieldnotes” (xi). while sanjek’s volume approached topics such as relationships between ethnographers and fieldnotes, the types of fieldnotes, uses of fieldnotes, and other related matters, it provides relatively few examples for new researchers. similarly, naked fieldnotes originated from conversations between the editors about their experiences taking fieldnotes. elliott and wolf-meyer describe how fieldnotes are “charismatic” (ix, xi), part of an intimate and dynamic process to memorialize observations captured as data in the field. such an intimate process is typically private to the ethnographer, who may discuss their process, reflections, and findings over a convivial meal with colleagues. thus, elliott and wolf-meyer have tried to replicate that dinner table, in a sense, in this edited volume (xxiv). elliott and wolf-meyer intended for naked fieldnotes to elucidate the process of learning how to take fieldnotes by “demystifying” a practice that is often private and intimate (xxiii). they found that the way scholars teach or write about this process is typically more sterile and guarded than the experiences shared over dinner with colleagues. thus, they wanted to invite the reader to this metaphorical dinner table and conversation (xxiv). the “fieldnote confessions” section addresses the impetus for the book, which was both editors wishing for a more public way to teach writing fieldnotes (pp. xxv, xxvi). the title of the book derives from a remark given by a contributor, who teaches fieldnote methods by allowing his students to see his raw fieldnotes, which leaves him feeling “naked from the waist down” (xii). 2 to review the book, i followed two of the editor’s suggested reading strategies, first starting with a methodological approach using sense modalities including visual methods, sounds and hearing, multimodal approaches, events, interviews, and interpersonal interactions. next, i moved on to topics covered by the volume, which included land and landscapes; access and infrastructure; healthcare; technoscience; more-than-human interactions; tradition; kinship; institutions and organizations; material culture; documents and bureaucracy; and colonialism and racism. i avoided approaching the book by continent or geographic location; while convenient to present those chapters to the reader who might be searching for a particular locale, i felt that fieldwork experiences based on geography would be too diverse and broad to be helpful. finally, the chapters that fell under the category of experience were covered elsewhere during my reading. the title of each chapter consistently and succinctly presents the location, topic, theme or discipline, and date. the chapter then provides the research context and examples of the socalled “naked” fieldnotes. the opening of the chapter, which typically describes what is being studied and the reason, the field and conditions, how the fieldnotes were collected, and reflections on fieldnotes, is approached differently depending on the contributor. some of the chapters open laconically while others read more like a narrative or story; some are pithy and direct while others are more reflective and introspective. as for the sample fieldnotes, they are transcribed into text, formatted accordingly for publication, and often they are accompanied by photos and illustrations that include images from the field, notebooks, sketchbooks, and screenshots. of the book’s many strengths are that it indeed provides an inside look into the reflections, notebooks, sketches, and photos ethnographers incorporate as part of their fieldnotes. some of the approaches, while unique to the study, described a relatively universal process, tailored by the researcher. other approaches were uncommon, creative, and inventive. for instance, in stacy leigh pigg’s and shyam kunwar’s account of taking fieldnotes in nepal (“30: nepal, roads, mobility, graphic ethnography, 2018”), the researchers intended to write a graphic novel about road politics and infrastructure sociality (231). their fieldnotes consisted of a blend of photographs, video, handwritten jottings, record keeping, and resting the pen tip on the notebook page as a means of recording the car ride. while the example note itself looks like an indecipherable scribble, it memorializes a rugged journey and the moment when pigg found she could no longer write legible impressions (235). the note, as it were, visually depicts this movement the ethnographer felt during the ride, and thus, could be used to inform the final research product. john dale’s chapter, “10: myanmar, pro-democracy movement, collective violence, 1998,” starts plainly enough with a cold opening on how he took his fieldnotes in an all-weather shirt pocket spiral memo notebook (71), but it is not until the reader is presented with a photograph of the notebook and a caption (73) where we learn that dale prefers this spiral-bound, small pad because, in the increasing local violence, the pages could be deftly removed and swallowed to destroy evidence of the notes. dale also wrote coded fieldnotes to protect the identity of his subjects as political discussions were prohibited by law (74). additionally, dale encrypts the notes in the form of cooking recipes; he shares how this looks in typed notes (74-77) and how to decode it in a coding schema sent to a dissertation advisor (74, 77-84) 3 naked fieldnotes, however, does not supplant other authoritative texts on taking fieldnotes—it was never intended to do so. rather, it supplements pivotal texts such as writing ethnographic fieldnotes by robert emerson, rachel fretz, and linda shaw (1995, 2011) and fieldnotes: the makings of anthropology by roger sanjek (1990). while naked fieldnotes seeks to fill a gap that exists with these works, it does not provide an instructive framework for novice ethnographers. furthermore, naked fieldnotes does not provide much breadth or depth into taking fieldnotes on any particular topic, using any particular mode, or in any particular location. at the same time, there is something useful for every reader within the volume. i eagerly awaited the publication of naked fieldnotes. fieldnotes transcend anthropology and ethnography; there are many other disciplines that rely on researchers taking fieldnotes. these researchers may have received rigorous methodological training and yet received little instruction or guidance on how to take fieldnotes. for instance, a book like naked fieldnotes would have been a perfect resource to consult while i was on the ground conducting my fieldwork in japan as it is cleanly organized, compendiously described, and inspirationally illustrative. another feature i appreciated was how the contributors described the “tools of trade,” including types of notebooks, writing utensils, cameras, recorders, and other equipment. these details were particularly personal, drawing the reader closer to the respective author. some of these details were rather standard, simply preferred notebooks or pens, while others were more comprehensive, such as patricia alvarez astacio’s chapter (“2: peru, textile practices, multimedia, 2011”), which describes multiple tools (video, markers, audio recorders, hard drives) for multiple recording modes: “visual, audio, written” (7). all in all, i believe naked fieldnotes is a vital, pleasurable read for budding ethnographers and a fabulous addition to academic libraries. works cited elliott, denielle, and matthew wolf-meyer, eds. 2024. naked fieldnotes: a rough guide to ethnographic writing. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. emerson, robert, rachel fretz, and linda shaw. 1995. writing ethnographic fieldnotes. 2nd ed. chicago: university of chicago press. sanjek, robert, ed. 1990. fieldnotes: the makings of anthropology. ithaca: cornell university press. © 2024 kristen luck 1 rasmus rodineliussen, 2024, underwater worlds: an ethnography of waste, pollution, and marine life, cham: palgrave macmillan, 248 pp., isbn 978-3-031-63372-0 keywords: aquabiopolitics, environmental anthropology, marine pollution, scuba diving, underwater ethnography, waste rasmus rodineliussen’s underwater worlds is a vivid and thought-provoking ethnography that plunges into the complex entanglements of underwater waste, pollution, marine life, and our recognitions. at a time when oceanic crises are more urgent than ever—especially in light of the 2024 global coral bleaching event—this book offers a timely reflection on how we manage and respond to human-induced changes in marine ecosystems. while it doesn’t focus specifically on coral reefs, it sheds light on the practical, multispcecies efforts in navigate the broader impacts of climate and oceanic transformation. bridging environmental anthropology, political ecology, and science and technology studies (sts), underwater worlds contributes to critical conversations about waste, contamination, and the multispecies politics of water. through immersive ethnographic work in scientific expedition and laboratory practices with marine scientists, and interactions with trash divers in sweden, brazil and thailand, rodineliussen weaves a compelling narrative. he captures the material, emotional, and political dimensions of waste in aquatic environments, showing how scientific practices, technologies, materilaities and multiscpecies engagements with the ocean shape our understanding of marine ecologies. the ultimate aim, he proposed, is to explore ‘how waste and pollution in the underwater world can be rendered visible, knowable, and relatable to humans’ (p.4). reading this book as an anthropologist and diver myself, i found it deeply resonant, especially the experience of submerging oneself into an environment that is both unknown and yet intimately connected to human actions (sangkhamanee 2024). rodineliussen captures the paradoxes of the 2 underwater world—the invisibility, the fragility, and the unsettling evidence of human negligence. the embodied sensation of moving through near-zero visibility, touching objects before seeing them, and the eerie silence of the depths are vividly brought to life in his text. rodineliussen’s engagement with “aquabiopolitics” emerges as a central analytical framework, drawing from foucault’s biopolitics and extending it into the submerged spaces of marine, nonhuman governance. the concept underscores how marine life, from jellyfish to microbes, is enrolled in human projects of environmental management, technological intervention, and ecological conservation and care. this aquabiopolitics, as rodineliussen argued, is a ‘politization of marine life’ wherein provide a space of legitimization for humans ‘to kill or let some life die in favor of other (human) life’ (p. 30). this conceptual lens enriches broader anthropological debates on human-nonhuman relations by shifting attention to submerged ecologies, challenging terrestrial biases (jue 2020, raycraft 2020) in social theory where land-based politics often centered around the governability and exploitation over other, and among, humans. the book is structured in two parts. the first section focuses on marine scientists’ engagements with underwater ecologies, detailing their methods of technologically mediating the oceanic unknown. this portion is particularly illuminating in its discussion of how scientific instruments and sensor technologies render pollution visible. chapters on sediment sampling and the “plastisphere” illustrate how scientific knowledge production is itself an intervention in aquatic life-worlds, revealing how contamination is both detected and constituted through material and epistemic practices. rodineliussen’s argument that these technological mediations not only map pollution but also actively shape the epistemological frameworks through which we understand marine environments is particularly insightful. he suggests that scientific tools and marine materials such as sediments do not merely reveal an already-existing pollution crisis and the process of slow violence (nixon 2011) of human activities; these human-technological affoardances co-produce the very nature of what is considered pollution, making waste legible to governance structures and conservation efforts. the second part of the book shifts to trash scuba divers—environemtal activists who remove waste from stockholm’s waters, navigating murky and often dangerous conditions. here, rodineliussen 3 offers ethnographic descriptions of these divers’ embodied, sensorial engagements with submerged waste. his firsthand accounts of diving in “café latte water”(p. 2-3)—a term referring to the highly polluted, low-visibility conditions—capture the sensory and affective dimensions of underwater labor. the ethnography shines in these moments, detailing how divers and rope pullers physically encounter waste, navigate unseen hazards, and bring discarded objects to the surface. by analyzing the labor of trash divers, rodineliussen advances a broader argument about the material politics of waste: these divers do not merely extract waste from underwater landscapes but also challenge dominant narratives of environmental responsibility. their work exposes the contradictions of so-called sustainable societies, revealing the unseen accumulations of industrial and consumer detritus beneath the surface. this, in turn, raises critical scrutiny about the thresholds of toxicity being dumped and accumulated in the water. aquabiopolitics comes into play here: in stockholm, waste and toxicity are deemed acceptable as long as specific toxicants remain below harmful levels for humans. however, this standard does not necessarily extend to marine organisms, for whom exposure to hazardard materials may already be altering underwater ecosystems—all to sustain human activities. another chapter examines how the rena mälaren trash-diving group makes underwater waste visible to the public through installations and media campaigns. by engaging sensory experiences—sight, touch, and smell—the chapter highlights how waste in water represents slow violence, accumulating harm over time. rodineliussen argues that shifting perspectives from land to underwater is essential for rethinking human relationships with marine environments a particularly compelling chapter juxtaposes trash diving in sweden with similar initiatives in brazil and thailand, highlighting how localized waste ecologies intersect with global circuits of pollution and conservation. rodineliussen’s inclusion of these comparative cases underscores the transnational dynamics of marine pollution and community-led responses, situating his ethnography within broader global debates on environmental practices. the chapter compares trash diving efforts in sweden, brazil, and thailand, emphasizing how waste in water is a global issue. it explores how the swedish trash-diving group expands its collaborations and international initiatives with project aware and trash hero, highlighting the different environmental and social conditions that shape trash-diving practices. rodineliussen argues that while water pollution 4 is universal, the materiality and sensory experience of waste differ across locations, influencing how communities engage with conservation efforts one of the book’s strengths is its methodological innovation. by conducting sensorial, embodied “underwater ethnography,” rodineliussen challenges conventional fieldwork practices, demonstrating the possibilities of submersion as an ethnographic technique. this approach resonates with recent anthropological experiments in affective methods in underwater studies (sangkhamanee 2025), positioning underwater worlds as a methodological intervention as much as a theoretical one. as someone who has grappled with the methodological challenges of researching underwater environments, i appreciate rodineliussen’s efforts to translate the sensory and affective experiences of diving into ethnographic knowledge. he invites scholars to consider how fieldwork might be transformed when our sensory faculties are reoriented. underwater worlds makes it an essential read for those interested in marine anthropology and the politics of environmental contamination. rodineliussen’s work reminds us that the underwater is not merely a passive receptacle for human waste but a dynamic, contested space where life, matter, sensibility, and politics coalesce in unexpected ways. references jue, melody. 2020. wild blue media: thinking through seawater. durham and london: duke university press. nixon, rob. 2011. slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. canbridge and london: harvard university press. raycraft, justin. 2020. “seeing from below: scuba diving and the regressive cyborg”. anthropology and humanism, 45: 301-321. sangkhamanee, jakkrit. 2024. humanity in symbiosis: lessons from the deep. backchannel. the society for social studies of science (4s). _______. 2025. “diving into underwater anthropocene: vital materiality and the becoming of a shipwreck” in southern anthropocenes, edited by casper bruun jensen. london & new york: routledge. jakkrit sangkhamanee is an associate professor of anthropology at chulalongkorn university, thailand, specializing in sts and environmental anthropology. his research explores water (river and ocean) politics, infrastructure, and the entanglements of technology and nature in southeast asia. as an advanced diver and ethnographer, he engages with multispecies ethnography and 5 speculative approaches to anthropology. his works contribute to discussions on environmental governance, material politics, and ontological transformations in the anthropocene. © 2025 jakkrit sangkhamanee microsoft word dewari review.docx 1 william s. sax, 2024, in the valley of the kauravas: a divine kingdom in the western himalaya, oxford university press, 320 pp., isbn 978-0-19887-935-0 keywords: divine kingship, public enactment, cultural solidarity, local deities, ballad and oral tradition the valley of the kauravas by william sax is a beautiful yet candid work, showcasing his approach to data gathering (p. 17) by weaving his personal experiences into the narrative using "reflexive" ethnography. this method allows the book to convey deep emotions and messages, rather than simply recounting a series of stories. sax opens the book with a dedication to buli das, the ‘dhaki,’ whom he regards as both a teacher and guide, as well as a dear friend during his research in the rawain valley—a place where he spent over three decades working. the epigraph is particularly captivating, as sax offers salutations to karna, the son of the sun god, in the local dialect, thereby connecting his presence to the local deities—hari of haridwar, lord badrinath, and kedarnath—and the sacred ganges river. the book is a seamless blend of both transliteration and translation, comprising nine chapters, including the introduction. one of the book's most striking features is the interconnection between the chapters, each linking to the next in some way, creating a cohesive and engaging narrative. chapter 1 introduces the local gods, portrayed as divine kings ruling over kingdoms in the rawain region of uttarakhand. these gods control weather and periodic trends, a concept sax explores for modern readers who might find divine kingship puzzling. he examines this through an anthropological lens, discussing the intertwined nature of religion and politics in classical south asian politics, with raja karan, a key figure from the mahabharata, central to the narrative. the chapter is divided into three parts. "gods as agents" highlights how deities like raja karan require 2 oracles and drums to exercise their agency, with sax using an example of an american voter to explain this concept. he notes that local deities have distinct personalities, like karan’s gentleness compared to duryodhan's anger. sax also discusses kinnaur, where ruling deities are generally queens, and provides a narrative about the mahasu brothers and animal sacrifice. the second part addresses three problematic terms: culture, ontology, and rituals. sax views culture as a space for disagreement, not just shared beliefs, and agrees with using ontology to investigate the nature of being. he introduces the concepts of "real-izing" and "worlding" instead of "culture" and "ontology." the third part sparsely uses the term "ritual," as sax prefers "public enactment," arguing that rituals shape the context rather than being shaped by it. the core of sax's book centers on how humans have created and continue to recreate a world where they interact with their divine kings. chapter 2 delves into divine kingship in south and southeast asia. sax begins by discussing dumont's argument that, although the brahman is spiritually superior, he is materially dependent on the king, highlighting the "conundrum of the king’s authority." sax emphasizes the inseparable nature of religion and politics in classical south asian politics, where the king is seen as divine. in rawain, raja karan embodies both a worldrenouncing yogi and a decisive warrior-king. dirks (1989), who views religion and politics as two sides of the same coin, and sax cites examples from the modern king of puri to illustrate this. sax later discusses the integration of kingship and religion in garhwal, referencing galey’s argument that they are two parts of a whole, leading to three patterns: (a) legal rule by gods embodied as temple images (e.g., kullu and mandi). (b) kings and gods as reflections or alter-egos of each other. (c) divine kingship—direct rule by gods (e.g., rawain). sax includes a map detailing kangra, mandi, sirmaur, and tehri-garhwal (p. 48, fig 2.1) and mentions god mahasu’s role in providing justice and resolving conflicts, effectively setting the stage for the book's further exploration of divine kingship and its impact on the region's people. from chapter 3 onward, sax shares captivating stories that enrich the narrative. the first takes place on a winter afternoon in 1994, where sax joins rajmahon (the vazir of karan), ram prasad nautiyal (god’s brahmin oracle), and raja karan, who, through his oracle, predicts the future and resolves disputes. sax explores different facets of raja karan's identity: as a brahman, a yogi, a 3 king, his role in the mahabharata, and his conflict with chalda mahasu. in the mahabharata, krishna praises karan’s generosity. as a king, karan ruled devra, with sax highlighting the central-periphery dynamics of kingship. a key event is karan’s confrontation with mahasu, where mahasu accuses karan of black magic. despite this, karan is depicted as a vegetarian who upholds hindu practices like kanyadaan, guiding his people toward brahmanical values while blending his divine role with traditional hindu practices. chapter 4, one of the longest in the book (fig. a), begins by introducing rawain as a "mulk" (country), but it extends beyond this definition to encompass a bimoral system involving people, animals, gods, lands, and spirits. sax explores this through the concept of moral ecology, where karan communicates with his subjects via oracles, illustrated with photographs that provide a photo essay-like glimpse into the region. the chapter connects various elements of the mulk to the construction of a new temple rooftop. it describes a ball game played between two village groups, panshi and shathi, during uttarayan and dakshinayan. another key element is the palanquin journey, culminating with raja karan's desire to travel to khansyani village. the chapter also includes a headhunting incident and portrays village rivalries, increasing reader engagement. 4 fig. a: the division of chapter 4 in the book into moral ecology, whole mulk and the palaquine journey. image by author. in chapter 5, sax addresses folklorization as a projective term, focusing on three main issues: (i) defining the objective of studying folklore, (ii) the shift from unconscious to conscious practice, and (iii) the association of folklore with power. he discusses the ballad of jariyan, narrated by buli das, and the traditional enemies involved. sax uses local dialects alongside translations, allowing readers with good imagination skills to vividly picture the unfolding drama. chapter 6 explores the theme of existential threat and the implications when solidarity is questioned. the chapter begins with rajmohan's political rivalries, leading into a summary of rajmohan's autobiography. it then addresses "crime and punishment," discussing concepts of good karma and fate, and introduces a new angle on murder. the chapter concludes with a focus on summer and autumn festivals, connecting back to the initial story of rainfall from earlier chapters. in chapter 7, sax begins with the question of how people create their world, focusing on the concept of "doing." he shares anthropological insights on pastoralism, discussing sustainability, perceptions, ecological perspectives, and environmental determinism, before delving into transhumant pastoralism as observed in rawain. the chapter also addresses the bride price and concludes with another ballad. the use of vivid photographs, ballad translations, and maps enhances the chapter, which primarily deals with the theme of grazing tax. chapter 8 begins with a salutation to the divine king and explores the idea that gods are not omnipresent; their power relies on the devotion and solidarity of their subjects (as discussed in chapter 4, p. 79, and chapter 9, p. 252). the chapter presents two cases involving the pokhhu devta, the god of justice and injustice. sax recounts a family quarrel he witnessed, illustrated by fig 8.2, a kinship chart that clarifies the dispute. the second case involves the chief minister, highlighting how people's faith and moral solidarity strengthen the god's power. chapter 9, titled “the enemy,” centers on duryodhana, who is worshiped as lord someshvar in the region. sax discusses recent advances through the lens of modernization theory and notes that, unlike in the mahabharata, karan and duryodhana are rivals in rawain. he describes two forms of belief in the village: traditional practices and reformist views. the chapter also includes a story 5 about a shepherd known as “redcloak” and the jakhol village’s idol-related narrative. reforms, such as the ending of animal sacrifice, are highlighted. sax presents his personal viewpoints through a three-world system: the childlike world of innocence, the competitive world of khunds, and the world of devotional hinduism. overall, i was impressed by the volume’s organization, especially the palanquin on the cover. the index at the end, which clearly lists page numbers, greatly aids readers. this commendable work is not only well-structured but also inspiring for future researchers and will be remembered for years to come. references dirks, nicholas b. “the original caste: power, history and hierarchy in south asia.” contributions to indian sociology 23, no. 1 (1989): 59–77. doi:10.1177/006996689023001005. abhijeet singh dewari, a graduate from the department of anthropology at the university of delhi, has diverse research interests, including human growth and development, kinanthropometry, himalayan studies, kathak dance, physiological anthropology, and healthy aging. remarkably, at the age of 13, he authored the book "a man is equal to a coin," which was published in 2019. recognized as one of the youngest authors in the research community, he recently contributed a notable research article on the spirituality and injuries of kathak dancers to the journal, human biology and public health. © 2024 abhijeet singh dewari 1 gupta, radhika. freedom in captivity: negotiations of belonging along kashmir's frontier. cambridge university press, 2023. 232pp isbn:9781009201629 keywords: ethnography, politics of belonging, borderland, kashmir conflict, south asia a vignette from the 2004 bollywood film lakshya depicts a young army major’s discovery of lifelong commitment on the distant hill of kargil, the site of the fourth indo-pak war. lakshya is not an exception in this genre. many later films followed the same trope: conflicted personal lives, the kargil war, and the transformation of the protagonists into guardians of sovereignty at the cost of some personal sacrifice. the hitherto unknown town of kargil in the himalayas, practically cut off from the rest of the world for six months, captivated the imagination of the ‘nation.’ radhika gupta’s freedom in captivity: negotiations of belonging along kashmir’s frontier is not about these stories of war and valour. instead, it begins by exploring a simple yet pertinent question: what does life look like on the margins that have transfixed the indian national imagination? based on ethnographic research for over 14 years (2008-21), gupta explores what freedom means to borderland kargilis, who do not equate it with a quest for national sovereignty. she shifts “the gaze away from top-down security concerns to examine how borderland dwellers negotiate regimes of state security and their geopolitical location in everyday life” (8). the book thus goes beyond the infrastructural perspective of bricks and barracks to discover negotiations of belonging. gupta invites us to reimagine borderlands beyond their physical territorial demarcations. in doing so, she reconstructs the border as a space of fiction where the politics of belonging is negotiated. this nuanced reading of belonging, she argues, “belie analysis framed by the dichotomies of legal-illegal, insurgent-subjugated, mobility and stasis that pervade borderland studies” (9). 2 the book is divided into five chapters, excluding an introduction and an epilogue. it begins with what gupta calls “genealogies of political consciousness”—an attempt to rescue “place from the territory” (32). the narration of the history of place, she argues, is foregrounded “on people’s memories and legends in contrast to nationalist narratives in which kargil is predominantly a strategic border” (34). this is important given the contested history of the region. most academic research on the erstwhile state of jammu and kashmir has focused on the insurgency which began in the late 1980s and the subsequent invasive presence of the military. freedom in captivity broadens the scope of literature by foregrounding the “emergent consciousness of regional kargili identity in relation to baltistan, buddhist ladakh and the kashmir valley” (34). contextualising kargili shias beyond the kashmir conflict and within the larger trans-himalayan ecumene adds a much-needed layer to conflict studies and transhimalayan literature. from a historical perspective, it brings forth the muzzled political voices from gilgit, baltistan and kargil in academic literature and post-colonial nationalistic imagination. although gupta acknowledges that it is impossible to state today how “kargilis might have envisioned their future in 1947 as memories of past have been filtered through their present desire to belong to india” (41). contrary to this, the post-partition politics of kargil reflect legible patterns discussed throughout the chapters. the first two chapters reflect on the emergence of the nascent regional consciousness of kargil being a poor cousin of leh and the communalisation of politics in the backdrop of the kashmir conflict. this is accomplished by netting everyday encounters of sectarian prejudices, stereotypes and demographic anxieties within communities. a highlight is the narration of intra-sectarian polemic through the micropolitics of imam khomeini memorial trust (ikmt) and the islamia school, two rival factions within kargili shia. it both sums up and reflects a microcosm of the influence of iran on political subjectivity in kargil and the larger transnational islamic exchange. the second half of the book arises from the question gupta frequently encountered during her fieldwork: "but what is your topic?" and her response: a study of the culture and history of the region. woven through cultural activism and artistic heritage, chapter four explores intraregional cultural exchange between leh and kargil. gupta employs an “interpretive strategy of translation as a search for equivalence between a past essentialised as buddhist and the islamic present in kargil” (130). the book envisions the kargili identity independently from buddhist ladakh and sunni kashmir yet irrevocably connected to both. a reference to cultural 3 politics, the author contends, is important as it reflects another dimension of the paradox of freedom in captivity that kargil’s muslims inhabit. the last chapter looks through the prism of cultural exchange on both sides of the india and pakistan border. through this, she brings out the narratives of ‘cross border settlers’: people who were already living on one side before the partition of the indian subcontinent and decided not to go back. for the author, their “predicaments of belonging are distinct from partition refugees who voluntarily migrated to the other side” (161). another noteworthy inclusion is the history of villages that experienced multiple partitions (1947, 1965, and 1971), often ignored in partition historiography. through these overlooked narratives, gupta examines “encapsulation within india as a process and the dialectic of connection-disconnection highlighted for those living on the edge” (162). this examination reveals the homogenised nationalistic representation and the neo-coloniality across both sides of the border. the book ends with an epilogue reflecting on the living memory of the kargil war within the ‘national’ imagination. another important reference is the 2019 constitutional amendment that revoked jammu and kashmir’s semi-autonomous (article 370) status, dividing the state into two union territories (uts). the amendment spearheaded by the hindu right-wing bhartiya janta party (bjp) dramatically altered the polity of the region. the downgrading of a state to a union territory (ut), a first in postcolonial india, was widely unpopular in kashmir and kargil, a point of rare convergence. to curb the dissent, all political leaders were put behind bars, and the entire region was under an internet siege for eighteen months. the abrogation of article 370 and the incremental rightward shift of national politics over the last decade and a half has ushered a politics of anxiety and fear within india’s minorities, particularly muslims. this is equally true for kargil shias, a “double minority, engulfed in this sense of despair” (195). the growing insecurity and changing political subjectivities seem to be critical in the region's politics. the seven-page epilogue lacks the rich description that the reader has become accustomed to in the preceding pages. the brief engagement with post-370 politics leaves readers longing for more. another area that could have enriched the analysis further is a deeper exploration of the sunni minority within kargil. the micropolitics of the sunni minority within the shia majority district could have added another layer of nuance to the already exceptional ethnographic work. this perspective becomes particularly relevant 4 given that drass, a town with a significant sunni population, was the actual site of the kargil war. nonetheless, the book brilliantly accomplishes the task it undertakes. it brings forth the littlediscussed peripheral identity from a humanist perspective. it cautions against subsuming kargili identity into either buddhist ladakh or sunni kashmiri. lastly, the work adds breadth to the partition historiography with references to villages like badgam, which has shuffled between india and pakistan twice. these contributions make freedom in captivity a valuable addition to the kashmir studies literature and the larger anthropological understanding of the trans-himalayan region. khalid yaqoob mir is a phd candidate at the centre for the study of law and governance, jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi. his research interests include political subjectivity, postcolonial state-making and developmental politics in jammu and kashmir. © 2025 khalid yaqoob mir microsoft word han, lisa yin. 2024. deepwater alchemy_review gentilucci.docx han, lisa yin. 2024. deepwater alchemy. extractive mediation and the taming of the seafloor. minneapolis, london: university of minnesota press, 256 pp. isbn: 9781517915940 despite what its cover might suggest, this is not a book entirely focused on deep-sea mining. however, the timing of the publication of deepwater alchemy: extractive mediation and the taming of the seafloor could not be more appropriate, given the growing global concern about the impending commercialisation of seabed minerals. nor is this strictly an anthropological book. instead, it lies at the intersection of environmental studies, media studies and science and technology studies, incorporating decolonial, feminist and multi-species perspectives. nevertheless, this beautifully written work is sure to become essential reading for anthropologists interested in oceanic extraction, as it provides insight into the cultural representation of the seafloor. media scholar lisa yin han explores how the deep sea has historically been, and continues to be, constructed as an extractive frontier, particularly through ocean engineering — the technological apparatus that enables us to imagine the sea as a “speculative replacement of land” (6). this transformation is encapsulated by the book's central concept of “alchemy,” referring !the materialdiscursive becoming of the deep ocean, where power is encoded into naturalizations of human technological feats” (4). one of the book"s key arguments is that mediation — the way in which we come to understand the ocean through infrastructures and media technologies — is an extractive process in itself. as she explains, certain forms of media operation (though not all environmental mediations) “participate in nonreciprocal acts of removal, accumulation, and domination” (15), thereby laying the groundwork for extractive industries. each of the five chapters that compose the book explores different manifestations of the entanglement between media, digital technologies, and the petroleum and mining industries. as han argues, a unifying thread across them is the drive for the !removal of information and material from the seafloor to the surface” (21), fueled by a !thirst to know the unknown” (22). in chapter one, the author illustrates how the deep seafloor is mediated as both an archive and a frontier — two sides of the same coin. in fact, resource extraction is not limited to natural materials but also includes cultural and epistemological resources. as she argues, !our mediations of the seafloor as an archive of cultural heritage are far from innocent” (28). han introduces the concept of the !salvage-extraction dynamic” to emphasize that both archaeological expeditions aimed at recovering and making visible what has been lost, and seabed extraction, are ultimately driven by underlying geopolitical agendas and narratives of national identity. she also highlights how, within this linear and static conception of sedimented history, nonhumans have largely been excluded. continuing this historical perspective, chapter 2 examines the extractive mediations of the ocean through the lens of sound technologies used in petroleum exploration, particularly explosives and seismic surveys. drawing on sound studies and adopting a multi-species perspective on sensing and sounding, han seeks to make visible and rematerialize what is !taken” in the process of framing noise as interference and signal as meaningful content (61). she shows how seismic surveys offer partial, selective representations of the seabed, effectively !flattening” underwater space and concealing their ecological harm. this analysis also sheds light on how the offshore industry legitimizes its extractive practices — such as drilling and surveying — by framing them as necessary for acquiring knowledge about !how much you have” (75). this raises broader questions about who drives the knowledgeproduction process. one of the central justifications for deep-sea mining today, for example, is that granting exploration licenses is essential for industry to !discover” what exists at extreme depths — often under the pretense of contributing to science. in the following chapter, han turns her attention more directly to deep-sea mining, focusing on the role of sediment plumes — clouds of sediment particles stirred up by extracting operations — in shaping how environmental risk is socially constructed. through the framework of elemental media theory, han argues that these plumes are not merely objects of scientific representation, but active participants in the discourse-making of risk. she contends that definitions of underwater hazards are often obscured by terms such as !resilience” (94), echoing concerns raised by geographer john childs (2019), who critiques how deep-sea mining stakeholders invoke a kind of !nature license to operate” rather than a genuine !social license to operate.” by likening the turbulence caused by mining to naturally occurring underwater phenomena — such as hydrothermal vents or submarine volcanoes — stakeholders strategically downplay the perceived anthropogenic impact (ivi). in this chapter, han shows how the language of resilience shifts responsibility away from human actors and onto the adaptive capacities of nonhuman life forms. her analysis poses a critical question: !is there a temporal limit that marks the boundary between turbulence and catastrophe?” (116). this provocation challenges dominant narratives of sustainability and calls for deeper reflection on the long-term consequences of extractive activities. another powerful example of extractive mediation emerges in chapter 4, in which han positions whales at the centre of her analysis. she explores how the desire to observe whales has evolved into observing the ocean through them, as telemetry devices transform the animals into mobile oceanographic sensors. drawing inspiration from jennifer gabrys's program earth (2016), han conceptualizes whales and autonomous underwater sensors as “coworkers in mobile ocean-observing points" (126), revealing how care and intimacy are increasingly structured by data logics. this transformation situates whale telemetry within a larger global initiative — oceans 2.0, or the “smart” ocean — framing the ocean as a vast, sensor-laden body akin to “a permanently intubated patient” (150). while han's analysis highlights the convergence of scientific and industrial interests in the production of ocean knowledge, it also suggests that these technologically mediated relationships may give rise to “unexpected interspecies intimacies” that transcend instrumental rationality (158). as han shows in the final chapter, observatories, as the cabled seafloor pipeline, can “also challenge humanity’s perception of itself in relation to the seas” (187). a compelling example she makes is the phenomenon of !biofouling,” where marine organisms colonize human technologies. han interprets these entanglements as invitations to imagine alternative human-ocean futurities that move beyond control and efficiency toward the recognition of the deep-ocean as a heterogeneous space. this book provides a brilliant and timely intervention into contemporary debates around oceanic knowledge production but also on the blue economy. it speaks to the growing urgency — shared by scientists, industrial stakeholders, and conservationists — to fill the so-called !knowledge gaps” of the deep ocean. yet han's work challenges the assumption that more data necessarily equates to better stewardship. instead, she offers a thoughtful deceleration, inviting us to question the cultural, political, and technological assumptions that underpin our engagement with the ocean. her analysis culminates in a call for ethical ocean mediation, including the imperative to !make space for the unknown” (199). han reminds us that human relationships with deepwater ecosystems are shaped not only by what we can observe but also by what remains beyond our epistemic reach. what would it mean to resist the urge to collect data? on a more personal note, what i found missing — particularly from an anthropological standpoint — was a stronger presence of han"s interlocutors. their voices are mostly absent, hovering behind the analysis rather than actively shaping it. bibliography childs, john. 2019. “greening the blue? corporate strategies for legitimising deep sea mining”, political geography 74, 102060. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2019.102060. gabrys, jennifer. 2016. program earth: environmental sensing technology and the making of a computational planet. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. author bio marta gentilucci is a marie skłodowska-curie postdoctoral fellow at the department of social anthropology (university of bergen), where she leads the project ocean mined on deepsea mining. she is also the co-founder and co-convenor of the easa anthropology of the seas network. she has previously conducted ethnographic research in mayotte on human– environment relations as part of an interdisciplinary project, and in kanaky–new caledonia on mining issues for her phd in social and cultural anthropology, awarded by the university of milanobicocca. she is the author of the monograph la montagna e il capitale. il cammino kanak del nichel (prospero, 2022). © 2025 marta gentilucci microsoft word lennon 2024_gul (1).docx paul hansen, hokkaido dairy farm: cosmopolitics of otherness and security on the frontiers of japan. state university of new york press. 308 p. ibsn: 9781438496467. keywords: hokkaido, japan, rural, frontier, agriculture, dairy, non-human, security, otherness, individuality. paul hansen’s hokkaido dairy farm gives us a rich ethnography of a japanese dairy farm in tokachi, hokkaido, pseudonymously named the ‘grand hopes diary farm.’ it is a thorough work that gives a vivid and engaging understanding of this unique place and practice, detailing all from the minutiae of intimate bovine-human relations and particular individuals’ life stories to the broader historical and cultural place of hokkaido, while keeping us firmly situated in this mechanized mega-farm in all its particularity. each of his twelve chapters are shorter than the ethnographic average, but the work covers a broad range – perhaps wider than a standard ethnography. this effort is unified around hansen’s three concepts: frontiers, security, and otherness (highlighted in the book’s title). he explores each of these at different scales, ranging from the intimate, bodily experiences of farmers and bovines (micro), to the community and farm-level practices (meso), and the overarching regional and national context (macro). he opens by giving us a vivid impression of hokkaido as a unique place and compels the reader to register its distinction to the apparent japanese norm, arguing “it is the spatial and cultural other within par excellence” (p. 12), holding that hokkaido is, and has been a frontier, and remains as japan’s only remaining settler-colony (p. 3). hokkaido, for those unfamiliar, is the northernmost of japan’s four major islands that was colonised by japan in the 1800s, assimilating and repressing the indigenous ainu. hansen asserts it ought to be understood as a colonial space akin to the american west and australian outback, and, indeed, it can be seen to mimic those other locations (p. 37). he directedly employs the concept of the ‘frontier’ to illustrate this, tracking imaginations of hokkaido from initial settler expansion to the contemporary moment, showing how hokkaido has consistently been a space imagined to be wild and insecure, as well as a buffer and receptor to the outside threats. essentially, hokkaido is a macro-frontier where insecurities are imagined by the japanese state, from geo-strategic to demographic to biological (i.e., biosecurity), and this imaginary continues to persist. hansen then plays on this apparent marginality throughout the text to tease out how hokkaido and the dairy industry’s otherness has, in fact, been central to the articulation of ‘japaneseness’ and japanese modernity, as these have been formed in relation to this effort toward securing this frontier-space. he argues that there is a longer history of cattle in japan, that dairy products are core to day-to-day life in tokyo, and this reliance is reflected in policy that demands national self-sufficiency in milk production (taking this goal so far as the flout trade deals with the us [p.70-72]) – in essence, hansen shows that this peripheral, apparently non-japanese practice of dairy farming is central to modern japan, yet those engaged in the industry “comprise pieces that cannot be made to fit the dominate narratives that are popularly promoted” (p. 27). more widely, hansen finds exceptions to several of the established sociological standards in writing on japan, though not combatively so: as he states, “this book is not an opposition, but an exception, to this normative collective portrayal of people” (p. 131). this is in contradistinction to the representation of japanese rurality as a kind of monolithic, agrarian harmony, where he instead emphasizes the individual subjectivities of farmers and labourers and the particularity of the people and place under study. he likens dairy to the modern novel, referencing bakhtin, where people cannot be subsumed into existing categories as there is always a surplus of ‘humanness’ (p. 87), arguing that “the individual is […] biologically and historically unique, the ontological and phenomenal core of agency, and so the maker and interpreter of meaning over and above the social relations that they are born into and in turn cultivate, sustain, or change” (p. 131). he is not denying the relevance of class, ethnicity, gender or other social categories, but rather observing that in this case, they are not the dominant forces that define the social world of farmers and labourers on grand hopes farm. instead, he argues for what he calls ‘assemblages of individuations’ – that is, in essence, that a cohesive identity of ‘we dairy workers’ was not extant on the farm, nor was it forming (p. 134, 182). instead, it was a dynamic interplay of ‘internalities and externalities’ that worked to form and change different, shifting assemblages not easily captured by dominant social categories (p. 134). this is elegantly argued primarily in chapter seven, but the ethnographic material throughout the work makes palpable precisely this contention that the individuality of those who live and work in tokachi and at grand hopes refutes categorial subsumption. indeed, hansen’s engagement with this site for over two decades, where he has gone through seeing it as “a visitor, worker, and resident and [has] gotten to know former interlocutors and coworkers as friends and, on occasion, foes” (p. 6), allows him to vividly demonstrate this conviction ethnographically. he introduces many characters in the following chapters, such as hairless and wise ichiro, the vulgar and whining tokyo cowboy, and the goat-wrestling dr. oda (among others), recounting in engaging detail the evolving relationships of these people with others to demonstrate how associations were constantly shifting. this is still given an explanation: “farmers […] have become progressively more individuated in their actions and individualistic in their thinking, a situation fostered, necessitated even, by the swelling adoption of an industrialized and automatized mode of competitive production” (p. 23). farmers and labourers, hansen argues, are often in-between and in precarious states, not sure whether they will stay or go, and their labouring in a constant encounter with otherness within a frontier (in terms of lifestyle, location, and both other-than-human and human bodies). thus, like at the macro-scale frontier of hokkaido, at this micro-scale, for these individuals “the act of securing [is] a fluid constant and a key concern” (p.144), however what this security means is personalised and ‘novel’ (i.e., not found in a readily available, extant collective). hansen is also engaged with the more-than-human and the imbrication of humans, cows, and machines, with the milking parlour dubbed the ‘human-animal-machine’. although the influence of the more-than-human is never absent, it comes into focus in the conclusion of the work, where the cosmopolitical stakes of mechanized dairy farming are interrogated, and he argues that the rotary parlour system is “an individuating regime designed to be clinically, and i conclude chronically, rationalizing” (p. 245), creating a “an assemblage of cosmopolitical suffering” (p. 260), where people and cows are harmed by being forced to comply with the logics of this system. this is framed as part of a wider assemblage of panoptic power in the mega-farm and, accordingly, hansen also gives space to the other more-than-human intimacies that occur outside these rationalities, such as his bond with 603, a cow who particularly loved a neck pat (p. 264). overall, hokkaido dairy farm is an elegantly theorised and richly contextualised ethnography that will be significant to those studying agrarian and rural contexts in japan and outside it and gives significant food for ethnographic thought in compellingly asserting how staple social categories can fray when trying to explain unstable, highly contingent social worlds. hansen’s work ought to be read by those interested in the intersection of sts and multispecies scholarship and those interested in taking individuals subjectivities seriously methodologically and theoretically (human and non-human), as well as any interested in compelling narrated and conceptualised ethnographies. gabriel urlich lennon is a phd candidate in the department of social anthropology. his research examines ecological governance along the borderlands of conservation and pastoral farming in aotearoa. © 2025 gabriel urlich lennon microsoft word ritual (2022) pinal villanueva.docx 1 robbie davis-floyd and charles d. laughlin, 2022, ritual: what it is, how it works, and why, new york: berghahn books, 322 pp., isbn 978-1-80073-528-6 the book "ritual: what it is, how it works, and why" offers valuable insights for both professionals in the field of religion and newcomers to the topic. the authors' clear writing style makes complex ideas accessible, making this book a useful resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of rituals. it effectively addresses both the basic and the more nuanced questions, presenting deep reflections in an understandable and even relatable manner. davis-floyd illustrates many of the chapters from the deep honesty and vulnerability of having lost her daughter in a tragic accident, which far from being an unnecessary self-references, they are genuine illustrations of the power of ritual to go through grief. this emotional depth may surprise readers who think it impossible to feel moved while reading an anthropological manual. another noteworthy aspect is the consistent interplay between the diverse examples that illustrate each chapter, which enhances the text’s didactic and engaging quality. these examples range from various ethnographic studies, including those drawn from the author’s own fieldwork, to more familiar scenarios and personal anecdotes. this dynamic movement between the unfamiliar and the everyday feels reminiscent of an already classic book such as paul bohannan's "we, the alien" (1991). the book is divided into ten chapters and two appendices. the first chapter introduces how ritual symbols enter and interact with different areas of the brain, synchronizing physical sensations, emotion, meaning, and intellect. authors' definition of ritual is “a patterned, repetitive, and symbolic enactment of cultural (or individual) beliefs and values” (p. 256). far from being reductionist or mechanistic, this definition sets the stage throughout the book to think about ritual not only from a religious framework -as it may happen due to the popular use of the term-, but from a more secular perspective. the second chapter explores the relationship between values, rituals, and symbols, and their insertion in the cognitive matrix of those who perform them. it also incorporates elements of neuroscience, useful for those interested in questions related to cognition, and perception. additionally, this chapter discusses how rituals function as an 'enactment' of worldviews, and myths, but also of paradigms (for example, rituals in the field of biomedicine), ideas that are explored in depth in the third chapter. in chapter number three, the authors discuss the process of “truing," which refers to the cognitive mechanism through which we take certain assumptions for granted, and how the nature of these explanations varies across different cultures. chapter four presents a.particularly intriguing topic—states of consciousness. i personally would have appreciated a more extensive exploration of this subject, especially regarding the concept of "warp of consciousness," defined as "points of experiential and neurophysiological transition between states of consciousness" (p. 81). but besides that, the chapter is well constructed and includes an interesting discussion regarding the role of ritual as a catalyst and facilitator for these 2 transitions between different consciousness states, which leads to a broader examination of cultural perspectives on consciousness. specifically, the authors propose in this section a division between more "monophasic" cultures, which prioritize sensory experiences and material values over spiritual development and other forms of knowledge, and "holistic" or "polyphasic" cultures. these categories, not intended to be rigid or exclusive, are presented as ideal types existing along a spectrum, which resulted in my opinion reminiscent of classical anthropological essays. towards the middle of the book, the following chapters discuss the technologies and techniques that constitute ritual (chapter five), how ritual is framed both symbolically and physically, and what that framing implies. for this, the authors will return several times to the concept of the perceived inevitability and inviolability of ritual, and examine the consequences when these boundaries are broken. additionally, chapter six addresses the role of laughter and joy in the ritual process—elements that are often overlooked in the study of rituals. throughout the book, and especially in this chapter, the authors emphasize the importance of emotions in shaping the ritualistic experience, including their role in the symbolic efficacy of rituals. the seventh chapter explores the performative elements of ritual across different cultures and expands once again into the psychological and neuroscientific aspects of the question. this exploration will culminate in the eighth chapter, titled “the four stages of cognition, where they present a scale of “open-mindedness” that ranges from fundamentalism and fanaticism to global humanism, proposing ethnocentrism and cultural relativism as intermediate stages. towards the end, and connecting with its' predecessor, chapter nine reflects the paradoxical role of ritual, which can serve as both an agent of social change and a preserver of the status quo. it also explores how ritual can act as a reversible mechanism for navigating crises, as exemplified by the covid-19 pandemic, among other instances. chapter ten concludes with examples of the origins of various rituals, examining both collective and individual practices, such as family rituals like weddings and memorials, as well as the feedback loop between belief and its effectiveness. the book covers many useful notions for both the curious general public and academics. however, given its vast scope and rich conceptual content, the authors recommend delving into the suggested bibliography if one wishes to explore a particular term in depth. the authors strike a balance, exploring these phenomena and concepts with sufficient depth to provide the reader with a general understanding without being overwhelming. the book feels more like a comprehensive atlas of the vast world of ritual, rather than a specialized manual. it is illustrated with clear and useful examples, and comparative tables are included when necessary. at the end of each chapter, there is a thorough summary to review the content covered, which, combined with the well-defined structure of each unit, gives the reader a sense of having attended a university lecture. finally, beyond the theoretical elements, the two appendices that conclude the volume are noteworthy for their practical value. the first appendix consists of a checklist on creating one's own rituals, while the second provides recommendations of documentary films for those eager to explore the subject further. in conclusion, in this book the authors successfully bridge the gap between academic rigor and general interest, making it a valuable resource for both scholars and casual readers alike. whether the reader is seeking to expand their knowledge of rituals, or simply curious about their impact on society, this book offers a meaningful journey into that world. the inclusion of practical appendices further enhances its utility, encouraging readers to apply the insights 3 gained to their own lives. overall, this work is a significant contribution to the field of anthropology and a must-read for anyone interested in the power of ritual. keywords: ritual; ethnography; cognitive anthropology; anthropology of emotion; symbolism references bohannan, paul. we the alien. new york: random house, 1991. author bio maría pinal villanueva is a phd candidate in the department of ethnography and anthropology at the university of belgrade, serbia. her last work is the paper called “processing entities: healing practices and body conceptions in the new age group “spiritual technology” © 2024 maría pinal villanueva 1 matthew lauer, 2023, sensing disaster: local knowledge and vulnerability in oceania, california: university of california press, 272 pp., isbn 9780520392076 keywords: disaster; indigenous ecological knowledge; ontology; resilience; vulnerability. sensing disasters by matthew lauer is a remarkable ethnographic study of simbo, an economically poor island with minimal disaster infrastructure, showcasing miraculous survival strategies without modern alert systems. the book opens at a critical moment in the aftermath of the 2007 tsunami that affected the solomon islands. instead of the usual explanation of disaster response as the intergenerational oral transmission of indigenous knowledge, lauer traces simboan disaster response to their ability to sense and act on environmental cues. in this book, he advocates epistemic democratization by critiquing the imposition of external scientific and bureaucratic frameworks over indigenous knowledge to understand disasters and plan their mitigation. dissecting the concepts of vulnerability and resilience by historicizing calamities and revealing their socio-cultural and economic entanglements, the book reveals the simbo experience of sensing disasters. the book delves into the lifeworlds of the simboans, situating their disaster experiences within the broader context of their discourses and materialities to challenge standardized forms of ‘perceiving’ (p. 28). it eloquently discusses how the simbo settlement history and its radical restructuring due to global economic and colonial transformations generated socio-ecological changes and (re)shaped vulnerabilities. drawing on extensive fieldwork, household surveys and ethnographic interviews over eighteen months, the book calls for new approaches to understanding disasters and rethinking the position of indigenous knowledge amidst dominant power structures. lauer studies spatial reorganization, social solidarities, and the dominance of scientific knowledge 2 during disaster reconstruction efforts by experts. his practice approach reorients knowledge as a form of practice informed by the practitioner, the specificities of time, place, social conditions and interpretations, thus making a strong case for contextualization of knowledge and ascertaining vulnerability as ‘politically polyvalent’ (pp. 84, 18, 184). simboans sense disasters as muolongo, glossed in english as ‘sensing, anticipating, interrelating,’ referring to the extraordinary abilities to make sound judgements and respond appropriately to apprehensions. noticing changes to local environments, anticipating danger by understanding strange events, relationality between humans and nonhumans and getting attuned to reflexive sensitivity together illustrate the simboan muolongo. lauer argues that ‘learning to be sensitive’ allowed the tsunami survivors ‘to detect odd shifts in the ocean and act on them appropriately with little codified, intergenerationally transmitted knowledge about the phenomenon’ (p. 186). with brilliant theoretical focus and empirical understanding, lauer highlights the multiple ontological positions associated with marine habitats. he argues that simboans can perceive and comprehend even the most subtle and gradual changes to their surroundings. simboan sensing is posited as a ‘regenerative process’ of rendering entities as ontologically multiple. the novelty of this conceptualization lies in its ability to highlight the implicit and introduce new entities, ideas, and practices that reinterpret local knowledge and transform it in the process (p. 20). making sense of the local understanding of vulnerabilities requires contextualizing biophysical uncertainties within the long history of simbo’s associations with capitalist and colonial regimes. this sets the stage for lauer to rethink how viewing vulnerability as an inherent condition of the simbo landscape necessitates external efforts for capacity building, thereby keeping the broader structure of epistemic dominance of scientism unchallenged. interestingly, lauer’s ethnography reveals simbo’s critique of the global economic system and the colonial network of power in terms of bulo-poata, meaning a detrimental marketing of everything. his focus on performativity ensures an understanding of the assemblages of multiple representations of the external reality, influenced by marginalized regional political economy, evolving cosmologies and waves of social solidarity. therefore, lauer’s attempt in the book is to unsettle the predominant analytical frameworks of disaster and develop ‘conceptual tools that 3 bring into view and generate new meanings, concepts, and material processes’ (p. 208). the book radically challenges dualistic thinking based on objectivity and argues for ‘poly-ontology’ built on the plurality of phenomena (p. 96). lauer identifies that the models of indigenous ecological knowledge (iek) or traditional ecological knowledge (tek) fail to consider the cultural values rooted in simbo’s miraculous disaster response. moreover, simbo survivors employed ‘a melange of different responses’ which was a part of their cultural values of ‘kastom’, understood as generosity and reciprocity, and ‘varivagana’, or mutual sharing (pp. 134-5). yet, with humanitarian relief extended by the undp, ngos, and disaster experts, ‘new discursive strategies, concepts, experiences, and technoscientific practices ... to assemble simbo land into vulnerable tsunamiland’ were introduced (p. 171). this shifted the responsibility and expertise of techno-scientifically managing disasters on the islands towards the global north. in the neoliberal condition, resilience-inspired disaster management strategies of experts ‘depoliticize’ and ‘naturalize’ disasters and reinforce the global power disparity (pp. 180-2). the book critiques participatory capacity-building workshops as potentially reinforcing state control despite their intentions to empower indigenous disaster response methods. it exposes the contingent and partial nature of dominant perspectives of various forms of scientism in disaster management. lauer emphasizes the importance of empowering the natives to stress their ideas, practices, and worldviews in order to foster a deeper understanding of the entangled worlds in the anthropocene. such a formulation unmasks disasters as ‘discursively and materially catalytic’; that is, instead of diminishing ‘the ebb and flow of life’, disasters coalesce with ‘with the preexisting fabric of life and produce an outpouring of local theorizations and speculations to explain and digest it’ (p. 201). sensing disasters impressively takes the first step towards understanding the conceptual resources of simbo by listening closely to alternate worldviews with appreciation. extending disaster anthropology’s focus on social dynamics, power structures, and political and economic disparities as triggering factors, lauer makes a case for historicizing calamities by locating them in a web of social and ecological relations. this approach generates the space for changes and prospects of varied modes of sensing disasters to emerge. it rests on the philosophy that not everyone describes the world in the same way or shares the same set of ontological assumptions (cortesi 2021, p. 4 871). lauer makes a timely and significant contribution towards exhibiting how the embeddedness of cultural practices within the socio-ecological systems explain how differing lifeworlds often coexist simultaneously and engender multiple meanings. by complicating the presumptions that inform indigenous and western scientific knowledge, lauer brings out their nuances and makes a relevant addition to the field of the social construction of knowledge. works cited: cortesi, luisa. “an ontology of water and land in north bihar, india.” journal of the royal anthropological institute 27 (2021): 870–89. doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13611 (accessed on 12 january 2022). sohini chakraborty is a doctoral candidate in sociology and social anthropology at indian institute of technology delhi, with research interests in sacred geography and environmental sociology. her recent works have been published in the contemporary south asia journal and by bloomsbury. © 2024 sohini chakraborty https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13611 1 johannes, venetia, 2020, nourishing the nation food as national identity in catalonia, oxford: berghahn books, 278 pp., isbn 978-1-78920-438-4 drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and a deep reservoir of various works on catalonia, venetia johaness’ nourishing the nation provides a succinct yet informative discussion on the pivotal role that food plays in the formation of catalan identity, and how these quotidian objects serve as an impetus for pro-independence (and anti-independence) movements. in its ordinariness, johannes treats food carefully in the important contexts within which it finds itself: history, politics, gastronomy, and most importantly, culture. the author structured the book in a manner so strategic that it facilitates a smooth contextualization of the subject, tracing its history through secondary research and examining its relevance in contemporary catalan society through ethnography; the latter substantiated by the length of time the author spent in fieldwork. equally tactical is the anthropologist’s choice of field site — the town of vic — in that the practices surrounding catalan food are at their most authentic form, with no external pressure from international tourism that now pervades the entire region. heeding llobera’s (2004) call for “in-depth studies” of nationalist movements, nourishing the nation: food as national identity in catalonia surely renders service to the task that its author daringly accepted. in chapter 1, johannes examines, in a quite extensive manner, catalan culinary cookbooks from the medieval up to the contemporary period. it is in this part where the author historicizes catalan food and its place in the lives of the people. it is also here that the prominent names in catalan food history are introduced, both from catalonia’s “golden era” during the middle ages, and the those who to this day bring it to the local and international stage. through these cookbooks, communal practices were preserved and are handed down. it is also interesting to note that the remaking of these centuries-old recipes concretely mirrors the continuity in catalan kitchens, where the ‘old’ never dies and is consistently introduced to the ‘new.’ in maintaining such 2 continuity, what made it possible are the culinary calendars that drove the catalans to partake of the same cuisines during important holidays of the year. in the second chapter, the author turns the attention to the culinary aspects that give catalan food its peculiarity. it primarily focuses on the sofregit, picada and allioli. these sauces are no basic concoctions: they do not just form the very base of what catalans consume, but also mirror catalonia’s character as ‘terra de pas,’ land of migration, as these are not catalan in the strictest sense of the word. these sauces reflect catalonia’s openness to peoples of diverse cultural backgrounds who brought with them their cultures, and left their marks in the place they once (and still) inhabit. catalonia’s identity as ‘terra de pas’ simply proves that nationalism does not have to take a “purist” definition; it can be an acknowledgement of how the movements of people shape places and practices. the very same practices are what bind the catalans together. in the third chapter, johannes situates food in the historical and political context of catalonia. the author brilliantly provides an account of how a corpus of agencies contribute to making catalan food an intangible cultural heritage. these actors span from local up to international bodies. the author also showed how catalan cuisine, staying true to catalonia’s inherent openness towards others, assumes and maintains connections with other regions, such as the mediterranean and the països catalans. while mary douglas’ concept of ‘commensality’ (2002) was already subtly referred to in the preceding discussions, this concept is all the more stressed here; the recognition of similarities of cuisines in catalonia, the mediterranean and the països catalans maintain these regions’ social bonds. it also emphasizes catalonia's assertion of unity with the països catalans and its ongoing effort to grapple with its (non)identification with the larger spain. the fourth chapter delves deeper into the authors' exploration, focusing considerably on the catalan gastronomic calendar's function in shaping "seasonality in national identity." both religious and gastronomic calendars guide people toward shared commensality, resulting in uniform consumption of specific foods during celebrations, ultimately creating a collective gastronomic experience. the author's insightful observations highlight the significance of material objects during these events, exemplified by the extended tables facilitating interactions among individuals. given the material nature of cooking and food being a cultural artifact (crowther, 2013), this chapter contributes to discussions on material culture and the anthropology of daily life. it can therefore be argued that the imagined catalan community brought forth seasonally by 3 religious and gastronomic calendars is also palpably shaped by tangible objects, integral to the rituals of these festivities. the last chapter centers on the emergence of "new catalan food" and how the catalans perceive them. this is where readers are confronted with the discourse distinguishing between what is deemed 'historically catalan' versus 'commercially catalan.' while this discussion may be intricate, its very existence underscores the notion that national identity is constructed on daily basis; it is contested and performed. at the end of the book’s densely ethnographic core, the reader will arrive at the conclusion that national identity in catalonia is continuously formed through — as bruno latour calls it — a network (latour, 1993; 2005). while people and institutions are what can be referred to as the main actors in this process, food itself contributes in it as seen in how it creates imagined communities, stirs nationalist movements, and drives the re-making and re-living of catalonia’s past. the question as to whether or not food possesses agency was not thoroughly discussed by the author, notwithstanding a brief mention that it does not have (p.84). nevertheless, the very thesis of this work is grounded in the fact that quotidian objects, such as food, also have ‘the socioculturally mediated capacity to act’ (ahern, 2001: 110). all that this book brilliantly discusses, and food’s central place in it, acquires greater sense if food is seen as an object not just passively ‘worked upon,’ but in being ‘worked upon,’ influences the socio-cultural fabric in which it is carefully knitted. nourishing the nation: food as national identity in catalonia presents a captivating and compelling ethnographic study centered on catalonia, exploring nationalist movements and tangible cultural aspects. this book holds immense appeal for students across diverse fields within the social sciences, effectively connecting history, anthropology, and even political science. furthermore, the book showcases innovation and creativity by employing photo-elicitation as a method in ethnographic research. despite its theoretical sophistication, the book maintains an approachable and engaging style, making it accessible even to the general public with an interest in understanding catalonia’s rich history, and how the catalans’ take pride with their gastronomic tradition. works cited: 4 ahearn, laura. 2001. ‘language and agency’, annual review of anthropology, 30: 109–37. crowther, gillian. 2013. eating culture: an anthropological guide to food. canada: university of toronto press. douglas, mary. 2002. purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. new york: routledge. latour, bruno. 1993. we have never been modern. new york: harvester wheatsheaf. latour, bruno. 2005. reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford, uk/new york: oxford university press llobera, josep r. 2004. foundations of national identity: from catalonia to europe. new york and oxford: berghahn books. venes carmelo tiñana banquiles is a cultural anthropologist trained in hungary. his research interests include material culture, consumption, migration, the filipino diaspora and radical politics in the philippines. now based in colombia, he is to commence his training in political studies. © 2023 venes carmelo tiñana banquiles 1 tatiana chudakova, 2021, mixing medicines: ecologies of care in buddhist siberia, new york: fordham university press, 333 pp. isbn 978-0-8232-9431-2, isbn 978-0-8232-9430-5, isbn 978-0-8232-9432-9. keywords: medicine, russia, buddhism, history of science, production of knowledge in today’s globalized world, it is common for individual patients and broader communities to seek health advice and intervention across multiple medical traditions, often combining biomedical approaches with others dubbed “traditional,” “complementary,” or “alternative.” in tatiana chudakova’s mixing medicines: ecologies of care in buddhist siberia the author deftly historicizes and analytically engages a captivating landscape of medical pluralism in buryatia, one of three “ethnically buddhist” regions in russia. central to the volume is a critique of the manner in which anthropologists often assumes that patients are driven away from biomedicine either by way of the failures of “official” medicine fostering desperation and medical omnivory, or via a pursuit of self liberation and economic subjecthood through the embrace of “unofficial” alternatives. chudakova’s analysis suggests that these assumptions of a “centrifugal force” fail on two levels – first by assuming a biomedical center, and second because outward spinning inherently results in separation. conversely, tibetan medicine (sowa rigpa) and “modern” medicine are deeply intertwined in siberia, “mixed” and cohabitating, even if they fail to achieve state-sponsored integration. and those entrusting tibetan medical practitioners (emchi) are not just moving away from a biomedical center, but moving toward new projects of self-making in the post-socialist state. in six dense chapters, chudakova demonstrates the complex, politically ensnared, and continually evolving place of tibetan medicine in ideological projects of nation-making, economic commercialization, and identity. centered on encounters with practitioners, patients, and administrators at the “east-west medicine center” – a state institution that explicitly aims to offer 2 rehabilitative medicine that combines “eastern” and “western” healing traditions – the research additionally includes observations from professional research conferences, a university research laboratory, and adjacent medical and religious spaces. chapter one makes clear the always-already hybrid and contested nature of tibetan medicine in siberia, where buddhism arrived around the same time as the region’s incorporation into the russian empire. in subsequent centuries, competing epistemologies of religion and science emerged in the translations of central medical texts, and secular national consciousness pushed the buddhist underpinnings of tibetan medicine underground and aligned its therapeutics with biomedicine. the messiness of making and remaking of tibetan medicine as medicine is illustrated in chapter two through the case study of the “pulsometer” – a scientifically engineered machine meant to mimic and objectivize the use of pulse (or, pulses) for diagnostic purposes beyond the cardiovascular system. rooted in the broader socialist project to discover the bioelectric thermal radiation underpinning extrasensory perception, the pulsometer centered on reverse engineering emchi perception through mechanization and imaging. but the continued reliance on emchi for not only calibration but interpretation of results, in the end, created a codependent “prosthetic” relationship. chapter three focuses on the prescribed manner in which peripheral regions like buryatia are conceived in moscow as the source of extractable natural resources, including the pharmacopeia of tibetan medicine as an export for symptomatic, palliative care. this contradicts the emchi approach to treatment as both holistic and responsive to regionally-specific ailments. these contrasting approaches are illustrated in chapter four, which centers on the east-west medicine center. despite “eastern” practitioners’ mission to address the “real” (root) causes of disease and to restore health by correcting subtle and individually experienced dysregulations and disadaptations to the environment, patients perceive their stay as a peripheral act of self-care rather than a medical necessity and they pick and choose treatments based on previous experiences and what they’ve heard from others is efficacious. ironically, because the doctors at the east-west medicine center listen to their symptoms with a sympathetic ear, patients value the “personalized” care they receive. meanwhile practitioners see themselves as incapacitated from offering the individualized care that is at the center of tibetan medicine. 3 chapter five dives deeper into the failures of integrating “official” and “unofficial” medicine in russia. legally, “unofficial” medicine is governed by a complex framework of regulations – “folk” practices (like homeopathy, medical massage, and reflexology) requiring a permit to practice (though no clear system exists for obtaining one), while healing techniques that are seen as religious are treated as small business ventures and subject to labor codes. in practice, tibetan medicine can be legally practiced within the confines of biomedicine or as a religious business, this choice presenting a moral conundrum for emchi. the “official” medicine route requires reporting out in ways that are palatable to biomedicine, dividing singular practices into “eastern” and “western” components, diagnosing and responding to symptoms rather than getting to root causes, prescribing medicines that exacerbate imbalances, and treating each medical intervention as an island rather than considering their mutual impact on one another. on top of this, emchi in biomedical settings are expected to devote extensive time and emotional and social labor to sourcing ingredients and preparing remedies for patients. but, as a business, emchi are debasing the medical status of their enterprise. chapter six illustrates the arduous and highly contingent labor of making plants into therapeutic objects. the work is not simply extraction from a natural environment, but requires understanding of and engagement with relational histories, and monitoring for fluctuations in availability amidst constantly shifting human ecologies. this is followed by a conclusion in which the dissolution of the east-west medicine center (due to financial restructuring and perhaps lack of theoretical integration between its two directional currents) has left former practitioners more free to practice outside of biomedical structures in the private sector, but also subject to new forms of legal scrutiny. chudakova stretches her theoretical muscle to discuss body politics, ontology, and precarity, ultimately arguing that economic and social upheaval are nothing new to the region of buryatia and that it is through continued adaptation that both tibetan medical practitioners and tibetan medicine has and will continue to become locally rooted. the depth of chudakova’s historical contextualization of russia and tibetan medicine allows even someone unfamiliar with the region to follow the complex terrain covered in mixing medicines. and yet, the pages devoted to achieving this may have shortchanged the depth of its ethnographic 4 emplacement and authorial reflexivity. given the sophistication of the analysis and the extension of fieldwork over a period lasting more than ten years (2006-2017), it is clear that the author’s work was inspired through in-place experiences. but these manifest in the volume primarily through self-described ethnographic “events,” “episodes,” and “examples” – a description of the landscape when helping to collect plants, a snippet of conversation by office workers where each speaker is introduced through their personality quirks, or excerpts from conversational interviews with medical practitioners. aside from a few self-depricating vignettes of interlocutors finding comic relief in her research agenda, the reader sees very little of the author in this volume and is rarely presented with a throughline connecting specific experiences and the emergence and iterative confirmation of ethnographic insight. those snippets that do appear are instead used with some frequency to introduce (and justify?) what some readers may find to be peripheral historical minutiae. still, few will find fault in the volume’s lucid writing, adept organization, breadth of secondary source work, and simultaneous insight into macrolevel subjects, like the history of science and the production of knowledge, and the microlevel details of accessing and laboring over tibetan medicine in siberia. arianna huhn is a professor in the department of anthropology at california state university san bernardino and director of the campus anthropology museum. a graduate of the george washington university and boston university, her training is in museum studies, medical anthropology, and african studies. fieldwork on food, health, and healing in mozambique is published as nourishing life: foodways and humanity in an african town (2020). her museum work has focused on uplifting hidden stories through art and storytelling through exhibitions that include in|dignity, afróntalo, and into light california. © 2025 arianna huhn https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/huhnnourishing https://www.csusb.edu/indignity https://www.csusb.edu/anthropology-museum/exhibitions/previous-exhibitions/afrontalo-2023 https://www.csusb.edu/anthropology-museum/exhibitions/previous-exhibitions/light-2022 1 year in review 2023 year in reviews serve as an end-of-year summary of achievements and activities, as well as an opportunity to outline some future projects the forum will pursue in the coming year. in this year in review, we discuss the rapid expansion of the forum, a roundtable hosted by the forum held at the american anthropological association annual meeting, our ongoing fundraising campaign, and a quick look at our plans for 2024. background the anthropology book forum was founded by the american anthropological association as an experimental prototype in digital publishing aimed at accelerating the scholarly book review process through the implementation of a totally digital workflow. at the time of its founding, the majority of reviews were published several years after the books they assessed had been released, in many cases, the lag was upwards of five years. additionally, book reviews were appearing in print journals or hidden behind paywalls, limiting their impact and the readership who could access them. in this vein, the forum was conceived of as a space that would actively work to reduce barriers to information and engagement, through an entirely open access platform with a streamlined digital workflow that focused exclusively on reviews and discussions of newly published work. based on the idea that book reviews are not just summaries of academic texts, but engagements with scholarship, ideas and authors, the purpose of the forum is thus to facilitate connections and exchange between authors and readers within and outside of anthropology. what began as a publishing experiment has grown exponentially over the years, with increasing participation from both readers and reviewers. as an open access journal, committed to a set of principles that aims to reduce barriers to accessibility, the forum publishes reviews of newly published work in multiple formats every monday, 52 weeks a year. 2 last year, the anthropology book forum was awarded the general anthropology division new directions award (group category) for its “vision, commitment, and broad impact that diverse and accessible formats of anthropological knowledge offer multiple readerships within and outside the academy.” in recent years, the forum has sought to encourage and host new configurations of the book review, including visual, audio, and video formats that can reach a broader public both within and outside of academia. we continue to experiment based on constant feedback from our authors and readers. looking back: achievements of 2023 this past year has been another year of tremendous growth for the forum. we have seen engagement increase significantly, from social media following, downloads and online reads of reviews, as well as the number of reviews submitted. working with over 100 publishers around the world, we continuously seek to make available a broad range of texts relevant to anthropological audiences, broadly conceived. the forum currently has an online readership of around 4,000 per month, and a contributor base of 2500 and growing, along with a strong social media following. from last year alone, our online readership has grown over 30%, and journal registration has doubled. the anthropology book forum has gained more than 3500 followers on facebook, with posts having a reach of between 36,000 and 49,000 facebook users (roughly a threefold increase from last year). we published 50 reviews during 2023, and each review published had a minimum of 50 downloads (not including online reads). the most-read review of all time remains rebecka rehnström’s review of there's a disco ball between us by jafari s. allen, with well over 1,000 downloads and reads in the last year alone. this dynamic growth of the forum has come at a time when many academic journals are slowly trying to reduce or altogether remove book reviews for economic reasons, given that this form of writing tends to lower impact factors and does not produce revenue. the rapid expansion of the anthropology book forum over the last several years, however, suggests that it is filling a need despite the perception that book reviews do not contribute anything of value to the discipline. https://gad.americananthro.org/new-directions-award-winners/ https://gad.americananthro.org/new-directions-award-winners/ https://journals.sfu.ca/abf/index.php/abf/article/view/495/499 3 “the book review in transition”: abf roundtable at the aaa annual meeting this year the forum held a roundtable at the american anthropological association annual meeting to think through the value of book reviews and spaces like the anthropology book forum to the discipline, along with the political economy of writing, critiquing and publishing. this roundtable aimed to host a conversation around the book review in a time of transition and its role in contemporary scholarly exchange, particularly given that book reviews are not perceived to add value or metrics for journals. toward this end, this roundtable brought together authors who engaged with reviews of their recently published work to reflect on the value of the book review, the role reviews play in reaching larger audiences, and what an author can learn about their work by engaging with reviews. the panel similarly engaged with the ways in which different modes of review can provide a medium for early career scholars and graduate students to engage with disciplinary conversations, while also thinking about the value of reviews for larger audiences beyond anthropology. participants included gustavo barbosa (associate researcher, center of middle eastern studies, universidade federal fluminense), susan wright (professor of educational anthropology, aarhus university), juan m. del nido (postdoctoral research associate, university of cambridge), matilde córdoba azcáratem (associate professor, communication, university of california san diego), nomi stone (assistant professor, literature and creative writing, the university of texas at dallas), and was moderated by the forum’s editors, rasmus rodineliussen (stockholm university) and emilia groupp (stanford university). image: our facebook posts have a reach of between 38,000-49,000 facebook users each week. 4 we’ve included a summary here of the key ideas and topics that emerged, and the full panel will also be available online with all other virtual panels on the aaa website. the political economy of the book review a key topic that emerged during this panel was the political economy of the book review, including the role of book reviews in career trajectories, the value of reviews as academic capital, how labor is distributed in producing book reviews, which books are reviewed, where book reviews are published, and the relationship between publishers and authors. in this sense, the conversation covered the larger context and politics of knowledge production within which the book review is situated. panelists pointed out the role that the book review plays in career development, especially for early career faculty and scholars. for instance, in some universities, whether your work has been reviewed in journals and how many times it has been reviewed counts towards tenure petitions or in annual reviews. reviews published soon after the publication of the book also serve as a form of academic capital for authors to submit with their portfolios for job applications or tenure. book reviews published in larger journals is also one way for those outside of anglophone centers to increase engagement with their work. it is also helpful for those publishers who do not have the kinds of resources as large publishing houses to advertise as extensively. at the same time, there tends to be a dearth of early career scholars writing book reviews, with most reviews authored by either tenured professors or advanced phd students. this has a lot to do with the fact that early career scholars tend to shoulder significant teaching and administration roles, and cannot enjoy the same level of academic engagement as their colleagues. in short, panelists argued that reviews matter, for determining engagement, professional advancement, book sales, future book projects, grant and funding applications, and public perceptions of anthropological research. the ethics of writing book reviews 5 leading from the political economy of the book review, participants reiterated that there is an ethically responsible way to produce a review. book reviews are, for some, the first encounter with an author’s work, especially given the fact that reviews in the forum are open access while not all books are immediately accessible, and they inevitably impact the author’s career. as such, there is a responsibility to prioritize a fair representation of the core arguments, a balanced evaluation, as well as a recognition of the larger project from which the book emerged. engaging in respectful collegiality, a good review aims to acknowledge the author's efforts, even in the face of disagreements, understanding that a book often represents years of labor and critical engagement with a series of questions and field experience. in this vein, the overarching goal of a review is not only to express critique alone but to offer a thoughtful and considerate analysis of the broader themes and literary merits of the work. this is not always an easy task to take on; it involves an exercise in trying to understand complex arguments and conveying them succinctly within the constraints of a short review. thus, rather than focusing on what a book could or should be according to the reviewer's preferences, ethical reviews concentrate on the project as it stands, recognizing the culmination of the author's extensive labor and the book as it is. some panelists noted instances of reviews written with little consideration for the larger projects and labor already contributed, cautionary examples that emphasize the need for a conscientious approach to reviewing. ethical book reviews, in essence, serve as a guide for readers and a means to appreciate and critically engage with an author's work without diminishing its merit. the pedagogical value of the book review panelists noted that the pedagogical value of writing book reviews extends beyond the act of critiquing literature; it serves as a valuable educational tool for honing critical thinking, analytical skills, and effective communication. crafting a book review requires students to engage deeply with the material, identifying key themes, evaluating the author's argument, and articulating their thoughts coherently. this process not only enhances their comprehension of the subject matter but also cultivates the ability to express ideas persuasively. additionally, students learn to navigate 6 the delicate balance between subjective opinions and objective analysis, fostering a nuanced understanding of literature. moreover, the exercise encourages students to consider the broader cultural and societal implications of the work, promoting a holistic approach to critical evaluation. in essence, the pedagogical value of the book review lies in its capacity to empower students with essential skills that transcend the realm of literature, preparing them for academic and professional challenges requiring thoughtful analysis and effective communication. reaching larger audiences book reviews serve as a vital link between academia and broader audiences. open access reviews effectively bridge geographical and resource-related gaps, ensuring that valuable scholarly contributions reach a global audience. in this vein, reviews play a multifaceted role in breaking down barriers, making academic discourse more accessible, and extending the reach of scholarly insights beyond traditional academic circles. this is evidenced by the fact that some publishers are now including a final chapter which takes the form of a traditional book review. this final chapter condenses the argument of the book for wider audiences, and effectively conveys the key ideas for those who may not be familiar with theoretical or methodological arguments, but who would be interested in the central claims of the volume. new formats panelists also discussed the value of experimenting with new kinds of formats and different modes of engagement as a form of book review. the abf has already introduced several different options for engaging with newly published work, including author book talks and author interviews, other-than-english reviews, book review essays, conversations and trajectories (see our focus and scope). panelists emphasized the value of a more engaged conversation between reviewer and author, potentially expanding current options to include the possibility of an author response. this would involve either a short reply from the author to the review, or a more interview-style format where the author can respond to provocations from the reviewer. this kind of response would contribute to a more dynamic exchange of ideas, and would further enrich the conversation. for instance, the american association of geographers currently offers a session modality called https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/index.php/focus-and-scope/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/index.php/focus-and-scope/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/index.php/focus-and-scope/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/index.php/conversations/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/index.php/conversations/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/focus-and-scope/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/focus-and-scope/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/focus-and-scope/ 7 “author meets critic,” which could be a useful addition to the aaa annual meeting panel choices. in this format, organizers put together a larger panel of those interested in the topic of a recently published book, and discuss its merits alongside the author. additionally, it would also make sense to engage more roundtable discussions between authors, policy makers (or even larger audiences such as activists or practitioners), to expand dialogue. the accessibility of book reviews makes them widely engaging, and podcasts, as a medium, are another useful format for conveying information and facilitating discussions. while book review essays might offer in-depth analyses of themes and arguments, podcast reviews present opportunities for a greater engagement with the author. interviews in the form of book reviews create openings for dynamic conversations, and extended forums on a single book or on several books invoking similar themes or topics could foster dialogue across diverse areas and between a range of participants. another idea focused on conversations, either in written, video or audio form, that are produced at a specific fieldsite or through fieldwork experiences. for instance, an author and reviewer could meet in a place outside the academy to engage in a specific fieldsite. such a change in setting could add an immersive element, prompting thoughtful inquiries and eliciting different kinds of questions. in this vein, panelists also encouraged a playful engagement with different forms of interaction, and allowing creativity that enriches scholarly experiences. a variety of formats, from interviews to book forums to audio and visual modes, not only enhances accessibility but also contributes to a dynamic and enjoyable scholarly discourse. at the same time, panelists reiterated the value of the traditional book review, one that captures and critically engages in the core argument of the book in accessible language. finally, panelists noted that coverage of books written in languages other than english, or books in english reviewed in other languages, could be increased. the editors have worked on this aspect for a few years now, but with very low responses from reviewers. we hope coverage of other than 8 english books can pick up some traction during 2024—if you are interested in doing such a review, please get in touch! looking forward: 2024 2024 marks the start of the 10th issue of the anthropology book forum and we look forward to seeing what our next decade has to offer. this coming year, we will also embark on a project to republish around 3000 reviews from the anthropology review database, which was the predecessor of the forum. with this addition, the forum will become the largest database of book reviews in the world. to expedite this process, and to increase the work we at the forum can do, we have launched a fundraising campaign. currently, the forum is run entirely on volunteer labor, and in order to continue to provide a service to the discipline, we are in need of your support. the anthropology book forum does not charge fees for publishing or for accessing content, and has some of the fastest publishing timelines of all social science journals. over the last few years, our community and our ambition to support it are growing faster than what we can accommodate through volunteering alone. if you enjoy the work the abf does, consider donating. all donations will go directly to the abf in support of our existing programs and the development of new ones! your support: ● ensures that we can pursue important activities that may not produce revenue, but which matter for our discipline. ● helps the forum provide diverse and accessible formats of anthropological knowledge entirely open access and free of charge. ● helps advance the forum’s growth as a resource for academics, students, and the broader public. ● ensures that diverse voices can find an accessible outlet for sharing ideas and critique. as always, we hope that you will be interested in working with us to make the forum increasingly interactive, up-to-date, and accessible to readership within and beyond the discipline. https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/support-the-abf/ https://anthrobookforum.americananthro.org/support-the-abf/ 9 your editors, rasmus rodineliussen and emilia groupp facebook book reviews books available for review © 2023 emilia groupp and rasmus rodineliussen https://www.facebook.com/anthropology-book-forum-117305059654437/?eid=ardvvc70avzjy4e4ahque5wwu7odra4lo8uhzvzxp6c1kvbtaekxymzu4sni6-rgfqm0_61dsqu2v7mt http://www.anthropology-news.org/?post_type=book-review http://journals.sfu.ca/abf/index.php/abf/objectsforreview 1 chamel, jean and dansac, yael, 2022, relating with more-than-humans. interbeing rituality in a living world. cham: palgrave studies in anthropology of sustainability, palgrave macmillan. 254 pp. isbn 978-3-031-10293-6 keywords: relationships; more-than-humans; ritual animism; condensed rituals; refracted rituals. the book is the eighth volume in the palgrave studies in anthropology of sustainability series. it comprises an introductory chapter, three sections each of three chapters and the epilogue. the chapters illustrate ritualized relationships between humans and more-than-human beings in a variety of cultural contexts. they explore condensed rituals or traditional rituals in which the summoned entities affect the attitudes and beliefs of the participants, and refracted rituals or rituals invented by alternative spiritual people and movements, which focus on the actions of the participants rather than their beliefs (houseman, 2011). in the introductory chapter, jean chamel and yael dansac state that the objective of the volume is to explore how humans in diverse cultural contexts relate in more horizontal ways "with” other entities, and how life emerges from the interrelationships between “earth beings” (de la cadena, 2015). they point out that among the many forms of relationality they chose rituality, because it is an important component of daily life, which allows us to understand the transformations in social formations. the first part titled living with more-than-humans: the role of daily rites comprises case studies on everyday relationships between human and non-human beings. in chapter 2, théophile johnson studies ritual interactions between herders and yaks in manang, nepal, to understand how herders maintain domestication relationships and avoid feralization. johnson proposes that domestication and herding comprise a geopolitic of relationships that give rise to certain behaviors 2 and emotions among participants. the herders establish a ritual language inspired by their own communication system but adapted to the yaks and the environment. cyndy margarita garcia-weyandt in chapter 3 proposes rethinking the relationships of the wixáricas of the y+rata community in nayarit, mexico, with their more-than-human relatives, the plants, in ceremonial spaces and everyday ritual interactions. garcia-weyandt studies the our mother corn cycle, in which wixárica families make pilgrimages, offerings, dances and exchange energy with our mother corn (make kinship), that is, constant acts of incarnation of the relationship of reciprocity between beings. in chapter 4, bertrande galfre analyzes the biodynamic agriculture developed on a neo-peasant farm in southwestern france. galfre suggests that biodynamics seeks to unravel the network of interactional gestures of the universe to understand them, integrate them, feel them internally and then reproduce them in agricultural practices. the second part called more-than-human politics: belonging, identity, indigeneity and the rights of nature, focuses on the cultural and political dimensions. anna varfolomeeva in chapter 5 explores the effects of large-scale mining in buryatia, siberia, on the sense of belonging of the oka buriat and soiot. for these ethnic groups, minerals are animated elements intertwined with spirits that own the territory, therefore, their extraction must be carried out in a respectful manner. however, mining promoted by state agents and companies is threatening this relationality and evoking complex emotions in inhabitants. in chapter 6, degenhart brown studies the medicine of animal origin prepared by awinon healers in togo and benin, and its connection with the network of human and non-human relationships in the vodun religion. he argues that in west africa this type of medicine is helping people understand contemporary global changes, the pressures of neoliberalism and to cure the spiritual illnesses caused by globalization. healers treat patients by restoring balance with the spirit world. in the last chapter of the second part, jean chamel analyzes how the “earth beings” in the global movement for the rights of nature are constituted as people, beyond a mere cognitive operation that gives them a legal personality. based on the study of water and earth ceremonies performed in different events, he argues that, although their practitioners try to escape western naturalistic patterns by imitating the ritual animism of indigenous societies, they fail to conceive other beings 3 as people because they defend a relationship monistic with the world focused on ties of interdependence through analogical means. the third part titled more-than-human spiritualities: liminality, embodiment and intimate experiences of personal transformation, presents case studies on alternative spiritualities and ritualities in western societies. in chapter 8, ed lord and henrik ohlsson study therapeutic nature practices in wales, sweden and finland. they highlight as a common factor among their practitioners the notion of “escape” from technological and bureaucratic modernity, and the conception of nature as a refuge. furthermore, these practices can be understood as a reaction to the scarcity of well-being in modernity and in everyday life, but from the individual, rather than social level. in chapter 9, yael dansac discusses spiritual practices performed at the carnac megaliths in france. she points out that practitioners experience bodily and emotional connections with the spirits of the megaliths, which in some cases allow for intense self-examinations that can lead to turning their lives around. tenno tedearu, in the last chapter of the third part, studies the practice of using crystals in estonia, as an everyday aspect of new age spirituality in that country. he argues that crystals matter because of their materiality and their possibility of relationality and phenomenological communication, but not because of the deities they represent or possess. the volume closes with the afterword by michael houseman, who highlights several aspects and connections between the different chapters: first, he highlights the continuity between the extraordinary and everyday character of the documented rituals, and the role of ritual in bringing more-than-human beings to the body (produce emotions, feelings) and the mind. second, he expresses that the chapters advocate treating relationships between humans as comparable to those weaved with non-human beings. third, he says that in the book there is a generalized use of the word “connection” as a synonym for “relationship,” which for him is problematic, given that “relationship” consists of special interactions of humans with more than specific human beings, that is, interactions in which the parties are involved, there is mutual responsibility and continuous negotiation. this happens in the condensed rituals analyzed in chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6. for their part, the refracted rituals do not 4 establish a relationship but rather a connection, because one of the parts is shown to be absent or subsumed by the other, reduced to a felt presence (chapters 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10). in this sense, the volume shows that not all ritual practices and approaches to beings imply relationships with more-than-humans. although alternative spiritual movements criticize the disenchanted and materialistic mentality of the modern world and are inspired by the ritual animism of indigenous societies, their ritual practices do not necessarily establish relationships, they continue to operate under the modern naturalistic ontological framework (descola, 2005), that is, the separation between nature and society, individualism and instrumentalization. “earth beings” are not recognized in their complexity and their “positive” qualities can be turned into another commodity. a subject that is not explored or criticized in depth in the book. finally, we would like to note that the chapters referring to condensed rituals show that horizontal relationships with beings more than human are not necessarily harmonious or stable, there is also conflict and negotiation. furthermore, its practitioners have a great capacity for adaptation and innovation, aspects necessary to resist neoliberal logic. in sum, the volume provides several case studies on the importance of non-human beings in contemporary ceremonial and the different relationalities and connections that can be created between them. also, the challenges that come with establishing non-instrumentalist relationships in western societies, disenchanted with the modern materialist world, but trapped in naturalistic logic. each chapter provides complex theoretical and analytical frameworks that help think about novel approaches to address an old phenomenon in anthropology that still continues to fascinate us: ritual. works cited: cadena, marisol de la, 2015, earth beings: ecologies of practice across andean worlds. durham, nc: duke university press. descola, philippe, 2005, par-delà nature et culture. paris: gallimard. houseman, michael, 2011, “refracting ritual: an upside-down perspective on ritual, media and conflict”. in ronald l. grimes, ute hüsken, udo simon, eric venbrux (eds.), ritual, media, and conflict, 255–284. oxford: oxford university press. 5 alessandro questa rebolledo is an ethnologist from the national school of anthropology and history (mexico), a master's in social anthropology from the national autonomous university of mexico (unam), and a master and doctor in anthropology from the university of virginia (uva, usa). interested in understanding the different transformations and imaginaries around the uncertain future posed by the so-called anthropocene. he explores traditional dances as native technologies for visualization and intervention in socio-environmental relationships. solange bonilla valencia is a sociologist from the universidad del valle (colombia) and a master in peace construction from the universidad de los andes (colombia). she is currently a doctoral student in social anthropology at the universidad iberoamericana de méxico. her research deals with afro-indigenous dances of the oaxacan coast (mexico) as spaces that produce alterity and ritual memory between human beings and more than human beings. © 2023 alessandro questa rebolledo and solange bonilla valencia 1 kristin peterson and valerie olson, 2024, the ethnographer’s way: a handbook for multidimensional research design, durham and london: duke university press, 338 pp., isbn 978-1-4780-2590-0 keywords: ethnography, research design, research methodology, qualitative methods, multidimensional design. how to plan an ethnography without suffering unnecessarily in the process could be another fitting title for the wonderful book written by kristin peterson and valerie olson. it serves as a comprehensive and approachable guide for those embarking on the exciting yet challenging task of designing ethnographic research. throughout an introductory section and ten modules, the authors provide readers with insights developed from their extensive experience as researchers and educators to plan and design ethnographic projects. unlike other handbooks on research methodology, peterson and olson pay attention to details that are commonly considered peripheral to the research design process. from the importance of maintaining a comfortable workspace to the value of engaging in dialogue with others to enrich our work, the authors address these aspects with sensitivity and seriousness. they also acknowledge that the process of planning research is not linear and involves ups and downs that frequently challenge our convictions and may even discourage us from continuing. in this regard, the book emphasizes that it is an iterative process in which we continuously revisit various concerns. therefore, one principle the authors suggest is to value the process before seeking quick results. this holistic perspective underscores the importance of remembering that behind any project is always a person with intertwined concerns, uncertainties, and dreams. thus, the ethnographer’s way: a handbook for multidimensional research design presents itself as a deeply human text, attuned to the factors that affect the labyrinthine path toward a coherent and motivating research approach. the authors focus on the initial stages of design to develop the theoretical and empirical notions that researchers have from the start, and to turn them into a coherent framework with clear questions that can be addressed using data collection techniques. to achieve this, they propose the concept of multidimensional design, which broadly aims to integrate different 2 concepts and intentions into a consistent research framework. in this context, “dimension” refers not only to the characteristics or values that a theoretical category might encompass— as commonly conceived in qualitative research— but is also considered from a broad perspective, including any term that constitutes the project, whether empirical or theoretical, such as objects, places, and contexts. therefore, peterson and olson encourage fostering intuition, curiosity, and imagination to find connections between elements and ideas that, based on our experiences, seem to have at least a vague relationship. with this goal in mind, the book includes eight activity modules that are ideally carried out in discussion and exchange communities, though it is also applicable to researchers who need to conduct their process in solitude. module 1 focuses on writing the research imaginary, a narrative exercise about the project’s context, potentials, and objectives. before confining our ideas with concepts and norms, the authors guide us to freely express the sketches and intuitions from which the desire to create a research project arises, thereby identifying central concepts. by the end of this module, the reader will have constructed a grid that organizes and clarifies the main elements. module 2 is dedicated to identifying which other works we can engage with or, in other words, finding the literature that will frame the research. in addition to exercises that help locate key discussion points, the authors remind us that engaging with others—whether orally or textually—requires respect and a willingness to learn. module 3, titled map concepts, aims to explore the possibilities for connecting the elements identified in previous modules. it involves seeking ways to represent concepts on a map to illustrate their interrelationships. in module 4, the central objective of the book begins to take shape: designing a multidimensional project. at this stage, the reader will identify at least one combination of concepts that will determine the contribution of the work to existing literature and will begin to see clearly how empirical and theoretical notions intertwine. module 5, titled describe your research, focuses on developing a concise and clear description of the project, including the central concepts and the potential of the work. module 6 is directed at crafting a statement that evokes the multidimensionality of the project and the theoretical assumptions that justify the relationship between its elements, addressing the notion of structural tensegrity. module 7 aims for the reader to condense all conceptual work into a general research question. this general question will lead to specific questions that will define how to obtain empirical information, covered in the next module. module 8 is dedicated to data collection, focusing on defining the type of information needed to answer the research question and how to obtain it. 3 module 9, titled the interacting zone, seeks to transition the reader from thinking about categories and data to reflecting on the concrete actions and forms of involvement in fieldwork. hence the term "interacting", as it involves framing the research work within a network of relationships and circumstances that will influence the researcher and the techniques used. finally, module 10 presents tools to refine everything covered in the previous modules and to prepare the necessary materials for ethics committee applications, grant proposals, or multidimensionality during field research. in summary, one of the book’s great strengths is its insight into making connections between intuitive ideas, theoretical concepts, and empirical aspects in a rigorous manner to produce innovative projects with significant contributions. as a result, the creative process is stripped of its mystique and becomes an endeavor accessible to anyone committed to diligent work. another aspect to be appreciated is the engaging and didactic way in which the activities are presented. unlike the convoluted language that characterizes many academic works, the text is accessible to students and researchers at all levels by addressing highly complex issues in an admirably simple manner. this is undoubtedly a reflection of the authors’ experience in sharing their knowledge and guiding others through the process of conducting research. thus, the ethnographer’s way is not just a manual but a compass for those seeking to transform ideas into robust and multidimensional research. peterson and olson provide an innovative approach that breaks with traditional practices and opens new avenues for research design. by addressing aspects that other manuals overlook and fostering collaboration, this book stands as an indispensable guide for researchers at all levels. with a blend of theory and practice, the ethnographer’s way not only instructs but also inspires, challenging academics to push their projects beyond conventional limits and explore the true potential of ethnographic research. maría gabriela durán-valis holds a master's degree in social anthropology from the center for research and higher studies in social anthropology (ciesas), mexico. her research focuses on analyzing the trajectories and outcomes of the legal mobilization of groups advocating for land rights against extractive and infrastructure projects in mexico. she currently works as a research assistant at the universidad iberoamericana. © 2024 maría gabriela durán-valis microsoft word smith revised.docx 1 timmer, andria d. and elizabeth wirtz, 2022, gender, power, and non governance: is female to male as ngo is to state? new york: berghahn books, 298 pp., isbn 978-1-80073-460-9 keywords: ngos, states, gender binaries, power relations, queering timmer and wirtz’ gender, power, and non-governance consists of case studies into the gendered dichotomy of the feminized ngo and the masculinized state and how this binary is reaffirmed, strengthened, and challenged. using sherry ortner’s female/male nature/culture analogy to orient the book, timmer and wirtz successfully introduce how the patriarchal state occupies power and policies that are “dominated by, centered around, and defined by men or masculine ideologies” (11). alternately ngos are feminized due to the nature of work they provide (healthcare, education, feminist issues, etc.) and largely women populate the employees, volunteers, and beneficiaries of ngo aid. in their introduction, timmer and wirtz both highlight the complexities, nuance, and intricacies of this male/female divide and discuss localized engagement with these topics in three carefully crafted sections. the first section engages the “patterns of reproduction,” where even attempts to break out of binaries or work outside of them does nothing to change or unsettle the power structures and hierarchy of gender in ngos (29). in chapter 1, alexandra crampton unsettles the dichotomy by explaining how the ngo becomes male and the state becomes female through gerontological interventions. because ngos have had to advocate and frame aging as a social problem for the state, crampton shows that ngos often have to push the state to assume care and responsibility for populations. because elder care is historically feminized crampton asserts that the masculinized state is often resistant to taking up the issue thus the need for ngo advocacy. in chapter 2, christopher loy explains that with the ainu, an indigenous group in japan, ngos were carrying out the function of the state by pushing the assimilation of the ainu. simultaneously, ngos were also pushing against assimilation, employing the international indigenous framework, highlighting that opposites may exist in ngo advocacy. this duality is due to the current political and legal leanings of governments, thus for the success of ngos and the populations they serve ngos must engage meaningfully with the current social climate. lastly, amanda j. reinke shows in chapter 3 the ways in which an ngo in the processes of united states alternative justice movements previously pushed more feminized practices based on flexibility, empathy, and care. yet, in a more business-focused, action-based shift, they are taking on more masculine qualities like updating id cards, conducting background checks, and working through paperwork. thus, through the work, the ngo aligns more closely with the legal system and bureaucratizing qualitative data. in doing so, ngos collude with the state for economic benefit thereby becoming reliant on their support, but seemingly also aiming to undermine state control in marginalized communities. ultimately, all three chapters in this 2 section highlight that while trying to complicate the gender binary of state/ngo, organizations often unintentionally play into these categories. the second section, “care work as feminized work,” highlights the feminized workforce of ngos. in chapter 4, tess altman, and in chapter 5, smita mishra panda and annapurna devi pandey, explore how the devaluation of women’s labor has now opened a political alternative for women to critically engage with ngo work and advocacy. andria d. timmer in chapter 6 explains that love as an intervention is an actionable way to complete work when there are policy and money constraints due to neoliberalism. yet often, this act of love is a form of emotional labor and is feminized, placing the care on the ngo “mother” (151). closing out the section, yang zhan in chapter 7 discusses how the chinese government has created the ideal communist soldier which has now been gendered and transformed into feminizing ngo workers and volunteers. specifically focusing on the feminization of ngo work through the lens of “nurturance” this section highlights just how deeply confined ngo work may be when gendered. often it is relegated to more “acceptable” feminine work including aid, poverty alleviation, and relief. by discussing the feminization of work and limiting factors for ngos in this section, it is evident that ortner’s framework of state/ngo male/female impacts the reception of ngo work around the world. in the last section of the book, the authors work to queer the dichotomy. binaries are only productive to an extent, and by blurring the state/ngo, male/female the authors are able to show localized queer realities while highlighting that nongovernmentality is still devalued and less powerful than its government counterpart. mark schuller begins this queering in chapter 8, discussing the “drag” the haitian state puts on to assume ngo features while still acting as the state. while it did not give up the masculine government, it did instead bend to donors for aid in rebuilding efforts post-hurricane. in chapter 9, alejandra wundram pimentel highlights in guatemala how trans individuals bolster their identities to grant them services and recognition by the state when their citizenry is denied. similarly in chapter 10, while advocating for queer political action tamar shirnian discusses that by working outside of ngo structures, a queer collective in armenia was able to do more transformative work than its similar ngo counterpart which instead had to work within the system. concluding queering with a discussion of the liminality that stateless forcibly displaced people, elizabeth wirtz discusses the hierarchies of power that complicate queering. while queering may occur, because hegemonic boundaries only controlled by states are maintained, it requires an entire restructuring of the heteropatriarchy we all live under. this text provides a wonderful addition to the literature on humanitarian interventions and ngos and how gender may be engaged within this context. each chapter provides a fruitful discussion of contextual and localized ngo and state inter/in-action. through accessible language and approach, the book is suited for a large audience of ngo workers, volunteers, and academics of all levels alike. yet, when considering ngo workers and volunteers as well as applied anthropologists the one drawback of the book is that it exists as a snapshot. it highlights a singular moment of engagement with literature, theory, and case studies. it does not provide actionable ways that we may disentangle the heteronormative state with feminized ngo work. it is instead up to the singular authors to call action or the reader to create avenues in their mind of how they can effect change. despite this, i believe that through these strong chapters, readers 3 across all different disciplines may see their own work within the pages, understanding how they might dismantle our gendered governing processes. gender, power, and non-governance is a gripping read that highlights the intricacies of ngo work and the engagement within and outside gender binaries. the book may inspire ngo workers and volunteers as well as anthropologists to engage with the gendered structures of government, and non-governance alike, around them. by understanding the state/ngo male/female framework and its queered realities, we may see more examples in the future of work within, outside, and differently from the state/ngo realities of today. emily selby smith is a phd student in the anthropology department at syracuse university. her research investigates gendered recovery, memory, and humanitarian representation of survivors of genocide and mass violence. her master’s research at the university of memphis engaged with an american ngo’s gendered representation of the populations they serve and what they perceive as the role of their ngo in genocide assistance. © 2024 emily selby smith 1 deborah reed-danahay, 2025, sideways migration: being french in london, new york: routledge, 178 pp. isbn 978-1-032-73283-1 (hbk), isbn 978-1032-73434-7 (pbk), isbn 978-1-003-46416-7 (ebk). keywords: sideways migration, the french, london, brexit, emplacements and dislocations migration studies is a major well-established area of research with a focus on dangerous escape and precarious conditions in the new country. yet there are large movements of middle-class lifestyle migrants who relocate to a geographically nearby country similar socially, politically and economically to their country of origin. the french in london are a case in point. in this brilliant book, deborah reed-danahay explores: “the ways in which french citizens experience living in london, as well as the way in which the french are in turn perceived and positioned in london” (p. 19). in order to capture this process, reed-danahay introduces the apt concept “sideways migration.” it draws on ulf hannerz’ (2006) notion of “studying sideways” which he applied for his study of foreign correspondents. the concept refers to fieldwork where the anthropologist shares status and outlook with interlocutors, this has become quite common. reed-danahay is a leading bourdieu expert. in sideways migration she develops bourdieu’s ideas by “placing understandings of capital and habitus in the wider contexts of social space” (p.37) and, importantly, shows how french social space reaches beyond the borders of france – to “paris-on-thames” – both when it comes to affiliations and practices of french citizens in london and to how institutions, the “french emigration apparatus,” operates. another explanation to the thoroughness of this well-crafted book is reed-danahay’s extensive ethnographic experience of rural migration in france and thus of france. it is a rare advantage when migration scholars are as familiar with the country of origin of the migrants as she is. reed-danahay has robust knowledge of french society, culture and politics. it goes without 2 saying that she is a fluent speaker of french. for this study, she has collected personal narratives of relocation to london from france. they illuminate larger structures such as the free movement of eu citizens that was disbanded with brexit and suddenly turned these rather privileged middle class movers into ordinary migrants that had to submit a cumbersome application to be able to stay in the united kingdom. this was experienced as humiliating, especially by the aspirational middle classes that perceived “migrants” as poor people they had nothing in common with. there is no doubt that reed-danahay’s appreciation of french culture was key for the success of her research. it unfolded between 2014 and 2024 and included ethnographic fieldwork with participant observation at institutions related to the french population, and social events, during ten visits of altogether 12 months. since there are few neighborhoods in london where french people typically reside or work or go for entertainment, this is a fieldwork that took place over many sites across the city. such “several fields in one” (hannerz 2006; wulff 2026) is one aspect of urban ethnography. in addition to informal conversations, reed-danahay conducted about 60 interviews with french residents. she also included institutional, governmental and business materials for her designation “the emigration apparatus,” as well as some information from digital and print social media such as journalism. even though most of her interlocutors were more or less middle class, there was a variety in their class background, education and profession, as well as age and length of residence in london. circumstances of migrating and experiences of settling in london also varied among the interlocutors, which might have something to do with their different places of origin in france: they came from paris, provincial towns, even overseas french departments. some interlocutors came from working class and racial minority background and had endured social and economic hardships in london. while most interlocutors were white, a number of them were french citizens of colour. in light of the racial diversity, established since long in london, these french people can thus “pass” for british in looks and dress. they do not appear particularly foreign in the streets of london. that is, until they start speaking. reed-danahay’s interlocutors deliberately kept their french accents when they spoke english. this was in line with living in the “french bubble.” moreover, many found a french accent prestigious. as to gender of the interlocutors, french men were interviewed and included in the study, but the majority were women. a few of them were trailing spouses, but most of the men and women had jobs ranging from teachers, in health care, and with companies, to working for the french government and cultural institutions. 3 organized in five chapters, sideways migration features a prologue, an introduction and a conclusion. in the prologue, reed-danahay describes la maison michelin, an art-noveau/art deco building in chelsea which is an iconic landmark of the french in london. for reeddanahay it was a fond reminder of her first fieldwork in a rural township close to the city of clermont-ferrand, where the michelin company was based. thereby the building can be said to connect these two field studies. the introduction provides a substantial background to the study by explaining both the social and geographical closeness between paris and london and a history of certain conflict. while “there is a strong theme of ambivalence about france among french people who choose to live outside of its geographic territory (p. 3), there is also the extensive “emigration apparatus” that supports the french migration to london. in the chapter london as a space of possibilities, we learn about the cultural importance of “une bonne baguette” and that this is manifest in competitions. next the chapter on emplacement and dislocations shows how both these processes are at stake for the french in london, while the chapter on fieldwork in “brexit time” conveys the drama of this rupture which was unexpected among the french (as among most other europeans, probably even among those who campaigned and voted for leave). a chapter on the french emigration apparatus details the loose assemblages of the institutions in question. rather than referring to a migration industry aiming for profit at work only, as reed-danahay argues it needs to be understood “alongside governmental agencies, civic associations, and nonprofit organizations” (p. 111) as well as religious and educational institutions and private companies. they all facilitate relocation from france to london. the last chapter brings out french imaginaries of london life as depicted in memoirs and fiction. they tend to portray middle class people craving for another possible life, one of emotional and economic security which can come with the french national identity. sideways migration is written in an exemplary lucid style. it is an absorbing account of expectations for (an even) better life. being french in london used to provide social and economic advancement, it was a sign of prestige – but then came brexit and much of it fell apart, prompting people who used to feel “j’ai trouvé my place” (p. 51) to return to france. the french population in london was decreasing in the wake of brexit, but now it is increasing again! references 4 hannerz, ulf. 2003. “being there . . . and there . . . and there! reflections on multi-site ethnography.” ethnography, 2(4): 229-244. https://doiorg.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1177/14661381030042003 hannerz, ulf. 2006. “studying down, up sideways, through, backwards, forwards, away and at home: reflections on the field worries of an expansive discipline.” in locating the field: space, place and context in anthropology. simon coleman and peter collins (eds.), pp. 23-41. oxford: berg. wulff, helena. forthcoming 2026. diversifying from within: migrant writing in sweden. london: routledge. helena wulff is professor emerita in the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. her research interests are in expressive cultural form – dance, images, text. key engagements are in the anthropologies of literature and writing. among her recent publications are the monographs rhythms of writing: an anthropology of irish literature (routledge, 2017) and diversifying from within: migrant writing in sweden (routledge, 2026), the edited volumes the anthropologist as writer: genres and contexts in the twenty-first century (berghahn, 2016). there is the entry ”writing anthropology” (2021) https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/writing-anthropology. drawing on her research, she sometimes writes creative essays. © 2025 helena wulff https://doi-org.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1177/14661381030042003 https://doi-org.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1177/14661381030042003 https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/writing-anthropology 1 clement, tanya elizabeth, 2024. dissonant records: close listening to literary archives, 1st ed., cambridge, massachusetts: the mit press., isbn 0-262-37922-8 in dissonant records: close listening to literary archives, tanya e. clement argues that spoken word audio recordings are underrepresented in archival institutions and neglected in literary scholarship. it is evident that there is an overabundance of textual records in libraries and archives – a preference of archivists and scholars which trickles down into the discursive spaces of scholarship and the public imaginary (xi). in her book, clement engages with ‘silence,’ both the literal pauses in sound recordings which constitute “active absences” that can be rich with meaning, and the ‘silencing’ power of the archive that denies alternative forms of knowledge production (xiii, 7). clement succinctly presents why there is a scarcity of sound recordings in literary archival institutions and a general apathy for audio archives amongst scholars (12-13). this disparity can be explained by economic and social realities (e.g., the fragility of media types, limited resources for digitization, the privacy concerns of their subjects, inconsistent metadata, the lack of playback machines in reading rooms, etc.). the lack of engagement with sound recordings in literary scholarship is not only a detriment to historical inquiry, but a hindrance to our critical engagement with the past through new paths of interpretation, including the ‘close listening’ methodology for which the book is advocating. what sets this book apart from other work on audio-visual archives is clement’s focus on the “hermeneutics of media,” particularly the use of resonance as an engine of meaning-making (3). her hermeneutic approach requires a consideration of the dialogical nature of the recording, between the recorder and recorded and the compression of the past recording and the present 2 researcher, as well as the audio-materiality of sound media, such as grain, distortion, and amplification. (8). clement also examines the entelechy of audio records that capture traces of multiple voices, silences, and liminal sounds, allowing for fluid and diverse interpretation and meaning making within the archival interaction (9-10). the counter-term to resonance is ‘dissonance,’ the concept which provides the book’s title. clement draws our attention to the unwieldy nature of audio recording as a medium with technical limitations in both recording and playback. the “messiness” of sound recordings, defined by various technical issues such as amplification, interference, distortion, and compression, are the ‘dissonant’ noises which grounds clement’s analysis. clement explores these concepts with five case studies, each comprising a chapter of the book. in chapter 1, the author ‘close listens’ to oral histories of survivors of the 1921 tulsa race massacre, recorded fifty years after the event by ruth sigler avery, a white, tulsan woman who herself was present at the event as a young child. in the oral history recordings, clement pays attention to non-verbal paratextual moments (silence, laughter, and tone) which complicate and subvert ruth’s conversations with her subjects. for example, laughter plays a significant role in the oral history testimony. in the testimony of a black female participant, her laughter signals the warm and friendly relationship between interviewer and subject. with the white male participants, laughter signals moments of discomfort, including when one subject recalls overhearing a black woman being asked for her husband’s name by an on-duty member of the american legion and that her reply was that she did not know it. the subject takes the statement at face-value and laughs at the woman, taking her to be ignorant. meanwhile, the modern reader interprets the comment as a purposeful evasion intended to secure her family’s safety. (32). in chapter 2, clement compares recordings of zora neale hurston’s ethnographic study of black communities in the american south with similar recordings created by the work projects administration in the 1930s. she focuses on distortions and inaudibility created by the technical limitations of the original recording and subsequent digitization. chapter 3 focuses on recordings made of ralph ellison during the 1953 harvard summer school conference on the contemporary novel. she listens for what ellison does not say during his lecture to a mostly white audience, 3 particularly about race and the burgeoning tensions of the civil rights movement (73-75). these silences are “interferences” that make “resonant the unknown, the unseen, and the unheard” (70). it is surprising that the psychoanalytic elements of ‘close listening’ are not made explicit in the book. her concept of ‘resonance’ is defined as the researcher’s awareness of their own reactions and feelings within the interviewer-subject relationship. she traces the concept to margaret mead’s 1949 conference paper “possible mechanism of recall and recognition,” and not further back to sigmund freud’s theory of countertransference, of which mead was assuredly aware (howard, 360). it is possible that the ‘close listening’ methodology would benefit from a deeper engagement with psychoanalytic concepts, or at least the recognition that it already resembles aspects of freudian theory. to draw a comparison to a concept articulated by otto kernberg, “psychoanalytic listening” includes listening for what is unwittingly communicated by the unconscious, listening to one’s own emotional response to what is being communicated, and allowing for a multiplicity of meaning within communication (kernberg, 193). had her study drawn upon these psychoanalytic concepts, it may have garnered a deeper understanding of the interiority of her subjects. for example, ellison’s “resonant silences” during a speech to a primarily white audience may have also reflected what frantz fanon describes as “a collapse of the ego [wherein] the black man stops behaving as an actional person” and acts only in “reaction” to white society, or ‘the other’ (fanon, 132). if the purpose of ‘close listening’ is to look past the surface-level content of communication and gain insight into the interiority of the historical subject, captured and preserved outside of time by the recording, it would achieve its goals better by using the tools of psychoanalytic inquiry. the last two chapters focus on a more unusual set of recordings not typical in literary studies: personal therapy sessions recorded by the poet anne sexton; and recordings of tarot-readings by the queer feminist scholar gloria anzaldúa. the recordings capture expressions of contested identity. in sexton’s case, clement describes how an exploration of one’s “true self” in the therapeutic context leads to a determination that the self is always mediated; and for anzaldúa, listening to her own non-verbal reactions to the tarot readings allows her to discover her spiritual identity (91, 111). both sexton and anzaldúa interact with their recordings and subsequently record their reactions, creating a dialogical process between creator and creation, complicated by 4 the presence of the archival researcher in the present and future. although these stories are very compelling and make the case for her overall argument, i wonder how relevant these case studies might be for future scholarship given the atypical circumstances of the recordings. due to the privacy issues inherent in recordings such as therapy tapes, which are legally protected personal health information, it is unlikely that similar sets of audio records exist in public archives. therefore, these case studies arguably lack demonstrative value for future research. while the book’s case studies are insightful and make an argument for the potential benefit of her methodology, it is limited by the selectiveness of its analysis spread across mostly unrelated literary and historical events. a book-length study of any one of these case studies would better showcase the benefits of ‘close listening.’ for example, what might a cross-sectional study of the oral history of the tulsa race massacre reveal about that event’s perpetrators, victims, and witnesses? or how would a comparison of ellison’s 1956 speech and his later speeches given under different circumstances illuminate our understanding of his interior life across time? dissonant records is perhaps best appreciated as a form of advocacy for the epistemological potential of the hermeneutics of media. that full potential – and the potential of transformative and critical engagement with sound recordings in literary study and beyond – has yet to be realized. works cited fanon, frantz. 2008. black skin, white masks. new york: grove press. howard, jane. 1984. margaret mead, a life. new york: simon and schuster. kernberg, otto f. 2008. contemporary controversies: in psychoanalytic theory, techniques, and their applications. new haven, ct : yale university press. christopher a. long (cal) is the archivist of the university of toronto mississauga library. he is a graduate of york university (hba ’13, ma ’16) and the university of toronto (mi ’18). his research interests include oral history, audiovisual archives, and the intersection of biography, life-writing, and archival work. 5 © 2024 christopher a. long 1 berry, maya j. 2025. defending rumba in havana: the sacred and black corporeal undercommons. durham and london: duke university press, 311 pg., isbn 9781478031338 outsiders to rumba may mistakenly view the art form as just one of a number of dances with afrolatin historical origins. western images of rumba tend to portray the dance with images of sweaty bodies displaying forms of rhythm and sexuality. dances are reduced to exotic displays of tropical escapism. however, rumba is far more complex. it is an art form that speaks to issues such as agency, power and gender. it is a powerful spiritual tool communicating narratives of social rebellion in the face of colonialism. it is empowering as it enables discussions and displays related to race, gender, and social roles. rumba is far more than hollywood depictions and tourist displays. in defending rumba in havana: the sacred and black corporeal undercommons author maya j. berry takes readers into the etic physical realm of rumba in havana cuba while leading us on the journey to the emic where we learn of the significance of rumba as a conduit of the human experience. berry opens the book with some fundamental information about rumba. in 2016 unesco nominated cuban rumba as an intangible cultural heritage. while this is an important recognition, berry shares that rumberos claim to be heirs to enslaved and african diaspora co-presences. it is an artform that serves as a symbol against capitalism and racial discrimination. the author explains that the use of the terms ‘black corporeal undercommons’ refers to a black geography grounded by the spiritual maneuvers of everyday black people. the term ‘under’ is used to allude to outsider perceptions of rumba and rumberos as ‘under’ respectabilities. the term ‘under’ is also a term that was used by cuban criminologist fernando ortiz in his early writings on afro-latin spiritual traditions. some of these traditions such as the abakuá societies that came from the efik and ekpe people of the cross river region of africa began to appear on the radar of local colonialists in cuba. local perceptions painted many african traditional activities and practices as ‘witchcraft’ 2 and practices reserved for the criminal underworld. ortiz would write of rumba as being obscene and savage. as berry describes, rumba gained a reputation for being a cultural symbol of revolutionary values of integration and egalitarianism. rumba began to appear in the cabildos, gathering places for african communities set up by colonialists. the opening chapter ‘black inclusion, black enclosure’ begins with the cabildos that were established in order to avoid slave rebellions. cabildos for the lucumi (yoruba), congo (ki-kongo speaking) and the carabali (efik) communities served in providing mutual aid for their communities. the importance of rumba to many of these communities, berry explains, is that it pertains to connections to human and divine forces as well ancestral wisdom. early displays of african dances in the 1800’s were considered by colonialists as savage and offensive. however, rumba began to appear in the public eye in the 1930’s when there was a move to appropriate black popular cultures for nationalists goals. white middle-class performers began doing a style of rumba that had little resemblance to rumba among the black working class. however, rumba began to become associated with abakuá societies which led to the state targeting of practices as ‘anti-social.’ rumba would find itself becoming more intertwined with the many african based spiritual traditions in cuba as sacred songs and chants to yoruba deities would be performed with rumba clave, a specific rhythmic pattern used in the dance. the second chapter ‘black feminist aptitudes’ begins with some historical explorations into rumba and colonialism. the yumba, a congo inspired rumba is mentioned for its stance against colonialism. the formation of choirs related to the rumba variant known as guaguanco came from the cabildo based mutual aid societies. the guaguanco rumba is noted for its inclusion of a dance that features themes of fertility. berry shares that many of the female postures in rumba paralleled the social positions of women in cuban society. the performance of the guaguanco tells a story of a woman being pursued by a man who wishes to ‘vaccinate’ her sexually. through an anthropological lens, berry shares that the movement and placement of the body in specific spaces in the rumba produces a specific social meaning. she notes that historically, rumberos posed a challenge to the white middle class standards of femininity and respectability. berry encourages readers to see the role that rumba plays in speaking of issues tied to the sexual economy in slavery. the author takes a focus through black feminism in looking at aspects of 3 bodies being appraised as sexual and cultural commodities. rumba becomes a stage in which black working class women give themselves value while sadly expressing the theme that they may be consumed rather than heard from. in the 1930’s and 1950’s rumba became a tool used by white cuban writers to recruit or ‘discover’ dancers as sexual toys. in the 1960’s rumba became a tool of the state as revolutionary leaders would speak of rescuing black women from promiscuity and prostitution. by the 1990’s rumba became a tourist attraction for the state. during berry’s journey into several important cultural and historical points necessary to understand the complexity of rumba, she also shares her story and personal experiences as a dancer in cuba. she shares testimonies of dancers who still fight sexual advances from those that look upon women in rumba as sexual objects. she shares important personal insights into the role that rumba plays in empowering women to metaphorically halt masculine domination as seen in the guaguanco dance. as the male dancer chases the woman in the dance, it is the woman that decides to stop or engage advances. chapter three entitled ‘sacred swagger and it’s social order’ looks at the topic of social order within the context of rumba. as many afro-latin communities such as the abakuá established their own social orders in spite of the orders set forth by colonialism, so rumba establishes its own social order. readers are treated to the history and folklife of the music group yoruba andabo. in chapter four, ‘moving labor across markets,’ the author invites readers to observe how rumba interacts with cuban social relations. she looks at how the economy of cuban religions in contemporary cuba functions as services for priests, offerings for the deities and rumba for tourism all serve as components of this economy. chapter five, ‘underworld assembly,’ looks at how rumba gives agency. the role that rumba serves in connecting women and co-presences spiritually speaks to a stand against secular constitutions of nations. as some colonists described cabildo dancers as a black cloud over the city, the author speaks of ‘reclaiming the afro-cuban underworld.’ cabildo dancers were frequently labeled as witchcraft and criminal deviancy. the true activities of cabildo activities were of self-preservation and identity but were marginalized by colonialist propaganda. 4 maya j. berry concludes this journey into rumba as she describes herself as studying with a black feminist interpretive position. this gives readers a crucial vantage point in understanding the gendered and racial narratives found in both the history and performance of the dance. defending rumba in havana: the sacred and black corporeal undercommons is a wonderful contribution to the field of anthropology, ethnomusicology, feminist studies and african religious studies. tony kail (ba-arizona state; ma-eastern university) has served as an anthropologist in the academic, public and private sectors. he currently teaches undergraduate courses in cultural anthropology, introduction to anthropology and contemporary issues in anthropology. today he serves as a curator for the humboldt tennessee historical museum. © 2025 tony kail 1 jonas tinius, 2023, state of the arts: an ethnography of german theatre and migration, cambridge: cambridge university press, 290 pp., isbn 978-1-009-32112-9 keywords: theatre, performance, ethics, migration, germany jonas tinius’s state of the arts (2023) tells the story of theater an der ruhr (“the theater” hereafter), a public repertory theatre ensemble based in the ruhr valley in north rhinewestphalia founded by roberto ciulli, an émigré philosopher and self-taught director who moved from italy to germany in the 1960s. ciulli founded the theater specifically as “a theatre of and for the bastardo,” meaning those without a fatherland or a mother tongue, and to challenge the predominant framing of cultural production through the category of the nation (p. 3). the theatre operates on the economic model instituted in the german kulturstaat, with funding and other support from the regional municipality. this economic model allows the theater to pursue artistic production aimed at “a long-term process of self-cultivation altogether unrelated to profitability” (p. 87). the theater has a stable in-house ensemble of artists and crew who stay with the theater for years if not decades and a set of “repertoire,” or “stock plays,” that is repeatedly rehearsed and performed over the years. this stability of the ensemble and its repertoire encourages dramaturgs and actors to cultivate, ethically and artistically, longer-term relations with their repertoire and their roles. tinius theorizes theater an der ruhr as an exemplary institution of contemporary german public theatre that is situated at the interstices of important german cultural-intellectual traditions, yet ethically and artistically committed to pursuing a political otherwise. artistically, the theater challenges the expected identification of actors with their roles; politically, the theater challenges the category of the nation that fundamentally underpins conventional understandings of cultural identity in modern germany. the theater is committed first and foremost to the art of theatre, for which ethical self-cultivation must be enacted and through which political engagement would be facilitated. through in-depth ethnographic description 2 and anthropological analysis of professional performance practices under the theater and its aegis, tinius productively puts into conversation the anthropology of ethics, theatre/art, and migration and simultaneously offers an invaluable contribution to the field of performance studies, in which serious theoretical engagement with professional practices of performance remains surprisingly rare. the book would be of great interest to anthropologists of ethics, art, migration, and citizenship, as well as scholars of german studies and performance studies. in chapter 1, tinius outlines a genealogy of bildung in german intellectual and political history. bildung describes a longstanding german tradition of self-cultivation and self-realization conceptualized and developed by a series of thinkers, including friedrich schiller, friedrich schlegel, and wilhelm von humboldt, many of whom were deeply involved in theatre. while diverse and heterogeneous in nuances, tinius emphasizes that the core idea of bildung is not apolitical or anti-political but constitutes a particular political stance that promotes an introspective critical relation with the self. it holds as a primary principle that the bettering of oneself should precede, but not preclude, the care for others for the greater common good. theater an der ruhr, tinius argues, constitutes not a direct extension of bildung traditions but, rather, a response to them. chapters 2 and 3 develop the core theoretical argument of the book by elaborating on what tinius calls the “ethico-aesthetic traditions” of the theater, particularly through the cultivation of haltung through rehearsals, that make the theater an institution. haltung, a tradition developed after playwright bertolt brecht, refers to “the reflected practice and capacity of relating to a character,” which also involves a capacity “to detach from other characters,” and, ultimately, “the learning of the conduct of conduct to oneself and the multiplicity of characters” (p. 111). daily rehearsals help actors cultivate haltung and enact the bastardo through the theater’s repertoire. for ciulli and his ensemble, the theatre affords, especially through haltung, “a way of thinking beyond linguistic, national, and cultural borders” (p. 166). chapter 4 recounts how transnational engagements have challenged the theatre to creatively adapt its repertoire according to local sensibilities. repetition of repertoire across time and geographies encourages actors to develop relations with their “characters” and “theatre-images” beyond one-off performances and, thereby, to cultivate “artistic conduct beyond the stage” (p. 158). here, “theatre-images” refer to abstract theatrical language that transcends particular concrete languages. they allow for multiple potential interpretations and, therefore, could inspire actors and audiences to exercise critical thought to interpret theatrical performances in 3 their own ways. finally, chapter 5 discusses the ruhrorter refugee project that has emerged under the aegis of the theater and the direction of adem köstereli, a protégé of ciulli, which sought to inspire “reflective cultivation of conduct” among refugee communities in mülheim. tinius’s discussion of how the ethico-aesthetic commitment of theater to cultivate the “capacity for character” and, thus, enable multiple and ambiguous political identities through theatre is highly convincing and original. the book offers rich and sophisticated insights into intellectual traditions of self-cultivation in german theatrical and political histories, and the crucial point that reflexive introspection equates to neither an apolitical attitude nor a lack of care for others is rigorously and effectively argued. however, while tinius explains haltung as a concept that “denotes both posture and attitude, but also demeanour, conduct, and comportment” (p. 201) and mentions the particular significance of “corporeal and emotional experiences” in theatrical training and performance (p. 176-177), description of how embodied comportment is trained physically through rehearsals or otherwise remains relatively thin. in comparison with the thorough discussion of how “concept conversations (konzeptionsgespräche)” (p. 108) are facilitated in rehearsal processes to direct actors’ critical reflection, thicker descriptions of how actors are trained to be, to move, and to act in their bodies through their posture, attitude, demeanour, conduct, and comportment both onstage and offstage are left to be imagined. this is perhaps to do with the inherently non-verbal nature of such training and performance, yet one could not help but wonder how the relation between physicality and mentality might yield a whole new dimension in this discussion of subject formation if given more room. nevertheless, tinius’s framing of ethnographic analysis and conceptualization through the anthropology of ethics is creative, fitting, and exceptionally fruitful. this analytical frame allows for the distinctively theatrical and artistic practices of the theater to be taken seriously as theatre and art—a “field of professional practice,” as tinius describes, that is conditioned and governed by its own logics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics—without being reduced to or explained away by something else, such as the social or the political. inasmuch as metaphors of theatre and performance have been used in anthropological theorization, tinius offers a refreshing and unique contribution to the anthropology of theatre, performance, and the arts by critically analyzing the conceptual, material, and historical constitution of an actual theatre, its repertoire, its traditions, and its actors. by framing the theatre as an “extra-ordinary” field of ethical reflection and cultural production and describing in detail the rehearsal and production processes of the theater, tinius has made a significant anthropological contribution to 4 ethnographic and theoretical discussions of theatricality and performativity and their uses for politics, society, and intellectual thought. jenny tang is a phd candidate at the department of social anthropology and king’s college, university of cambridge. her current research concerns the development of contemporary art and the lives of artists in the specters of modernity in mongolia today. she holds a ba in human, social, and political sciences from churchill college, university of cambridge, and is professionally trained in classical ballet. © 2024 jenny tang 1 bluteau, joshua m. 2022. dressing up: menswear in the age of social media. new york: berghahn books, 172 pp., isbn 9781800732773 keywords: material culture, menswear, ethnography, digital anthropology, identity. in dressing up: menswear in the age of social media, social anthropologist joshua m. bluteau provides a compelling investigation into the world of men’s fashion, examining those who ‘seek out unusual or flamboyant tailoring’ (p. 6) and how their sartorial choices reflect and actively shape contemporary ideas of masculinity. drawing on perspectives from identity studies, semiotics, performance theory, as well as understandings of authenticity, fetishization and commodification, he demonstrates how tailored menswear functions as a medium through which men craft their identities within an increasingly digitized world. bluteau’s research blends participant observation across ‘terrestrial’ (physical) and ‘digital’ spaces. he avoids using the terms ‘online’ and ‘offline’ to emphasize how interconnected these realms have become: ‘so deeply enmeshed… that it [is] impossible to separate the two’ (p. 8). the book consists of a preface, introduction, six thematic chapters, and a conclusion. bluteau opens with a vivid, introspective account of his mornings. he speaks of reaching for his smartphone upon waking to check the engagement on his instagram posts; selecting and putting on a tailored suit; photographing the look; and reviewing the images before sharing them to instagram. such actions effectively set the stage for the book’s main argument: the crafting of the sartorial self is a performance that extends beyond the physical act of dressing to include habitual engagement within digital spaces. bluteau’s ethnography begins in the ‘terrestrial’ spaces of savile row and dover street market (dsm), where bespoke tailored menswear is produced. at savile row, open workshops showcase the artisanal skill and heritage behind each garment, elevating their value through visible craftsmanship and a sense of authenticity beyond material worth. dsm, by contrast, offers an immersive, art-like retail experience, where avant-garde designs and a nophotography policy position fashion as exclusive and experiential. both spaces demonstrate 2 how men are not just buying clothing, but curated performances—where aesthetics, service, and craftsmanship contribute to shaping identities rooted in taste, power, and exclusivity. fashion shows are other performances that men can ‘buy into.’ in chapter two, bluteau attends and analyzes those by designers sir tom baker and joshua kane. building on debord’s theories of ‘the spectacle,’ he frames the shows as ‘spectacles’ in their own right—selfgenerated events where images are commodified and fetishized blurring the line between fiction and reality. through the interplay of clothing, mood, music, and staging, fashion shows create powerful images that shape audiences’ perceptions, influencing how they dress and construct their identities. bluteau focuses specifically on how ‘depth ontology’ (miller 2010) is employed to enhance the desirability of the clothes on the runway. this concept refers to the extent to which clothing is perceived as an authentic reflection of the wearer’s identity. some designers adopt shallow ontologies, positioning models as neutral figures so that audiences can project their own aspirations onto the clothing. by contrast, others adopt deeper ontologies where models embody a distinctive attitude or aesthetic that aligns with the designers’ vision. this fosters a desire not just to own the clothing, but to inhabit the individual identity it represents. bluteau adds that the ‘spectacle’ of fashion show extends into the digital realm, where carefully curated and ‘behind-the-scenes’ images are shared to keep their audiences continually engaged with the clothes, effectively shaping both their digital and terrestrial selves. the remaining chapters shift the focus to instagram. chapters three and four specifically look at how the platform functions as well as its role in crafting sartorial identities, and the emergence of ‘post-particular’ masculinity’ (p. 80). here, bluteau theorizes his research subjects – tailors, designers and other sartorialists – as ‘other elizabethans.’ this draws directly from foucault’s ‘other victorians’—individuals who deviated from their societal norms, those with ‘illegitimate sexualities’ (1990: 4). bluteau argues that his subjects evoke similar illegitimacies through dress, challenging mainstream masculinity by wearing styles traditionally considered ‘feminine or frivolous’ (p. 62). instagram, he writes, serves as a space for them to express their individuality and build invisible networks with like-minded people through ‘likes,’ ‘comments,’ and ‘follows’ a ‘digital reciprocity’ that acts as social validation (p. 61). bluteau, however, acknowledges that instagram is also a space where discourse primarily images and image-based comments – is controlled. this control occurs through the platforms’ 3 own algorithm and censors which regulate the visibility of content, and the self-regulation of images within specific user networks. by controlling discourse, instagram dictates which images are considered correct or desirable, shaping users' digital engagements and perceptions of normality in the process. for sartorialists, this has an enormous impact on issues relating to sexuality, gender and the construction of the clothed body (p. 83). bluteau also explores the tension between performance and authenticity within sartorial networks. while users often curate their digital identities to match aesthetic ideals, these presentations must remain consistent. any inconsistencies—such as heavily-edited photos, misleading timelines of when images were taken, or garments not matching expectations of craftsmanship—are seen as deceptive, invoking sartre’s notion of acting in ‘ bad faith’ (1993: 185). this leads to criticism and diminished reciprocity between network members. in chapter five, bluteau adopts a more reflexive approach, detailing his experience in becoming a member of these networks. he reflects on his methodological actions, such as buying and regularly wearing bespoke tailored garments, as well as developing an digital persona under the instagram account ‘anthrodandy.’ his digital participation involved learning instagram’s communicative norms, including the use of emojis as concise descriptive markers and symbols of intimacy, and hashtags to enhance visibility and signal transparency (e.g., #latergram indicates images were not taken on the day of posting). additionally, he emphasizes the importance of balancing visual content to meet his networks’ expectations: popular photos include close-up shots of tailored garments being worn – without showing faces – to highlight the craftsmanship. however, it is also essential to have some images featuring the account holder’s face to maintain a sense of authenticity. bluteau begins chapter six by analyzing how instagram distorts perceptions of time, causing the digital to bleed into its users’ terrestrial lives. he reflects, for instance, on how the pressure to post at peak engagement times disrupted his own routines, including sleep patterns. more broadly, he argues that the platform ‘manipulates a multiplicity of temporal realities’, by presenting images taken in past moments as current, sustaining an illusion of real time experiences. bluteau also reflects on the difficulty of leaving the instagram fieldsite, noting that digital engagement does not end neatly with the conclusion of fieldwork. the platform’s constant accessibility, coupled with the visibility of past content and follower expectations for continued interaction, made withdrawal a gradual and complex process. he concludes by raising five thought-provoking questions concerning the anthropology of dress, the nature of 4 the individual, and the digital self, whether western-centric fieldsites can be studied without digital anthropology, and how digital anthropology should be conducted. bluteau’s writing is clear, descriptive, and accessible, making complex theoretical discussions feel more relevant and tangible. while there is some repetition between chapters, this does not detract from the overall impact of the book. his inclusion of instagram screenshots—alongside his decision to keep his instagram account active—invites readers to explore the content for themselves, adding an extra layer of transparency and authenticity to his analysis. from the outset, bluteau confidently asserts that the book will change how we perceive men in suits—a claim he fully delivers on. highly recommended. emma rice holds a master's degree in anthropology from maynooth university in ireland, and is currently pursuing a phd. her research background spans a wide range of topics, including material culture, domesticity, digital anthropology, and migration. © 2025 emma rice 1 tom özden-schilling, the ends of research: indigenous and settler science after the war in the woods. duke university press, 2023. 320 p. ibsn 9781478027669. keywords: rural, canada, settler-colonialism, indigenous, expertise, place, environmental science in the ends of research, tom özden-schilling takes us through a nuanced and detailed account of both euro-canadian and first nation researchers in the ‘ambiguous afterlives’ of a resource conflict in british columbia, and how through their varied research projects they produce potent relationships to place whilst enduring the professional precarity brought on by the withdrawal of the state. he details the complex hopes and difficulties faced by researchers, and the subtle politics of the fine-grained environmental science they practice, as well as the potentials and potencies of the scientific artefacts they produce. özden-schilling begins with the question of who ‘won’ the war in the woods, using the futility of this question to begin to unpack the ambiguous legacies and place of those involved in it. this ‘war’ was a period of intense protest by first nations groups (namely, gitxsan and wet’suwuet’en) and citizen activists around the clearcutting of forest in british columbia in the 80s and 90s. this, too, is a conflict that is far from over, with protests again flaring up in 2021, and where the underlying injustices remain unresolved. while the book does not focus on the activists themselves (reflected on later, p. 229), the period of activism and protest ran parallel with a proliferation of research projects that brought researchers from other parts of the country to the region, as well as the funding of indigenous mapping projects, as part of an effort from the state to better ‘know’ the ecological terrain to ‘govern better.’ the ends of research is focused on these researchers, and how they understood their modes of knowledge production in relation to these wider struggles, and how they find their place and articulate claims after being left in the lurch by the withdrawal of the state. 2 thematically, özden-schilling focuses on how the politics of expertise intersects and relates with issues of indigeneity and coloniality, and the various lives and effects different technoscientific artifacts and techniques have. he details both the particularities and convergences of euro-canadian and first nations researchers, and the different ways these professional and social communities of researchers work to maintain viable connections to place and profession. this is skilfully done, balancing an account of the different interests informing both settler and indigenous science while maintaining interior heterogeneity to each group, giving an interwoven narrative of the politics and practice environmental science in northwest british columbia. in the first chapter, nostalgia: placing histories in a shrinking state, we consider the role of euro-canadian researchers that moved into the region. here, özden-schilling discusses ‘rural researchers’ and their fraught relation with the state: one the one hand, they are nostalgic for the technocracy that brought them security and authority, but this inability to secure solid financing has also led them to develop other ways to guarantee a place in this environment they have come to feel obligated toward. we are given a detailed account of how these researchers negotiate this position, and how they interlace their scientific expertise with their position as residents in the area, producing fine-grained and detailed ecological knowledge, as well as how through this they write themselves into the future of the area. özden-schilling’s use of ‘rural researchers’ neatly captures this fraught position, wherein they balance commitments to place with professional ambitions – a move that works to complicate more morally firm portrayals of technocratic actors. in the second chapter, calling: the return of gitxan research, we turn to first nations countermapping projects and the attempts to leverage scientific instruments and methods to develop alternative infrastructures of self-governance. they, like their white counterparts, take seriously the interest of the state vis-à-vis developing detailed ecological knowledge of the area, and focus on producing exquisitely detailed research to better campaign for their desired ends of greater autonomy. this emphasis on the need for technical expertise in order to develop evidence toward more autonomy leads first nations groups to be invested in the making of experts – a process where the personal tolls can be extremely trying (loneliness, distance, constant travel), and where the rewards of such efforts are continually deferred to the future. özden-schilling overviews these ‘paths to professionalization’ through two interlocutors, 3 giving a sense of the distinct modes indigenous researchers have understood and wielded their responsibilities to collectives alongside their scientific authority (p. 103). in chapter three, inheritance: replacement and leave-taking in a research forest, the issue of the reproduction of these research projects and the labour of ecology (and adjacent sciences) is considered. this is a particularly stimulating chapter, attentive to how this mode of research (long-term engagement, detailed recording, maintaining plots, etc.) offers a space to ponder one’s own attachment to place, addressing with the potentials for reconciliation (p. 129) alongside the dangers of one’s research fortifying state agendas that would undercut indigenous claims. this comfort in addressing but not resolving tensions is a strength of the work and the utility of the category of ‘rural researchers’ as an ambiguous position between abstract science and committed attachments to place, where through the affective investment one makes gradually through mundane, repetitive, and collaborative work in the forests one cultivates diffuse, tacit knowledge and appreciation of the environment and professional community. focusing on the succession of one scientist to his younger apprentice, özden-schilling brings these precise issues that define the ever-fraught ‘rural researcher’ to the fore. chapter four, consignment: trails, transects, and territory without guarantees focuses on research funded by an oil company to assess their pipeline proposal that includes both indigenous and white researchers. this is a charged and uncertain project, but the author explains how despite the controversy around taking the money from an oil company, this is understood as a strategic decision to allow the research to survive. this is justified through the deferral of the promises of this research and a focus on “a subtler politics of collecting, refining, and repurposing data drawn from decades’ worth of chance encounters in the field: depoliticized in the instant, perhaps, but latent in their power, and consigned for confrontations to come” (p.176). özden-schilling also advances a wider argument around the utility of these technoscientific artefacts produced through field mapping and how these have purchase for indigenous groups in producing knowledge legible management institutions, through which they can exert influence, while also understanding how this focus on a particular form of knowledge has led to the professionalization of indigenous knowledge and its codification into abstracting, technical documents. lastly, in the fifth chapter, resilience: systems and survival after forestry’s ends, takes us to consider the contestations of collaborative research, and how in these debates different ideals 4 and hopes for the future are made manifest. we are given an account of how resilience theory has spread to british columbia, with its focus on simplified knowledge and collaborative projects that sideline rather than enhance different expertise, particularly regarding indigenous researchers. özden-schilling explains how resilience theory’s focus on technocratic simplification, directed toward centralised authorities rather than local bodies, endangers the ‘federalised’ organisation of expertise that currently persists (p. 201), how ‘rural researchers’ are pressured to adapt or perish, and indigenous researchers increasingly find their work unvalued in this new, neoliberal paradigm. this, in the context of the book, feels like a graver threat than others, as it undermines the fundamental meanings of their research even more thoroughly than alternative donors might. overall, this last chapter highlights the heightened stakes and difficulties of maintaining a coherent research community, the increasing doubt around the reproduction of this community, ending on a dubiously hopeful note that this ‘mode of living’ may yet persist even if the promise of a more radically open future fades slightly more. the ends of research is a stimulating ethnography that productively lingers on the ambiguities of environmental research, unveiling how ‘rural researchers’ and indigenous researchers alike make and contest place through detailed research despite increasing disregard by the state in british columbia. it should be of great interest to anthropologists of science, the environment, and governance generally, science and technology studies scholars, and those interested in issues of ‘post’-colonialism and indigeneity. gabriel urlich lennon is a phd candidate in social anthropology at stockholm university. he researches the socio-ecological contestations around agriculture and conservation in aotearoa (new zealand), and is broadly interested in ecological, political, and more-thanhuman anthropology. © 2024 gabriel urlich lennon 1 kassabaum, m.c., 2021, a history of platform mound ceremonialism: finding meaning in elevated ground, gainesville: university of florida press, 288 pp., isbn: 978-1-68340-241-1 dr. megan kassabaum reviews the 7,500-year-long history of platform mound ceremonialism in the southeastern us with a clear objective: to write the biography of this monumental architectural feature chronologically, thoroughly, and accurately to the archaeological sequence of events. by offering a forward-looking and multiscalar storyline, the author succeeds in presenting platform moundbuilding as a consistent tradition both geographically as mounds are distributed from southern florida throughout the atlantic and gulf coastal plains, west to oklahoma, and north to the upper midwest, and temporally from the earliest iterations in the archaic period to the historic times, continued past european contact. the monograph is divided into five chapters, followed by an epilogue. chapters 1 and 2 have great contextual value in introducing the tradition of mound architecture among native american cultures in the american southeast, the scientific research conducted on mounds for the past 150 years, and dr. kassabaum’s goals for this book. chapters 3 to 5 synthesize seven centuries of moundbuilding. in chapter 3, kassabaum examines 24 archaic sites in the st. john’s river valley (sjrv) in florida and the lower mississippi valley (lmv) in louisiana that feature some of the earliest monumental platform constructions. although these mounds vary greatly in size, shape, construction materials and techniques, and functions, platform mounds share one common feature—they are diachronically persistent forms of public architecture that appeared in the monumental repertoire since the inception of moundbuilding in the late middle and early late archaic (ca.5500 bce) 2 chapter 4 details the proliferation of platform mounds during the middle woodland period (100bce-500), which was associated with the hopewell phenomenon but influenced by the preexisting archaic background. the analysis of 111 sites from the coastal southeast, strv, mrv, and middle ohio valley indicates woodland communities appropriated earlier local rites, symbols, ceremonial processes, site layouts, and architectural forms. the continuation of mound ritualism, through the constant inhabitation or the sporadic or periodic return to these sites over generations, not only shows the persistence of memory tied to the landscape but the indisputable knowledge of, or the connection to, previous cultures and traditions. consequently, kassabaum claims the transition from the archaic to the woodland periods is better described as phyletic gradualism than a revolution (p.101). in chapter 5, the author addresses the continuation of woodland platform ceremonialism at the woodland-mississippi temporal frontier around the year 1000, and its peak in the mississippian period. in addition to archaeological data, she uses instances of language, folklore, and ritual practices of the muskogee, yuchi, seminole, chickasaw, choctaw, and cherokee to prove the unbrokenness of platform ceremonialism through temporal horizons and the maintenance of precontact traditions among post-contact tribal groups. this connection is highlighted in the epilogue: the author concludes that the history of platform mound construction in the us is not over, thus it is essential to incorporate contemporary native voices in the study of mounds. the most valuable contribution of this book is kassabaum’s attention to time as a multifaceted resource—a theoretical construct, a measuring instrument, and a framework of reference. the intellectual cornerstone of, and the novelty that brings scholarly significance to this volume is the forward-looking and time-perspectivist approaches to the history of moundbuilding. whereas traditional moundbuilding narratives are retrospective, tracing history from mississippian mounds back, kassabaum adopts arnold's (2008) notion of “begoing instead of becoming.” subsequently, she examines flat-topped mounds from their earliest forms onwards at different scales, considering a long-term, large-scale overview of the history of mounds over the centuries and across a large region; as well as a short-term, small-scale approach to look at individual monumental histories in detail. kassabaum maintains that flat-topped mounds are not exclusively mississippian, as the archaeological record summarized in this book shows; instead, she argues that moundbuilding ceremonialism is a continuum, with episodic discontinuity when analyzed at the local scale, in 3 which early platforms are the antecedents to later manifestations. this narration helps overcome the harmful effects of retrospective-thinking and the unfounded assumptions and anachronisms resulting from teleological determinism. for instance, she contends that designating the cultures that developed early forms of platform mounds as “proto-mississippian” is unfair as this term ignores their genius, creativity, and capacity. a more accurate term to designate these societies is “pre-mississippian.” moreover, the prospective historical account helps blur the sharp boundaries dividing premississippian and mississippian traditions. this leads to one of the most enriching discussions in this book—the translation of spatial boundaries into time scales. inspired by parker and rodseth’s (2005) and feuer’s (2016) spatial literature, kassabaum advocates for a timeline built upon “core periods” with buffer zones -what she calls “borders” and “boundaries”and divided by “frontiers” (see p.165). this time construct helps achieve more nuanced temporal transitions than horizons and more accurate views of social change, as borders and boundaries are the time windows where culture hybridization originates and is expressed. this better defines the woodland-to-mississippi transition. in addition to the bird’s-eye view of platform mound ceremonialism, kassabaum offers a human’seye perspective of moundbuilding. by applying phenomenological and biographical approaches, she focuses on the process of mound construction over the final product or the post-construction use, thus highlighting the vitality and dynamism of ceremonial platforms. mounds were not static symbols, but vibrant and ever-changing: they compelled an extensive centripetal force to bring numerous communities dispersed across the region to collaborate on a monumental project, and often involved several phases of construction, reconstruction, and maintenance throughout their functional life. yet, they were persistent, and the knowledge involved in the construction methods, forms, and meanings was passed down generationally and across cultures, becoming the integrative link that connected different cultures to each other and their predecessors. although the multivalent usage of time as a tool and context for archaeological interpretation is, in my opinion, the greatest strength of this book, it also brings reflexivity concerns. kassabaum’s goal is to react to the well-established “privilege of retrospect” (p.37) and to address the problems of back-projection by evaluating the history of moundbuilding linearly, from the initial construction of platform mounds in archaic times to our days. by proving that there is no breakage 4 or compartmentalization in history other than the unnatural creation of independent horizons imposed by academia, she shows that mississippian mounds are not an original invention but the product of a long history of mound ceremonialism. despite the undebatable merit of kassabaum’s detailed, chronological examination of ceremonial architecture, and the epistemological value of prospective over retrospective views of history, this book falls short of breaking free from the “myth of progress” that is criticized here. switching from a backto a forward-projection changes the narrator’s position but does not erase the western gaze from the chronicle. alternatively, a much-needed contribution to the study of moundbuilding requires the introduction of native american worldviews, which conceive time as rhythmic and cyclical rather than linear (brown and cousins 2001), into archaeological interpretation. i would have enjoyed learning from mound ritualism through the lenses of indigenous time patterns, or at least, an in-depth discussion of how the native american cyclic processes dictated the life of mounds in their recurrent patterns of blossoming and abandonment, the ongoing construction of mounds in ritual sequences, and the periodic revisitation of ceremonial sites by different groups. this book offered a solid stepping-stone to initiate the transformation of archaeological interpretation; now it is time to completely break away from western intellectual impositions over time perspectives and decolonize the centuries-long biography of ceremonial moundbuilding in the southeastern us. references arnold, p.j.iii. 2008. “no time like the present,” in time in archaeology: time perspectivism revisited, edited by simon holdaway and luann wandsnider, pp.161-169. salt lake city: university of utah press. brown, j.e., cousins, e. 2001. “changeless at the heart of change: concepts of time and process,” in teaching spirits: understanding native american religious traditions, edited by joseph epes brown, pp.9-22. new york: oxford university press. feuer, b. 2016. boundaries, borders and frontiers in archaeology: a study of spatial relationships. jefferson, nc: mcfarland and company. 5 parker, b.j., rodseth, l. 2005. “theoretical considerations in the study of frontiers,” in untaming the frontier in anthropology, archaeology, and history, edited by bradly j. parker and lars rodseth, pp.3-21. tucson: university of arizona press. irene martí gil obtained her bachelor’s degree in archaeology from universitat autònoma de barcelona, having pursued an academic exchange at université paris-sorbonne iv and graduated from escuela de liderazgo universitario-universidad francisco de vitoria with a degree in liberal arts. she earned her master’s degree in cultural heritage from university college london in 2017 and her ph.d. in anthropology, with a minor in linguistics, from louisiana state university in 2023, which fulbright sponsored. her field of research encompasses a broad range of topics such as archaeological looting and antiquities trafficking, southeastern anthropology, and digital and cyborg anthropology, among others. © 2024 irene martí gil microsoft word call_the_mothers_hammal.docx 1 shaylih muehlmann, 2024, call the mothers: searching for mexico’s disappeared in the war on drugs, oakland, california: university of california press, 264 pp., isbn 9780520314573 “call the mothers: searching for mexico’s disappeared in the war on drugs” is a compelling multi-sited ethnography that begins with the author’s account of meeting leticia in mexico city, whose young daughter, ivonne, had been missing for two years. after undertaking a twoyear-long search with minimal assistance from state authorities, leticia finally found her daughter buried in a communal grave. by recounting this encounter, the author captures the heart-wrenching paradox of a mother's sense of relief after finding her child dead a devastating end to the limbo of not knowing. in five chapters, this book traces how the process of searching for disappeared family members transformed the lives of leticia and other mexican mothers who conducted marches, built support networks, acquired investigative skills, searched through morgues and deserts, and exposed the corruption and complicity of state officials in human rights abuses in mexico. the core contribution of this work is a critical examination of maternal activism that unpacks its interaction with dominant gender norms, state indifference, and organized crime. the first chapter, “they started off as a busload of victims,” establishes how the shared experience of personal loss connected women in the ‘caravan for peace’ rally, which started in central mexico, and visited various locations in mexico and in the united states raising awareness about the violence unleashed by drug policy. through this experience, relatives of the disappeared were able to appreciate how drug policies in the us were adversely impacting both mexicans and low-income groups in the united states and to transform the tenor of their campaigning. prior to the caravan, emphasis was placed on the innocence of the disappeared, or their non-involvement with cartels. however, this particular framing had a limited effect, as it masked the structural causes of drug-related violence. muehlmann argues that this foregrounding of the innocence of their children by the mothers partially emerged from the misgivings of being seen as a bad parent, and in part as a strategic use of the figure of the grieving mother, which has a unique position in catholicism and 2 patriarchy. mother-centric activism had a dual character: it enabled political action, but it also reproduced traditional gender roles. nevertheless, its limitations were outweighed by the effects of the politicization of mexican mothers upon their interaction with black mothers from the inner-city areas in the u.s, whose activism was centered on the systemic factors like racism and marginalization that pushed their children into crime and drugs and who framed problems in the community as issues rooted in lack of social justice. in the second chapter, “until we find them,” the author focuses on the wait mothers went through after the disappearance of their children. muehlmann describes the bureaucratic limbos that the searching mothers faced and how the wait mobilized some of the mothers who founded their own search committees to investigate the disappearances thereby transcending individual activism. there was a poignant contrast between the anguish and sense of urgency experienced by the families and the sluggishness, dismissal, and disregard with which the state bureaucracy and police responded. state authorities often employed delay tactics and blamed the victims. a grinding cycle of waiting would begin for relatives from the moment they approached authorities to report a disappearance and would continue through waiting for a formal case opening, the proceeds of the investigation, and the process of coordination between different government agencies. long delays impeded progress and eroded the families’ well-being. muehlmann reports on relatives selling their assets to bribe police officers or pay for the operational expenses of the investigating officers. intentional delays by the mexican state included using the law to justify long-drawn waits and to exercise power over relatives. the book carefully documents the authorities’ lack of genuine political will to investigate. weary of kafkaesque encounters with authorities and troubled by the wait, some mothers went on to organize search collectives or launched their own investigations, at times trespassing the law. muehlmann does not romanticize the self-initiated investigations but views them as a response to state neglect. the third chapter, “call the mothers, not the police,” discusses the investigations led by selforganized search committees. as activist mothers became a source of support for other families looking for their disappeared children, networks and collectives sprouted across mexico. activist mothers offered their personal networks, insights, and skills to support other families. this included explaining how to put pressure on authorities to register cases officially, providing logistical and emotional support in searching local morgues, directly investigating 3 murders and kidnappings, and lending leverage and connections vis-a-vis the police and criminal organizations. although the specific character of disappearances depended on the local context, women collectives sprouted throughout the country. and given state inaction, dismissal, and collusion, newly affected families often turned to these committees for support. moreover, the collectives began to push back against the authorities' policy to underplay the number of the disappeared. muehlmann notes that although women-led collectives filled in for incompetent state institutions, they lacked resources and professional competencies. this is framed as the effect of the neoliberal thrust to shift state responsibilities onto civil society while state-society relations remained conflictive. the fourth chapter, “a rage so fierce she didn't notice her feet,” investigates the impact of officials’ dismissal of victims and their complicity with organized criminals. through a detailed account of a public confrontation that went viral on the internet between a mother and the veracurz governor duarte javier, the author unveils the longstanding nexus between organized crime and public office. the alliance of high-level public officials and narco-traffickers in mexico goes back in history and cemented the accumulation of many private fortunes but this informal arrangement was unsettled by neoliberal reforms and power transition in the 1980s. the author shows that beyond the war on drugs, militarization and violence were linked to trade integration (nafta) and us-mexico security cooperation (merida initiative). the author provides this context for drug violence and overcomes personalistic characterizations of corruption. the final chapter of the book, “without a body there is no crime,” traces the discovery of mass graves and the implications for relatives, civil society groups, and the mexican state. the unveiling of these clandestine burial sites despite attempts of obfuscation and frequent denial of the disappeared by the state—demonstrated the gravity of the situation, although it did not lead to a more transparent investigation by the officials. nonetheless, for the relatives, the discovery of remains of the missing provides irrefutable evidence of the crimes committed. in another development, new information about the location of mass graves has come from the cartels themselves. the author argues that criminal groups strategically conceal or alternatively draw attention to crime scenes such as mass graves, for instance, to signal their control over a certain territory. but mothers also received tip-offs from low-ranking cartel members, leading them to develop a more sympathetic view of these cartel members compared to state officials. 4 muehlmann examines the pathways of affect in these paradoxical sympathies and rejects the oft-cited trope of glamourized narcos. instead, the author offers a more convincing reading of this sympathy to the profound hurt caused by the denialism and obfuscation of state officials' denial: relatives felt they were more likely to get help from the narcos than from the state. the author concludes by noting the significant achievements of the civil society movement, led by mothers, that formulated demands for justice for the disappeared without needing to foreground their 'innocence.’ written in an engaged and accessible manner, the book reveals the experiences of women searching for their missing relatives and the broader political economy that produces and sustains drug-related violence. given the rise of women’s activism, the book offers novel insights into the literature on forced disappearance, social movements, and neoliberalism with implications far beyond the case of the war on drugs in mexico. hammal aslam is a phd researcher at the international institute of social studies. in his doctoral work, he is focusing on rural transformations in balochistan, pakistan, with a specific focus on changes around livelihoods, labor, and natural resource use and access. previously, he worked as a university lecturer in the department of international relations at buitems, a public university in quetta. acknowledgments i would like to thank dr. helena perez nino for her guidance in editing and revising this article. i am also grateful to rassela malinda for reading an earlier version and providing valuable feedback. © 2025 hammal aslam microsoft word wood review.docx anthony russell jerry, blackness in mexico: afro-mexican recogni5on and the produc5on of ci5zenship in the costa chica. gainesville: university of florida press, 2023. since the revolu@on, mexican elites have privileged a racial ideology that promotes mes5zaje-the mixture of indigenous and european peoples. yet in more recent years, both interna@onal and domes@c groups have called for new, more inclusive approaches to iden@ty poli@cs. the guardians of the cosmic race were summoned. marginalized people of african descent have increasingly figured into the mexico na@onal discourse on “race.” yet, as anthropologist anthony russell jerry argues, government efforts to locate and fully recognize “blacks” have been rela@vely half-hearted and superficial: mostly playing to al corriente interna@onal iden@ty poli@cal trends. “blackness,” jerry writes, “is a [largely] unrecognized racial and cultural form,” in mexico, [one that] “interrupts the neatly organized ethnic geography” of na@onal society (27). the 2011 united na@on’s interna@onal year for peoples of african descent and ensuing general assembly’s resolu@on 68/237 called for a decade long honoring of african peoples to be observed from 2015 to 2024 issued a challenge to governments and ngos across the world. to this, many wondered closer to home, how would mexico respond? conduc@ng field research in the costa chica region of oaxaca and guerrero, jerry tells how a federal government ini@a@ve called the comisión nacional para el desarrollo de los pueblos indigenas (cdi) set out, in conjunc@on with local outlets of secretaría de asuntos indigenas (sai), to engage afro-mexicans. the state led program manifested a series of consultas that temporarily brought together government officials, regional community ac@vists, scholars, and various people of color. mee@ngs took place in costa chica town centers where ac@vity saw government types seeking to uncover “cultural elements that were imagined to be unique to black mexican communi@es” (2). according to jerry, the official aim of these municipal convoca@ons was to “inform the african-descendent communi@es of the costa chica about the process of [state] recogni@on and to gather informa@on on the cultural repertoire of black mexicans within the region” (1). one wonders what was in it for the na@onal commission. consulta experience differed widely. visitors pursued an agenda that recast people of african descent as “afro-mexicans”—now a recognized status category in the larger na@onal ethnoscape. black community ac@vists meanwhile used the occasion to call out racist altudes, prac@ces and policies. at the same @me, they raised concerns about possible unintended consequences of state-led “racial” programming. in the end, black townspeople largely eschewed much of the outsider’s talk—perhaps recognizing that bureaucrats were mostly interested in excava@ng only symbolic and superficial informa@on to fulfill predetermined expecta@ons about a “black mexican experience.” public rela@ons rather than social reform seemed to be the order of the day. “the official conversa@ons,” jerry writes, “rarely involved deep discussions about slavery in mexico, or the manner in which african descendants arrived in the costa chica or racial discrimina@on or the historic roles that black people and blackness had played in the produc@on of the mexican na@on” (2). from the start the overall agenda was clear: newfound federal efforts at documen@ng and acknowledging mexican people of african descent was an elite affair. the consultas, first and foremost, served the interests of the state. whatever patronizing no@ce of a “black presence” was made, results tended to leave subjects dismissively “trapped” within their own regional context while “newly discovered” ideas about blackness were “put to work” and u@lized elsewhere. the author’s frequent theore@cal flights occasionally serve to distance the reader from the ethnography at hand. refreshingly, jerry’s last chapter returns to the real people of the costa chica. here, individual commentary by residents on issues pertaining to ideas of race, percep@ons of color, status and power solidly ground jerry’s work. perhaps not surprisingly, he suggests by way of conclusion that “[t]he project of black recogni@on seems to make it easier for mes@zos to reconcile the existence of blackness in the na@on, rather than making it easier to be black in mexico” (158). nevertheless, jerry finds hope in the tes@monies he records. he sees these as provid[ing] evidence of “narra@ves of the process of construc@ng a black iden@ty that is underway and con@nuing to develop in the costa chica.” in @me, we may find that these individuals have served as an important founda@on for a “poli@cal project of blackness” in mexico (179). one need not—and should not--wait for the government to act for—as jerry shows--there is real power in the black costa chica communi@es. andrew grant wood rutland professor of history university of tulsa / 2025 andrew grant wood © microsoft word shani review.docx 1 eds. by mikkel berg-nordlie, astri dankertsen, and marte winsvold, 2022, an urban future for sápmi? indigenous urbanization in the nordic states and russia, berghahn books, isbn 978-1-80073-264-3 this timely volume focuses on the sámi people of the nordic states—sweden, norway, finland—and russia. significantly, it shines a spotlight on the experiences of indigenous people around the world who build their lives in urban spaces. according to the editors, the indigenous sámi’s historic territory is referred to as “sápmi,” regardless of national boundaries that were created during state formation and colonization. most of the authors of this book are themselves urban sámi. they come from various areas of sápmi, including all the countries that occupy sápmi. their unique perspectives on worldwide urbanization place the sámi within that phenomenon and compare the sámi experience to that of other indigenous groups. the editors argue that, for most indigenous groups around the world, it is difficult to speak about indigenous populations without invoking colonialism and its lasting effects. the colonial legacy influences how these groups see themselves and how other people see them. within the book’s pages, readers will witness the history of extensive and uncomfortable assimilation policies the sámi underwent as they were forced to assimilate to the majority culture. readers will also see how, over the years, the sámi have persisted in their efforts to retain and, in some cases, revitalize their culture in order to maintain their indigenous identity and dignity. yet, as the authors argue, all cultures around the world are not in a static state; cultural change is inevitable, and the cultures of the sámi are no exception. the editors provide readers with a deep historicity of the sápmi land, the sámi people, and their interactions with other ethnic groups, situating the sámi in the rich context of their past. however, the book is mainly focused on contemporary urban sámi people, their culture in urban areas, and the meaning of culture to today’s sámi youth. the authors reveal both their challenges and successes in maintaining their culture, and they raise the question of sámi cultural survival and identity in urban environments that are not devoid of political and cultural challenges and influences. in the book’s introduction, berg-nordlie, dankertsen, and winsvold provide an overview of the book, its main arguments, and the themes addressed. they discuss how the colonial legacy has kept the sámi in a state of marginalization. these authors legitimize the belongingness of the sámi to urban areas, debunking the myth that indigenous sámi live only in rural areas. in fact, the sámi have a long history of living in both urban and rural areas, given that most of the urban areas have belonged to the sámi people and are part of the sápmi. in this way, they are not unlike other indigenous urbanites around the world. as the editors state, “in fact, many indigenous peoples have a long urban history” (p. 4). the authors also discuss demographic 2 shifts, the influence of such shifts, and their influence on sámi culture, language, and ethnic identity as well as on relations among the sámi themselves. the authors also reveal the ruralurban connection, one that is not broken simply because one lives in the city. political, cultural, and historical developments are elaborated, as are the heterogeneity and complexity of sámi lives and culture, their city spaces, and those of contemporary sámi youth. the chapters that follow narrow down these broader issues. mikkel berg-nordlie and anna andersen author the first chapter of the book, the sámi and the sápmi: the people and the land. they set clear definitions of the terms “sámi” and “sápmi” and explain what they mean to this indigenous population. from a historical perspective, the authors argue that using these terms, emanating from the indigenous themselves, is more appropriate, as compared to using names that have been conferred by states and majority cultures. the authors next detail the division of the sápmi land among the nordic states and russia, and they expose the discrimination and assimilation policies enacted by these states regarding sámi language, culture, and religion. some of the more extreme measures included strict punishment of the sámi for practicing their traditional religion. the authors also elaborate on scientific racism that emerged between 1800 and 1900, exacerbating the situation, noting “the idea of a nordic ‘master race’ and the sámi as a lesser population with no real culture, no real history, and less rights to own the land they used, began to grow” (p. 36). scientific racism increased instances of racial slurs and treatment levelled at the sámi. with their “economic base being threatened by land grabbing and development projects” (p. 36) and no state support, the very survival of sámi identity, culture, and language was at risk. this chapter effectively builds a historical foundation for the remaining authors to build on. in chapter two, cities in sápmi, sámi in the cities: indigenous urbanization in the nordic countries and russia, berg-nordlie and andersen attempt to answer the following questions: “how and why did urban areas form in sápmi? when did large-scale urbanization of the sámi people begin? in which urban areas are the sámi most concentrated? (p. 54). the authors portray these questions as problematic to answer, given the nature of past data collection methods and the periods in which these methodologies were used to gather demographic information. the emphasis on rurality prior to world war ii and rapid urbanization after the war are representative of these issues. moreover, during that time, invoking a sámi identity often provoked discrimination, causing people to hide their identity, making it even more difficult, or very nearly impossible, to find reliable population numbers, most urban sámi people did not know they were indigenous. the authors then delve deeply into sámi urbanization experiences in each of the four colonizing states, sweden, norway, finland, and russia. the authors also reveal the complex and varied dimensions of urban areas in the sápmi by focusing on each state separately as well as the urbanization of the sámi people in these states. understanding geographic divisions is key to understanding what it means to be sámi in the urban areas of each nation, “because urbanization processes, and indeed sámi history in general, have been very different in the eastern and western parts of sápmi” (p. 54). in chapter three, young city sámi in norway and sweden: making space for urban indigenous identities, astri dankertsen brings to life the importance of sámi identity in norway and 3 sweden. she argues that, “there are differences in the identity-negotiation processes that develop among sámi in the four northerly states that have divided sápmi, and indeed within the same states, but we also find some remarkable similarities regarding the urban context and its relevance for sámi identities” (p. 107). furthermore, while dankertsen supports the significance of sámi identity, she also problematizes their indigenous identity as complex and ever-evolving; it has been and is shaped by political forces such as colonialism and assimilation policies as well as by changes within the sámi population itself. thus, the author argues that obtaining an authentic and pure sámi identity can be problematic since there are antagonizing criteria among the sámi themselves. this is especially true at the present time, when the sámi are coming together to create communities that will reinforce their identity in an environment where there are many ways of being and becoming sámi. additionally, while the sámi are portrayed as having a cultural identity, they are of different religious and social class backgrounds. finding commonalties, the author suggested, could ameliorate interethnic struggles. this chapter is especially important because it discusses hypermobility between the cities and rural areas, particularly the mobility of the young. dankertsen compares urban-born sámi youth to those who have migrated to cities for education, work, and settlement, noting that “while previous generations often hid their identities, many young sámi of today have a very different perspective. they live in a time when there is more space for being sámi, when more and more people are proud of being sámi, and they demand their right to be sámi in an urban environment” (p. 142). the author argues that since identities are not static but are constantly in the making, the youth are able to create their own urban sámi identities. in chapter four, urban indigenous organizing and institution-building in norway and russia: by and for whom? the authors mikkel berg-nordlie, anna andersen, and astri dankertsen highlight the sámi’s capacity to create their own urban spaces—spaces where culture can be practiced and passed on to the youth, and where a majority of the sámi can congregate and become a unified voice in speaking to the majority’s power in their states. though many spaces are mentioned, ngos and cultural houses are the central focus in this chapter. the author argues that these spaces have the capacity to be all-inclusive by catering to the many ways and dynamics of being sámi and, at the same time, can create a collective voice. chris andersen, in chapter five, moves readers from the specific experiences of the sámi to the global stage. sámi urbanization in the global currents of indigenous urbanization is an exposition on the global process of urbanization sweeping across the whole world. andersen states that, “the world has never been more urbanized than it is in 2021. the united nations (un) reports that roughly 55 percent of the world’s total population reside in urban locales, compared to only 30 percent in 1950. this proportion is expected to grow to nearly 70 percent by 2050” (p. 222). he argues that this phenomenon is inclusive of indigenous peoples, and he compares indigenous populations within the global context of other ethnicities. as stated previously, this book is very timely and speaks to the many experiences of indigenous people around the world who are leading urban lives while performing indigeneity. they are revitalizing and reconstituting their culture and keeping the urban-rural connection, even as external and internal factors continue to shape and reshape their identities. the book will benefit 4 researchers in the areas of cultural anthropology, indigenous studies, history, global studies, race and ethnicity, urban studies, and globalization studies. serah shani is an associate professor at mercy college in new york, in the department of social and behavioral sciences. she is also author of indigenous elites in africa: the case of kenya’s maasai and african immigrant families in the united states: transnational lives and schooling. dr. shani is currently working on her third book project, based on an ongoing research project among the indigenous maasai people of kenya, funded by a grant from the john templeton foundation. /© 2023 serah shani 1 jackson, aaron j, 2021, worlds of care: the emotional lives of fathers caring for children with disabilities, california series in public anthropology. oakland, california: university of california press, 216 pp., isbn 9780520976955. keywords: caregiving, fatherhood, disability, embodied disruption, masculinity and moral reorientations while care has traditionally been narrated in dominant patriarchal discourses as a feminine task, worlds of care: the emotional lives of fathers caring for children with disabilities by aaron j. jackson invites readers to explore the often overlooked ‘fatherhood’ in caregiving. what happens when fathers become primary caregivers? particularly those involving children with severe disabilities? through this ethnographic research, jackson points out that the current sociocultural norms that reify fatherhood and caregiving as predominantly feminine work need to be revisited. jackson's dual identity as both an ethnographer and a father makes the book a blend of personal memoir and ethnographic storytelling, enhancing the text's emotional resonance. he also uses creative nonfiction inspired by clifford geertz’s notion of ‘faction.’ he captures the pervasive voices of fathers—some of whom are part of support groups—whose “everyday” lives are far from ordinary. their experiences are characterized by “existential disruptions” (3) that facilitate the complex identity and selfhood formation processes. this aligns with veena das's concept of ‘ordinary realism,’ (das; 2012) in which a rupture from the ordinary reveals more profound insights into human experience. drawing heavily on phenomenology, particularly the works of maurice merleau-ponty and martin heidegger, jackson crafts an embodied, relational perspective that invites readers to understand fatherhood and caregiving as intersubjective experiences. 2 jackson conveys his experience of affiliate stigma and the emotional toll that he undergoes as a caregiver of a child with a developmental disability. “my son’s body became a curious public spectacle in even the most prosaic spaces of daily life, and i felt this as palpably as though it were my own. hearing the word “retard” muttered by a stranger made my bones quake with a feeling i had never experienced before” (7). the caregiving experience ushers him to a novel understanding of the world and the society he lives in, as it broke his identity from the ‘privilege of able-bodied, racial comfort’ to one of ‘societal exclusion and prejudice’ as he now identifies with his child's marginalization, despite not being a person with a disability. this shift in perception reveals the emotional labor associated with caregiving, which the author describes in depth in the book, noting “our presence in the world is a co-presence because the other’s emotional presence is a fundamental constituent of our lifeworld’s dynamic, often grasped through the body” (133-134). here, the caregiver's own identity becomes intertwined with the stigma attached to their loved one’s condition. the realization that there are layers to society, and it comes out to you depending on your identity and role, makes him rethink his position in society echoing goffman’s discussions of situational stigma. the book contains six chapters and two interludes; the interludes are used as transitional scenes between the chapters, though they do not contain theoretical commentaries. the first chapter, ‘the practice of care,’ explores caregiving as a practice and frames it as a dynamic, multifaceted role that is not merely about providing physical needs but also involves emotional, moral, and relational commitments. chapter two, ‘the depths of time: past becomings and habitable worlds,’ explores the arrival stories of children of jackson’s participants, illustrating how past experiences and future projections shape caregiving practices. the author notes, “.... parents' embodied emotional histories and incursions of memory lend form to the ways these moments and others are experienced in the first place and over time” (28). here, jackson looks at the temporal dimension of caregiving, focusing on how the past, present, and future interconnect in the experiences of fathers caring for children with disabilities. the third chapter, 'bodies: the fleshy work of caregiving,’ is about the physicality of caregiving. “fleshy work" (53) is both an act of connection and an experience of strain. 3 ‘conditions of possibility: fathering, masculinity, and moral (re)orientations’ is the fourth chapter where jackson bucks the status quo of traditional masculinity, defined and characterized through excessive emotional detachment, to question what it means to be a ‘good father.’ traditional masculine ideals — such as emotional restraint, independence, and physical toughness — are often in conflict with the emotional and relational demands of caregiving, especially for a child with severe disabilities. what catalyzes a moral transformation in fathers, pushing them to reimagine masculinity in more inclusive and emotionally engaged ways to redefine their roles and responsibilities in ways that challenge normative gendered expectations is beautifully illustrated. jackson explores the broader implications of this shift for father-child relationships and the fathers’ sense of self. when men perform caregiving, particularly the type of caregiving that requires vulnerability and emotional intimacy, they are remaking themselves as fathers and as men, echoing bell hooks’ concept of dominator models of masculinity. in chapter five, ‘belonging and beingfor-others,’ the shame and stigma accompanying caregiving is discussed. however, jackson eloquently balances by discussing the joys and burdens fathers experience with equal importance. the readers also see how fathers’ identities are shaped not by autonomy or independence but by their relational roles and sense of responsibility toward their children through the experiences shared here. the sixth chapter, ‘the axiom of equality,’ advocates for equality in parenting against gendered norms in caregiving by what jackson calls moral cosmopolitanism. the author analyses care as a moral and political issue with a focus on how “moral personhood of disabled children and modes of agency [that are] overlooked in ascriptions of personhood dependent on language, reason, and self-consciousness.” (23). rooted in a profound social justice sense, jackson invites readers to consider a redistribution of care work. his examination of the emotional dimensions of caregiving provides a pivotal intervention into current debates about disability, masculinity, and the politics of care. while the book helps to push back against conventional gender roles, its rollback rarely considers how caregiving can be utilized to create a more radical version of masculinity. however, jackson does not go far enough: the question of what kinds of fatherhood might emerge through such shifts remains largely unasked and unanswered. is there space for more feminist fatherhood that is not just emotional engagement but also caregiving that deconstructs gender patterns of labor, authority, and family power structures? 4 jackson’s work adds to the conversation around caregiving and pushes against many assumptions about masculinity, emotions, and fathering that have been taken for granted. the book speaks to current debates in feminist theory and disability studies, particularly concerning politics of care. it encourages readers to reimagine caregiving as a complex, mutually entwined process. this book will be valuable for parents, scholars in anthropology, sociology, psychology, and disability studies, as well as those interested in the intersections of care and embodiment. references das, veena. "ordinary ethics." a companion to moral anthropology (2012): 133-149. woodly, deva, rachel h. brown, mara marin, shatema threadcraft, christopher paul harris, jasmine syedullah, and miriam ticktin. “the politics of care.” contemporary political theory 20, no. 4 (august 24, 2021): 890–925. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-021-00515-8. acknowledgements i am grateful to dr. sudarshan r. kottai, assistant professor, department of humanities and social sciences, iit palakkad, india, for his invaluable guidance, constructive feedback, and meticulous corrections, which significantly enhanced this review. nazmia ebrahim is a ph.d. scholar in the department of humanities and social sciences, indian institute of technology palakkad. she works within the critical psychology paradigm and is interested in exploring lived experiences and social dynamics of caregiving for persons with disabilities, focusing on how cultural, historical, and systemic factors shape care practices and identities. © 2024 nazmia ebrahim microsoft word erich review.docx 1 edyta roszko, 2021, fishers, monks and cadres: navigating state, religion and the south china sea in central vietnam, honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 260 pp., isbn 978-08248-9055-1. at the beginning of edyta roszko’s ethnography, a group of fishers find something unusual in their net: a statue of a medieval chinese dignitary, hands clasped in repose, who had been accumulating barnacles on the ocean floor. when the relic was brought to shore, the fisherfolk set up a makeshift temple in their village and provided offerings to their lucky find, their very own god of fortune. eventually, they applied for permits to build a more substantial dwelling for the statue, but their application was declined. state authorities classified their new-found deity “superstition” – a catchall category used by the state for religious and folkloric beliefs of all kinds – and told the fishermen to put the statue away. even so, the fishers continued to venerate their saint in private. roszko’s recent book fishers, monks, and cadres: navigating state and religion in central vietnam is a fascinating and comprehensive ethnography about fishing communities in vietnam and vietnam’s central coast. through years of multi-sited ethnographic research at two sites – sa huỳnh, a coastal village, and lý sơn, an atoll 16 miles offshore – roszko centers a marginalized people in a peripheralized region of vietnam to explore how state, society, and religion have both been woven together and frayed over the last half-century. as the title suggests, roszko elaborates a theory of navigation: an artful, polysemic term describing not only the skills needed to find one’s way through the sea, but the delicate balancing act between a host of binaries (and triads) that roszko bends and pulls apart throughout the book. these include (but are not limited to): state and religion, religion and folklore, local and national, and many other categorial frameworks that frequently seep into one another. interestingly, roszko’s theory of navigation applies not only to the fishers, but also to the state as 2 it navigates the unsteady boundaries between superstition and religion or between state-building and state-stripping. as a broader process, navigation seems like a useful analytic with wide purchase outside of roszko’s immediate case for scholars seeking to think through the messy realities of postmodern bureaucratic life more generally. aside from being a rich ethnographic study, roszko’s broader project is to push back against received histories, geographies, and hierarchies of much of the previous writing on vietnam – of a north-south dichotomy, of a nation that is primarily agricultural in character, or of a communist state intolerant of folk belief. she shows, through ethnographic vignettes, stories, archival work, and analyses of historical events, how these received ways of thinking about vietnam cannot fully describe (let alone adequately portray) the much more complex past and present of the country. to clarify this argument ethnographically, roszko brings together “three analytical concepts – semiotic ideology, purification, and indiscipline” (20) that put a language to the ways that her subjects navigate various false binaries and other structural categories that resist tidy theorization. one such set categorical framework is the “triad,” as she calls it, of state, religion, and society at work in the opening vignette – the state sought to suppress veneration of the statue, the fishers’ idea of religion was capacious enough to place the found relic alongside their earth spirit, and the society of fisherfolk in rural-maritime vietnam more broadly would have to navigate between these ways of thinking too often framed as incompatible. chapter 1 outlines an exhaustive (if not overly detailed) exposition of the region’s geography and history, offering deep context that is helpful to readers unfamiliar with the specifics of vietnamese history; roszko’s take will likely also be of value to scholars of vietnam and mainland southeast asia for its comprehensiveness. chapter 2 elaborates on one of the aforementioned categorical frameworks, the religion-folklore-superstition matrix, and demonstrates how the slippage between these categories (both as enduring anthropological topics and as official interests of the state) hints at their conceptual inadequacy, sometimes even to those practicing them. chapter 3 takes on categories of geography– of land versus sea, farmer versus fisher, rice versus fish, the agricultural village (láng) versus the guild-like fishing organizations (vạn) – to destabilize received wisdom about vietnamese history and culture (that is, of being predominately concerned with agricultural rice cultivation), and the role of the coast 3 as integral in vietnam’s past and present. chapter 4 advances a theory of discipline and indiscipline by looking more closely at a conflict over another statuary relic, this time of the revered bodhisattva quan âm, to think through purification, religiosity, and post-socialist realities. chapter 5 arrives at a location foreshadowed throughout the book, the paracel and spratly islands (themselves further offshore from lý sơn atoll), which have been subject to conflicting claims of sovereignty between vietnam and china. roszko’s study shines here, bringing a human face – through the practice of ancestor worship – to this conflict and its consequences for normal people trying to both make meaning and make a living amidst the broader geopolitical conflict. chapter 6 discusses how women push back against male dominance as important (and too often undervalued) players in village politics that navigate the binaries and triads which are the central concerns of the book along with their own femininity, religiosity, and morality. if one had to “gut” this book (as with a fish), the choicest filets would be chapter 4, which shines ethnographically, and chapter 5, which shows a crucial human side to a geopolitical situation too often left to non-ethnographic academic disciplines that also study the present (which will remain nameless). the head and tail and other parts of a fish beyond the filets, however, are integral to many dishes in vietnam and in fishing communities around the world, and it is advised, both for the specific geographies of the region and the complex histories that roszko treats so deftly, to consume this book whole. fishers, monks, and cadres will be of particular interest to anthropologists of the state and of religion, as well as to those with interests in postsocialism and “maritime anthropology” more broadly, although those in the latter camp might crave more of the poetics that seem to characterize the new wave in the blue humanities and social sciences. roszko’s ethnography would be an excellent addition to undergraduate courses on religion and religious worlds, on states or bureaucracy, or on ethnography more broadly to show how certain thinkers (e.g. webb keane, michel de certeau, et al.) are taken up theoretically and practically in an ethnographic study. in addition, this book is sure to be a hit in graduatelevel area studies and political anthropology courses, especially those that seek to show how “everyday” people inhabit, shape or contest geopolitical hotspots. here and elsewhere, the marginal and once-peripheral are, upon closer inspection, central to understanding how contemporary states work. 4 scott erich is a historical and environmental anthropologist who researches fishing, pearling, and oil industries in the persian gulf and gulf of oman, and is working on his first book project, entitled taming the sea: southeastern arabia’s extractive seascape. scott received his phd from the cuny graduate center in 2023 and is currently the howell postdoctoral research associate in arabian peninsula and gulf studies at the university of virginia. © 2024 scott erich microsoft word cyr review.docx mathews, andrew s. 2022. trees are shape shifters: how cultivation, climate change, and disaster create landscapes. yale agrarian studies series. new haven: yale university press, 320 pp., isbn 978-0-300-26037-3 keywords: italy, landscape politics, climate change, historical ecology, biomass energy, disasters, care in the monte pisano, a mountain range in tuscany, italy, people have been living in human-altered landscapes for millennia. here, histories of peasant cultivation of chestnut and the slow ongoing disasters of plant disease, state abandonment, and capitalism have left marks on the landscape. in trees are shape shifters, mathews walks the reader through the villages, hillsides, and forests of the monte pisano, teaching us how to read these long-term processes from the graft scars of individual trees and the shapes of ancient terraces. as diverse temporalities and overlapping histories are sown together, these past forms leave an echo that affects climate policy in italy today. in these landscapes haunted by “ghostly forms” (p. 45) and trees that change shape, an abstract and nebulous global ‘climate change’ resonates less than the changes in relationships between people, plants, soil, and weather that constitute people’s daily experiences. unlike ‘climate change,’ these changes implicate local histories, political responsibility, and landscapes that are intensely social. through scaling from individual trees all the way to climate policy, trees are shape shifters offers a commentary on climate change as a global discourse and how it encounters other ways of knowing landscapes and climate. trees are shape shifters is also a methodological proposition, an invitation to pay attention to the morphologies that record histories of encounters and slow processes that may not be captured by interviews or archives. diagrams, drawings, and trusting one’s senses are key to this, and the strength of mathews’ contribution lies in its clear formulations and the way that the text itself serves as a methodological example. this is also, vitally, a more-than-human attentiveness that foregrounds the political. trees are shape shifters contains eight chapters and three interludes. the interludes are lush passages that drop the reader in the chestnut groves or smokey skies of the monte pisano, while inviting the reader to apply similar methods of noticing to their own more immediate landscapes. in doing so, they serve as a kind of training in the methods of sensory noticing that mathews proposes. throughout the book, too, diagrams and images provide sensory prosthetics that serve not as skippable examples of larger arguments, but as the argument themselves. in chapter one, mathews follow the history of chestnut cultivation in the monte pisano; human care has allowed chestnut to find a footing on the slopes. it is precisely through caring about trees that people have come to care about and reshape landscapes in a “biogeomorphological politics” (14). longue durée relationships between people and trees in the monte pisano affect contemporary environmental politics, as—through ideas of proper landscape care—plants come to be political. the second chapter moves from morphologies of individual plants to morphologies of landscapes, as mathews begins to attune the readers’ attention to “landscape structures.” as mathews walks the reader through these forests, we see patterns emerge from low-growing charred pine scrub and higher altitude chestnut stumps that—combined with 19th-century cadastral maps—reveal how these structures are a product of agricultural abandonment and long-forgotten chestnut disease. through this attention to morphology and reliance on diagrams, mathews reads larger social and political patterns—namely histories of international trade, industrialization, and state retreat— from the shapes of trees and landscapes. chapter three looks further into these fast and slow disasters, arguing that, rather than a result of an abstract global ‘climate change,’ forest fires are seen by people in the monte pisano as stemming from land abandonment and the loss of practices of litter-raking. while these vernacular political ecologies implicate an indifferent state and individual criminality, the histories of 19thcentury invasive plant disease that devastated fire-resistant chestnut groves are largely forgotten. the fourth chapter moves from forest fires to landslides in the monte pisano, where extreme weather events are seen as expected rather than unusual in what mathews calls a “vernacular model of climate” (p. 110), and a biogeomorphological “politics of landscape instability” (p. 109) drives care for particular morphologies in a landscape that is “always potentially in motion,” (p. 112). here—in opposition to north american conservation narratives that see a healthy landscape as separate from human intervention—human care is required for healthy landscapes. notably, this is a care that attends to relationships between weather, plants, soil, and people, pushing against “official theories of climate change” (p. 125) that de-link and abstract disaster from its attendant parts. mathews expands on this biogeomorphological politics and its relationship to official climate change narratives in chapter five. ‘climate change’ as a global narrative does not resonate with people who see disasters as a matter of political responsibility and state abandonment, and extreme weather as a usual feature of the landscape. while mathews’ interlocuters generally believed in climate change, it is seen as talk for scientists and less salient than the material changes in landscapes that are ascribed to local political failings. ‘climate change’ as a discourse is examined further in chapter six, which looks at how climate change knowledge is produced from concrete places by juxtaposing landscape thinking—that produces, for example, knowledge about plant disease and landscape in the monte pisano—with systems thinking—that can simplify and abstract processes into models that inform international climate change policy. in re-localizing this knowledge, mathews shows that climate models are also produced out of situated and phenomenological knowledges. chapter seven looks at the transformations that occur when international climate change policy collides with landscapes in the context of biomass energy politics in tuscany. at the international level, climate models inform ideas about climate where burning biomass makes sense as a renewable energy, driven by the simplifying logic of carbon accounting. at the national level, italian policymakers ‘find’ unused forests in tuscany to convert to biomass energy, while the marginally-legal networks of firewood cutters disappear from official view. in contrast, regional politicians bring biogeomorphological politics into policy by invoking job creation and the stabilization of hillsides through logging. ‘climate change’ as a concept is less salient to people than the biogeomorphological features of the landscapes in which they live. chapter eight picks up here, in the meeting between biomass energy and a particular landscape, to examine the failure of a biomass energy project in the monte pisano. while both supporters and opponents of the biomass energy project claimed significance for sensory experience of the landscape, distrusted the state, and “agreed that this landscape was uncared for,” (p. 209) they diverged on which political histories were relevant and how best to care for the landscape. here, “popular understandings of energy, landscape, and atmosphere largely constrained state and capitalist efforts to build a new energy system” (p. 218). biogeomorphological politics can impact global climate policy; caring for plants and landscapes is deeply political. the epilogue succinctly wraps up the monograph’s main arguments. the figure of an ancient chestnut tree looms heavy, both a “modest hope” (p. 225) for the possibilities of long-term care and a warning about succumbing to narratives of inevitable disaster that justify salvage capitalism. this ancient chestnut invites us as researchers to “trust our senses” and “expand our methods to include diagrams and drawings” (p. 228) to notice these long-term projects of care, and it invites us as humans to look for those processes and patterns that are obscured by stories of destruction or techno-capitalist fixes. trees are shape shifters is a beautifully written, sensuous ethnography that can be read as a call for a pluriversal politics where, despite divergences, alliances may be drawn across different ways of knowing climate. the writing is clear and accessible (much of the more theoretical musings are relegated to the footnotes), although there is sometimes a bit of repetition between chapters. in addition to anthropologists and historians interested in environmental politics, it should also be valuable for climate policy makers or anyone operating at the interface between climate and landscape politics. emma cyr is a phd researcher at the department of social anthropology at stockholm university. she is interested in environmental and more-than-human anthropology. her current research investigates the socio-ecological implications of aquatic biodiversity changes in italy, exploring how notions of ‘good biodiversity’ are constructed and contested within shifting lagoon ecologies. © 2025 emma cyr microsoft word halemba 2024.docx 1 aimée joyce, 2024, spectral borders: history, neighbourliness and discord on the polishbelarusian frontier. canon pyon: sean kingston publishing, 207 pp, isbn 9781912385522 keywords: neighbourliness, haunting, borderland, poland, belarus, history how to live comfortably in a place haunted by traumatic events? how are lives lived, dayto-day, in a place that entails more than what meets the eye, where you need to know how to speak, where to go and what to say in order to be a good neighbour, but you feel and know things that make relations difficult and where at the same time organisational forces of the state and the ghosts of the past operate? the place, that on the one hand is a changing tourist landscape clearly following goals of eu-sponsored development, which exploits difference by making it “attractive,” and on the other hand an incredibly complex, multi-layered space inhabited by many entities of which currently breathing people are just one among many? how to deal with those very divergent ways of being in one space? i reached for aimee joyce’s book encouraged by the preface, in which joyce positions her work in the context of the situation on the polish-belarusian border since 2021 and the russian aggression against ukraine, which for many observers are interconnected events. and although at the end of the day, neither the contemporary state border, movement across it, nor the war have much presence in the arguments pursued by joyce, a reader has a feeling that the ethnography of the small town (in the book called bielo) does help her to understand the situation on the border and in the broadly understood region better. the book is divided into an introduction, conclusion and six chapters. each chapter and the introduction start from an “ethnographic vignette,” that is, a description of an encounter, conversation or a place, which brings the reader directly into the topic – a very efficient way of capturing and focusing attention. the introduction presents the basic notions of the book and focuses on neighbourliness and spectres. there is the third notion as well, which joyce presents as central to her book and which is also present in the title: a border. still i feel that this notion is at the end of the day of a limited use; much more adequate would be the one of borderland, for reasons to which i refer below. border as a notion is applied in a broad sense, and any differentiation becomes an instance of (b)ordering. this is undoubtedly the case, but of little analytical value. neighbourliness and spectre are on the other hand are crucial and thoroughly addressed in the introduction and throughout the book. joyce follows this type of hauntological studies, where ghost are interconnected with concrete impacts of organisational forces. ghosts do not have to be seen as present in direct fashion, as separate and somewhat perceivable entities; instead those are things, moments, details 2 that draw attention to unspeakable traumatic pasts and also incomplete, no-longerpossible or unlikely futures of the region. they are potentials: lost or still present, enabling certain futures but also restraining what is possible. chapter 1 is chiefly methodological and its content is revealed in a subtitle: working with fragments, trances and absences. joyce reflects on ethics and strategies of dealing with temptations which are present in many ethnographic works – not on a declarative level but really in ethnographic practice: how to deal with empty spots, when to restrain one’s own need to search what was “really there,” how to address what is unspoken or only what is hinted at? how not to give up to a temptation to “give a full picture,” without gaps, “thoroughly research and documented”? actually the book does follow the methodological recommendations the development of which joyce shows in this chapter – the picture of bielo joyce paints is fragmented and uncertain, without recourse to the researcher’s unshakeable authority. this should be understood as a great compliment. chapter 2 looks at the region as a tourist development area and shows how differently the region is constructed for different types of tourists and, moreover, in different languages. joyce refers to practices of orientalization and exoticization, of exploiting difference for tourist purposes but she also points out that so-called “dark tourism,” so much present in poland in general, is not that prominent as it could be in this region, which can be better understood in light of description and analysis of spectre of jewish presence analysed in chapter 5. chapter 3 presents some of the history of this region, in a very concise form, for readers not acquainted with it. it is impressive how joyce managed to contain a wealth of information within relatively few pages, including such historical events as bieżeństwo very important for this region, but relatively little known. chapter 4 concerns religious difference presented as a kind of border in combination with ethnic identification and nation-focused policies of various states. this chapter is most importantly about state attempts at homogenisation, which were often conducted through exploitation of religious difference. in chapter 5 the hauntology approach is most straightforward. the main focus are stories told in confidence or not told at all; places that are treated in a special way without the reasons being explicitly addressed; and what joyce calls asocial memories – those memories where disagreements, conflicts and absences have infused the landscape. it is zooms on jewish ghosts and the fact the although today’s children learn about holocaust, they still do not know much about jewish neighbours of their grandparents. although, this knowledge is lacking on explicit level; on another one, they still do not eat apples growing on a particular field – where jewish cemetery used to be located. chapter 6 returns to the religious theme already addressed in chapter 4 through analysis of bielo as a pilgrimage site. it brings many themes of previous chapters, especially neighbourliness and tourism together, as interacting modi of the town’s existence. in the conclusion joyce provides a good summary of the main arguments of the book and underlines that her work is not about past and present, and not only about how ghosts – from the past – influence the present. it is book about future, as many hauntological works actually are. she finished with a quotation from max fisher’s work: “when the present has 3 given up on the future we must listen for the relics of the future in the unactivated potentials of the past” (fisher 2013: 2013). this book helps us to imagine what a borderland is and can be in this particular regional context and how important this notion is for contemporary politics. it delivers an ethnographic description of the phenomenon of the borderland in present-day poland, and shows how it influences people's lives, thoughts and actions, both as an idea, but also as an everyday practice and result of state and other political forces. this deeper understanding of this particular borderland is particularly important as in the polish context this one seem to feed particularly potently an image of borderland as such. admittedly, there is a long history of interest in the eastern borderland in poland, and joyce refers to this interest to some extent (although she quotes and discusses almost exclusively works written in english, also by polish scholars, and the literature in polish, belarusian or ukrainian is little present in her analysis), but joyce’s approach does bring a new dimensions especially through use of innovative frameworks of haunting, neighbourliness and borders. the idea of what borderland is or should be has been in a polish context shaped by discourses and state organisational practices taking place where joyce conducted her research; other border regions in poland received much less research attention. only in recent years, there has been a definite increase in interest in other borderlands and especially other hauntings – in particularly those inhabiting the so-called "post-german lands." because joyce shows how this eastern borderland is made and maintained, state-organised and practiced, and not only how it is imagined, i believe her work can help to generate more critical and innovative works on other haunted borderlands, and especially on how ghosts influence imaginings and materialisations of various futures. works cited: fisher, m. (2013). the metaphysics of crackle: afrofuturism and hauntology. dancecult: journal of electronic dance music culture, 42-55. agnieszka halemba (phd cambridge 2003) is a professor at the institute of archaeology and ethnology, polish academy of sciences and a lecture at the university of potsdam in germany. she conducted long-term field research in siberia, transcarpathian ukraine and eastern germany in anthropology of religion as the core field but with interest and outputs in border studies, anthropology beyond the human, and political anthropology. © 2024 agnieszka halemba 1 barua, maan. 2024. plantation worlds, durham: duke university press, 312 pp., isbn: 978-1478020868 the plantation is alive and kicking. large swatches of land in the global south are being turned into monocultural plantations of oil palm, soybean, cut flowers, and the usual tropical commodities like bananas, sugar cane, coffee, and tea. no surprise then that plantations have become a critical site of ethnographic and archival explorations as well as novel theorizing. part of the scholarly attractiveness of plantation spaces, it seems, comes from anna tsing and donna haraway’s apt conceptualizing of the current era as the plantationocene, marked by the alienation, circulation, and slavery of people and plants. maan barua’s book plantation worlds (2024) is a brilliant contribution to this expanding field of plantation studies. barua is an extraordinarily productive scholar with a knack for conceptual work and this book is no exception. he draws on the notion of the plantationocene, but insists on it being a plantationocene, stressing the particularity and specificities of the plantation landscape in assam, in the northeastern corner of india, that he is concerned with. this is a postcolonial landscape completely transformed through the establishment of monocultural tea estates in the second part of the 19th century, with the enclosure of huge tracts of land, massive clearings of forests, dispossession of people, and the construction of roads, railways, and other infrastructure developments. along with this, a large number of people were brought in as plantation laborers leading to a major demographic shift, both in terms of numbers as well as ethnic composition. the region, as barua puts it, “is a south within the south”; a hinterland and a resource frontier. the assam tea industry has been the subject of a large number of studies, notably pioneering work by historians who have accounted for the manner in which the colonial administration granted planters access to huge land grants and facilitated the supply of laborers to the estates. most of the laborers were recruited from impoverished parts of eastern india and kept under 2 the most horrible conditions in the plantation estates. barua acknowledges the importance of the earlier research into the dark history of the indentured labor regime that developed in assam, mentioning especially the work by scholars like amalendu guha and rana partap behal. but, as i will outline in this review, barua’s aim and scope differ. in the plantation worlds book, we learn about adivasi farmers, elephants, feral plants, forest reservation, oil extraction, and identity politics; stories that rarely figure in accounts of tea plantations in assam and elsewhere. as barua puts it, these are stories that “exceed the physical locus of the plantation.” the book opens with a telling account of a group of elephants that stray into villagers’ fields, munching into farmers’ hard-toiled crops. as we learn, survival in the assam plantationocene is hard for both people and elephants (and other non-humans) that inhabit a landscape compartmentalized into separate spaces for tea plantations, agriculture villages, forest reserves, and wildlife sanctuaries. but as life cannot thrive in isolation, people, animals, and plants constantly move out of their assigned spaces and entangle in unruly and unexpected ways. plants brought into the plantation as cover crops to suppress weeds or for nitrogen fixation have escaped into nearby forests and fields, creating a major impediment for farmers and more-thanhuman survival. mikania micrantha, a creeper introduced from central america, is a case in point. the plant is highly invasive and a major cause of ecological ruination, for example, by destroying elephant habitats. elephants are especially vulnerable in the re-configured postcolonial landscape. their habitats are shrinking, and as they are migratory beings, they constantly trespass into the spaces assigned to humans. “dwelling with elephants is a fraught endeavor,” as barua puts it (p. 11). in some places, villagers are forced to give up agriculture altogether, migrating elsewhere due to frequent elephant incursions and destruction of houses, crops, and eventual loss of life. at times, especially notorious elephants are killed. on the back of a poisoned, dead elephant, villagers have scribbled “paddy thief,” in assamese. for the elephants, it is a matter of navigating a complex and changing human-made landscape where their mobility is heavily restricted by railway lines, fences, and industrial estates, and when stuck in a place, they are forced to depend on cultivated crops and food grain stored in people’s houses. some elephants have become rather skilled at this, forming smaller groups that raid crops at night to avoid being detected. barua is a geographer by training and the book is based on a rich and captivating combination of archival sources along with ethnography and ethology. he knows assam intimately, being born there and regularly coming back for visits and fieldwork. infrastructure is a central node 3 in his analytic, and then not only in terms of material stuff like roads, railways, pipes, and energy grids, but expanded into thinking about infrastructural properties and agency of vegetal beings and non-human animals. what holds the book together, and what i read as the key concern, is the unfolding of a special plantation logic that molds both human and more-thanhuman worlds. this is a capitalist logic that produces cheap nature, a monoculture of tea, and extraction of natural resources like timber, coal, and oil. but it is also a colonial logic that seeks to discipline and order the landscape according to a specific administrative matrix; classifying land, establishing ownership and forms of property, and keeping nature and culture separate. and, as barua stresses, it is a racial ordering where colonized people are rendered or reduced to cheap labor. it is both singular and plural, “the plantation logics.” despite the formal end of british rule, the logics persist. in working through the specificities of the assam plantationocene, barua asks what “livability” means in a landscape marked by the routine violence that plantations generate. this question certainly has wider currency. it is something that many of us grapple with. barua ends by suggesting that there are leaks and openings for other “cartographies of dwelling.” plantation worlds is a highly ambitious and complex book that is hard to summarize and, more so, to review. here, i have only touched upon some of the issues that are covered. in reading the book i keep thinking about my own work tracing the travel of the assam tea plant from its origin in the forest, cultivated by different indigenous communities as an agroforestry crop, then turned into a plantation crop by the british, later taken across the indian ocean to various locations of the empire and beyond. what is similar and different between, say, the present plantationocene in the kenyan highlands and the assam one, outlined by barua? what significance has the crop cultivated; what does the tea plant itself bring to how the logics play out or unfolds in different locations? as with all good books, i end up with a set of new inquiries to pursue. in sum, i would highly recommend this read to all scholars concerned with precarious survival and cobecomings in places ravaged by dispossession and environmental destruction. bengt g. karlsson is professor of social anthropology at stockholm university, sweden. he is mainly working on issues relating indigenous peoples and the society-environment interface, with particular focus on the politics of ethnicity and nature in india. karlsson has published on topics like indigeneity, forests, conservation, mining, subaltern movements, ethnicity, development and political ecology. he is presently working on two projects concerning plantpeople entanglements, one on food crops in the eastern himalayas and another on tea plantations across the indian ocean. karlsson is member of the royal swedish academy of letters, history and antiquities. 4 © 2024 bengt g. karlsson 1 aijazi, omer. atmospheric violence: disaster and repair in kashmir. university of pennsylvania press, 2024. 281pp. isbn 9781512823622 keywords: ethnography; radical humanist anthropology; disaster studies; affect theory; decolonization; conflict; borderland. lata mani (2022) reminds us that our task as anthropologists is to represent and interpret a world that is infinitely messy, playful, mysterious and magical. omer aijazi’s first monograph upholds this potential. engaging with the afterlife of environmental disasters and armed conflicts, atmospheric violence stands as a searing witness to an alternative form of living in azad kashmir, or pakistan administered kashmir. in an atmosphere of chronic violence, the borderland in aijazi’s lyrical work features as a conglomeration of movement, intensity and affect. the militarized, ecologically brittle valleys or the mountainous periphery where the ethnography is based becomes the center of life. a form of life that people continue to live despite the atrocities, formulating and reformulating their own politics of breath. addressing all the writers, dreamers and the world makers, making this his heart work, aijazi puts critical studies of disaster in conversation with radical humanist anthropology, black studies, indigenous studies, affect theory and islamic philosophy. this kind of scholastic tapestry is a breath of fresh air. breaking the obsession with area studies, establishing cross disciplinary dialogues, aijazi looks for the political in the intimate every day. moving away from the grand narratives revolving around the nation state and the sovereign citizen, aijazi launches an epistemic disobedience. flowing from one fragment to the other, fragments that make and break lives, locating theory in the flesh, ajazi attempts to dismantle the myriad hermeneutical injustices that the social sciences are inundated with. using a decolonial approach 2 to disaster studies centering not on trauma but repair, aijazi grapples with multiple forms of violence. immeasurable forms of violence that are foregrounded in the mountains in and through the textures of the ordinary. illuminating these miniscule textures, this magnificent ethnography immerses the readers into the precarious lives of the people in the borderland. these are lives that are lived in a state of debilitating fear and world annihilation. uncommonly beautiful and mortally dangerous is how azad kashmir comes alive in and through ajazi’s pen of immense might. he thinks collaboratively and across traditions, weaving an intellectual assemblage, shattering the normative episteme conditioning kashmir studies. replete with various kinds of scholastic drifts ricocheting between various kinds of belonging and nonbelonging, this book embodies a creative contradiction. this contradiction is both – of life and of anti-disciplinarity. commanding a wide breath of scholarship, aijazi shows that his interlocuters attempt to live despite the world. they refuse to accept the norm and forge a life in and of contradiction. seamlessly blurring the stringent divides between theory and activism, inside and outside, fact and fiction, for aijazi, knowledge production becomes a form of attunement rather than capture. shunning the dominant discourses on kashmir revolving around geopolitical territories and security analysis, ajazi marvelously documents the alternative memories and aspirations of kashmir, steadily nestling in the crevasses of the mountains. in this work, the ordinary throws itself together out of forms, flows, powers, pleasures, distractions, drudgery, denials, practical solutions, shape-shifting forms of violence, daydreams and opportunities lost and found. braiding a humongous range of theory with ethnographic vignettes, aijazi organizes the book in five scenesrelational instances where a text is connected with another and the self is connected to the other. seeing and feeling the intensities of the ‘other’, abundantly using photographs for the reader’s sensory delight, aijazi introduces us to five scenes. featuring five protagonists, there are scenesof betrayal, of kindness, a scene of friendship, a scene where ugly feelings feature and a scene on opacity or refusal. 3 in the first scene, where aijazi intertwines form and content, we meet niaz, an aspiring school teacher, whose failed body refuses to recover just like the disasterstricken landscape. niaz disrupts the synchronicity of the present, betraying it, opening a future that evades it. by refusing repair, niaz dwells in the interstices, opening up an alternate ontology or a modality of life. loss is not the only ramification of violence in aijazi’s work. locating violence in the mundane every day, this deft ethnography churns out the generative potentialities and the redeeming aspects of life amidst violence. in the second scene, aijazi introduces us to parveena midwife who makes her way to the clinic every morning. she hopes her deceased husband will be blessed if she continues with her hard work of serving others. kindness becomes her modality of being, a set of ethical relations that revolve around compassion and a life lived well together with othersboth visible and invisible, creating an alternate sociality. the elderly sattar shah and his friendship with god imbricates the third scene. a polyvalent character, sattar shah reconciles immanence and transcendence through his poetic knowledge and spiritual longing. once again, through sattar shah’s narrative, aijazi effectively breaks the binary between this world and a divine elsewhere. following scholars like leela fernandes, schileke samuli and others, aijazi effectively decolonizes the divine giving us a fecund space for thinking sacred subjectivities and metaphysical yearnings anew. in the fourth scene we meet with an irritated abrar. abrar’s exasperation is materially grounded in his lifeworld. aijazi names abrar’s ongoing frustrations as minor anger. minor anger draws much needed attention to the frictions arising from a form of life that is destabilized by fixed sovereignty of any kind. rendering singular sovereignty non-operational, aijazi shows how minor anger or ugly feelings in everyday gestures compel for an ethical urgency. succumbing to this ethical urgency people often engage with those elements that impede the daily flow of life. in this chapter, aijazi incisively argues that such engagements often generate an alternate way of living instead of being counterproductive to life and flourishing. 4 chandni bibi enters in the last scene. she survives at the end of the world refusing a unilinear representation, clamoring for opacity. opening up to the discrepant possibilities that the perilous everyday has to offer, chandni bibi like sattar shah and niaz inculcates an expectation from life that no one can satisfy. aijazi terms this as sovereignty in the making and i call it fractured sovereignty. in this web of expectations, nothing is final or stable. there is always something that is yet to comean element of wonder. throughout this endlessly generative book, aijazi tells stories that restore our belief in wholeness or entanglements incorporating bothlife and non-life. these are stories of resilience. stories that restore our faith in the human kind. merging the ethical and the political in a geo-politically disputed area, aijazi brilliance lies in disturbing the sovereign subject in and through the practice of breathing and kindness. kindness puts the breath back and breathing sews myriad relationalities, conditioning kaleidoscopic life worlds. omer ajazi’s writing is poetic, radical and uncannily perceptive. his work will deeply resonate with scholars interested in knowing life in its entirety, life amidst chaos and ruins. a political necessity, aijazi’s book holds valuable insights for anyone who breathes. it’s a rarity and a pleasure to encounter this kind of scholarship that oscillates between heartbeats and heartaches. this is the kind of scholarship that continually simplifies the self and amplifies the other, healing our souls, shaking our mind-hearts. work cited: mani, lata. myriad intimacies. duke university press, 2022. akashleena basu is a phd student in the department of anthropology at the university of minnesota, twin cities. © 2018 akashleena basu microsoft word patankar review.docx jassal, aftab singh. 2024. gods in the world: placemaking and healing in the himalayas. religion, culture, and public life. new york: columbia university press. 244 pp., isbn 978-0-231-21497-1 (paper). keywords: body, placemaking, relationality, non-human, india aftab s. jassal’s gods in the world is a finely crafted ethnography of uttarakhand at the juncture where neoliberal development converges with a resurgent hindu nationalist agenda. jassal conducted much of the fieldwork in 2011 amid state-sponsored initiatives that marshal economic, scientific, and bureaucratic resources to reconfigure local temples and deities. jassal shows how the insertion of danda nagaraj as a “fifth abode” on a time-honored pilgrimage circuit exemplifies the instrumentalization of sacred space for broader political ends. this mobilization seeks to establish a narrowly sanctioned mode of divine engagement — one mediated exclusively through brahminical ritual authority and formal darshan in consecrated precincts. yet such official narratives occlude the plurality of devotional life. jassal identifies two critical shortcomings of the hindu nationalist enterprise: its underlying bias against muslim and dalit communities, and its insistence on a unitary ontology of the divine that privileges textual, temple-bound practice. in contrast, uttarakhand’s communities experience their deities through richly localized modalities such as oral traditions, embodied performances, and ritual forms that often elude state-backed priestly hierarchies. by collaborating with jagari gurus, dalit ritual specialists who mediate village deities across caste boundaries, jassal charts these peripheral sacred spaces to reveal fault lines between state-sanctioned and vernacular ways of knowing. the result is a richly textured portrayal of human-divine relations that attends to their affective, moral, and political dimensions. jassal shows how deities can unsettle village governance, repair the ruptures wrought by patrilocal displacements, and enable communities to restore balance through embodied rituals. being chosen to speak for a deity may bring affliction, but when guided well, it can also bring healing. these deities also voice communal suffering and may even contest newer regional deities. portrayed as immanent and transcendent, they permeate the very fabric of social life. gods in the world thus deepens our understanding of himalayan religious practices while also demanding a reassessment of religious sovereignty amid competing claims to truth and authority. jassal foregrounds placemaking — the processes by which people produce, negotiate, and inhabit meaningful locales. in his conception, place is not a static backdrop but an ephemeral, dynamic domain of social action co-created by deities, humans, speech, movement, and material objects. he contends that placemaking serves as a vital technology of healing, reshaping social reality. within this cosmos, deities offer, choose, or impose their presence upon places and persons, to which humans respond by “surrendering” their agency. even when a deity is invoked via an oracle for ritual healing, that invocation itself emerges from circumstances deemed divinely motivated. consequently, uttarakhand reveals an asymmetrical, deity-governed world in which deities wield greater power than humans. jassal’s study advances scholarship on himalayan religious practices and placemaking in two significant ways. first, by centering village deities and their placemaking rituals, he reveals the processes through which deities manifest, engage with, and exert authority over social life. second, drawing on theories of embodiment, he demonstrates that placemaking operates through possession: the body becomes a site of negotiation, where inviting a divinity operates a space for human-divine interaction, and anchoring that divinity “in place” sets boundaries that calibrate its benefits and dangers. he further shows that deities’ power travels via human hosts and material artefacts, rendering somatic religious practices both central and pervasive. as an analytic category, placemaking thus reveals how diverse religious narratives and practices intersect, producing an epistemological map of religious traditions that sharply contrasts with the puranic order maintained by caste-privileged temple priests. in chapter 1, jassal draws on the garhwali orature, particularly the gaths, or ritual songs of jagar ceremonies, to trace a genealogy through which village deities enter social life. he maps these deities’ connections to both puranic gods and local rulers. he shows how this nexus informs devotees’ understanding of two pivotal shrines in the garhwal region: sem mukhem and danda nagaraj (28). the latter temple has recently been incorporated into a pilgrimage circuit harnessed by hindutva nationalists. consequently, in this chapter, the author illustrates the collision of two distinct epistemologies and ontologies of human-divine relations. jassal demonstrates how puranic and garhwali religious forms intersect, and he highlights embodiment as an organising principle in local cosmology, even when elite brahmin priests at these temples fail to recognise its centrality. in chapter 2, jassal illustrates that dosh, which is the continuum of affliction and healing, is understood by jagar mediums as a constellation of interlocking disturbances— psychophysical, social, and environmental—that affects humans and non-humans alike. this encounter is metaphorically likened to a “hooked thorn of jujube tree,” which pierces and adheres to divine and human actors. dosh arises from the arrogance of deities or humans, or from the harm done to a serpent, and thereby spreads like a contagion, attaching itself to people, creatures, objects and places (66, 73). yet these afflictions also open a space within the body for the deity, prompting negotiation of its presence along with attendant ideologies, ritual forms, and subjectivities. as jassal observes, “affliction and healing are not seen to constitute an oppositional binary; rather, they are recursive, iterative movements in a process of relational and existential transformation” (23). throughout this account, he emphasises the body’s special status as the medium capable of stabilising the deity’s dwelling. in chapter 3, jassal examines the panno ritual, in which village deities—functioning as political divinities—engage their “constituents” through dramatised episodes of the mahabharat. performed by dalit mediums, this dance-possession ceremony serves as a forum for deities and villagers across caste lines to express their demands and grievances. although in jassal’s account, a particular panno ultimately reinscribes caste hierarchies and imposes an extra levy on landless dalits, it nonetheless created a fleeting space in which the marginalised could present complaints directly to both the gods and the village’s landed elite (5). in chapter 4, jassal presents the case of ghost affliction among married women, showing how these disturbances mirror the physical, emotional, and relational upheavals produced by patrilocal marriage (101). he observes that women “theorised afflictions, including ghost affliction, not as exceptional but rather as coextensive with the gendered struggles and difficulties of everyday life and marriage” (117). in chapter 5, he turns to oral histories of dalit oracles and priests, who occupy a paradoxical position: as valued priests and healers, they embody religious authority, yet they themselves remain members of caste-oppressed communities (128). these narratives trace how dalit ritual specialists, skilled oracles, healers, and musicians come to their vocation in a quest for belonging, learning to listen when the gods call them home and endowing their lives with purpose. their stories underscore both human agency and the reciprocal bonds between the divine and practitioners, revealing how these connections foster fulfilment and healing for religious practitioners (127). in chapter 6, jassal traces the ritual procession of village deities, guided by jagar priests, to their “uncle’s” shrine at the jhakar saim. this expedition reveals a mythological geography: an embodied, intensely local sense of place that transcends modern administrative boundaries (159). here, an ontology distinct from the puranic traditions emerges. for the pilgrims, bathing in the village spring to encounter the divine eclipses the mere visual encounter within temple precincts (170). in the epilogue, jassal introduces the concept of manana, which is to acknowledge, honour, and respect, as a more meaningful term than 'belief', suggesting that religion is a relational inner, lived reality rather than an abstract proposition. each chapter stands as an independent exploration within its own thematic terrain, yet together they map a cohesive vision. jassal guides us through a diverse array of religious lifeworlds while quietly articulating his unique approach to the anthropology of religion, body, and place. the intellectual toolkit he assembles invites readers to recognize the religious across varied spheres and layers of social existence. three pressing issues are catalogued in the book but remain undeveloped analytically: 1. the polyvalent nature of the garhwali narrative and ritual complex; 2. the position of landowning garhwali villagers visa-vis puranic and hindutva versions of hindu traditions; and 3. the agency of humans in divine-human relationships. although jassal richly documents origin myths, his later chapters sometimes suggest that the garhwali orature is monolithic. he begins his book by meticulously cataloguing variations in garhwal’s origin myths but then abandons this pluralizing approach, implicitly portraying orature as uniform. although his emphasis on orature enriches our understanding of hindu practice, the absence of divergent voices within this normative framework risks reducing orature to a static artefact. preserving its multiplicity requires attention to how ordinary people engage with these narratives in a discordant manner. in the preface to listening to the heron’s words (1994), raheja and gold integrate subaltern studies into ethnographic practice, shifting from archives to field inquiry to reveal ruptures in discursive fields and emphasise that subaltern perspectives are neither fixed nor singular. rather than recovering one definitive subaltern voice, they urge us to “recognise the discontinuity, the interpretation of the hegemonic subversive, and their varied deployments, from moment to moment in everyday lives” (16). by adopting this approach, ethnographers can ensure that orature remains a vibrant and contested site of meaning. turning from jassal’s analysis of broad regional myths to his gendered case studies, we see where his framework succeeds and where it falters. in chapter 4, jassal observes that garhwali hinduism has retained its autonomous nature, which makes the practice both potent and enduring. yet he leaves unexplored how different social actors draw on these narrative resources. in his discussion of newly married women’s possession rituals within a patrilocal system, he clearly distinguishes between how men and women interpret the ritual. this inclusion of diverse voices is commendable, but it raises the question of whether the women are only associated with the ritual in a normative, unilateral manner. ethnographies across rural south asia reveal that both married and unmarried women appropriate religious narratives and practices to enrich their lives. raheja and gold show in rural uttar pradesh and rajasthan that women’s defiance of husbands—and even young wives’ adulterous behavior—can be locally valorized (xvi-xxii), and that normative traditions themselves carve out sanctioned spaces for resistance, as seen in married women’s varied deployment of veiling in north india (xxiii). thus, religious practices serve not only as a collective practice but as a resource individuals mobilize to forge unique realities. raheja and gold’s work implies that jassal’s study of possession rituals may likewise harbor resistant potentials beyond his framework. although broader political cultures have shifted since raheja and gold’s fieldwork, traditions now face pressure toward uniformity; jassal demonstrates that possession-based practices have nonetheless endured in garhwal. it is therefore reasonable to surmise that these rituals may have preserved their inherently plural character. moreover, by situating himself primarily among the priestly class, jassal remains insulated from the perspective of possessed women and those at the margins of the patrilocal marriage system. their absence reinforces a portrayal of garhwali hinduism as prescriptive and monolithic rather than dynamic and contested. second, the issue of religious authority resurfaces in the final chapter when a dalit pilgrim confronts a caste-privileged priest, insisting that in garhwal ritual status cannot be bought. although this challenge targets a caste-privileged priest, it also echoes the broader influence of hindutva-driven religious culture. in the pilgrim’s view, traditional high-caste customs have become entwined with development-backed hindutva agendas. although the dalit pilgrim conflates high-caste village customs with hindutva agendas. yet, jassal reminds us in chapter 1 that puranic and hindutva forms of hindu traditions remain distinct from garhwali practices, which are rooted in bodily possessions. this contrast raises pivotal questions: how do garhwali elites, whose authority derives from possession rituals, now engage with puranic and hindutva forms of devotion? do these registers clash or coexist on their own terms? and ultimately, who defines religious authority in garhwal, and by what means? jassal vividly demonstrates how deities intervene in human social worlds, exerting moral force while also legitimizing individual actions. in garhwal, village deities are regarded not merely as figures of dependence but as the very source of communal strength. this prompts a critical question: does a deity’s moral force adapt to each devotee’s circumstances? jassal addresses this question in part by tracing shifts in divine influence across locales but stops short of examining variation by social position and individual will. although he frames affliction and healing as iterative, cyclical processes, he leaves unresolved whether deities themselves rely on human agency to sustain their presence. do devotees ever contest or render a deity obsolete? under what conditions do individuals navigate competing divine discourses? moreover, of deities so actively engage in a world marked by entrenched caste and class divisions and wield considerable, disproportionate power, one must ask: what hierarchies exist among the deities themselves? in other words, what is the deities’ caste? for the contemporary anthropologist of south asia, the greatest challenge is to eschew perennialism, just as historians must guard against presentism. no single ethnographic account can address every critical issue; yet jassal’s book raises many of them, testifying to its remarkable ambition. i invite jassal to treat these questions as catalysts for further research and scholarly dialogue. references raheja, gloria goodwin, and ann grodzins gold. 2007. listen to the heron’s words: reimagining gender and kinship in north india. university of california press. mayuri patankar, m.a. in religious studies, emory university, 2023 © 2025 mayuri patankar microsoft word kolb review #2.docx catharina e. santasilia, guy david hepp, and richard a. diehl (eds.) 2022, identities, experience, and change in early mexican villages. gainesville: university press of florida, 350 pp. isbn 13: 9780813069296 the mesoamerican formative period is divided into three logical time periods (early/initial, middle, and late/terminal) with absolute (radiometric) regional and site chronologies varying within the 2000 bce-ce 250 timeframe. it is characterized by critical transitions in social, political, and economic dynamics, with the appearance of sedentary farming communities, pottery technology, long distance trade/exchange, and increasing social inequality fostering larger and more abundant settlements leading to the formation of cities. editors santasilia and hepp are recent phds, while diehl has retired recently. sixteen contributors range from a student seeking her master’s degree, a recent phd, and younger and seasoned scholars. four writers are from mexico and two others are recently retired archaeologists. one-third of the contributors have direct connections to the archaeology program at the university of colorado. the editors’ goal was to assemble an international group of scholars to explore the development of social identity in a broad selection of formative period mexican communities. this research topic is, they write, “ripe for investigating the interplay of changing identities, interaction, and lived experiences as well as the relationships of these to broader socioeconomic changes” (p. 2). the book, dedicated to michael d. coe (1920-2019), a pioneer of formative period studies, contains the editors’ contextual essay, nine chapters of case studies, and concluding assessment. the narratives are accompanied by 48 figures, 12 maps, three tables, a list of 26 abbreviations, a set of brief author biographies, and a very useful 12-page index; each chapter has its own bibliography. the chapters cover diverse topics unified by recent research on formative period social identity ranging from studies of individual archaeological sites to the assessment of ceramic figurines, an archaeometric study of portable greenstone objects, shifts in subsistence, and dynamic ritual and social modifications. blomster focuses on the early formative eatlatongo site in mixteca alta, oaxaca and an assemblage of ceramic figurines, their distributions, and meanings. using agency theory, he identifies two types of rubber ballgame players, redefines “individual” social identities, and relationships to olmec art style. the early to middle formative in the gulf coast is emphasized by arnold iii in his analysis of wild plant and animal subsistence resources, hunting and fishing, which precede incipient farming. he illustrates this transformation with several data sets from southern veracruz, and postulates a diachronic model of settlement pattern, economic, and ritual changes where offerings became more formalized. hepp reviews social changes during early formative coastal oaxaca, focusing on sensorial applications of archaeological contexts and materiality at the village site of la consentida. sounds, smells, and other sensations are inferred to define the roles of feasting, public performance, and ritual practice. bernard, ladrón de guevara, manrique, and ruvalcaba report their preliminary examination of olmec greenstone portable sculpture, most of which lack archaeological context. they detail mineralogical characteristics of mesoamerican jadeite using portable ftir, fors, and xrf technologies, from museum artifacts and new arroyo pesquero site finds. they conclude that the olmec maintained continuous relationships with foreign groups who controlled the raw material source or its subsequent distribution. regional and corporate identities in west mexico are documented by beekman, who notes that this huge region is not well-studied. tombs at el opeño, michoacán provide evidence of offerings from widespread sources. diachronic changes in social equality suggest a similar cosmovision between the west and central regions rather than the gulf coast; fire and earth deities prevailed, not olmec water deities. at the central mexican site of tlatilco, ochoa castillo documents ritual activities including shamanism (burial 154). the pan-mesoamerican ballgame, acrobatic figural representations, mortuary rituals, and osteological evidence are expressions of the cosmology. santasilia concentrates on artifacts from 450 tlatilco burials. olmec influence toward the end of the early formative was minimal, as seen in ceramic ballplayer figurines, masks, and pottery. an analysis of 80 objects from a museum in riverside, california shows affinities with the chupicuaro, guerrero site, demonstrating that post-olmec tlatilco trade interests shifted over time from southwest to east and southeast. the “critical period” of middle formative in the basin of mexico and adjacent puebla valley is refined by murakami, who examines the radiocarbon calibration curve problem (the “hallstadt plateau”), provides a chronological revision and new understanding of regional social transformations. his well-argued bayesian modeling and recalibration, revisions to chalcatzingo site chronology, combined with ceramic cross-dating, concludes that societies in central mexico did not face sociopolitical disruptions seen in the west and south. chalcatzingo’s decline and associated population nucleation in the northeast basin of mexico stimulated the formation of the classic period teotihuacan state (250-650 ce). brzezinski, monson, joyce, and barber examine ceremonial offerings from the cerro de la virgen site on the oaxacan pacific coast during the terminal formative. these artifacts reflect competing forms of political authority and the fundamental role of religion as a “crucible of tension.” communal rituals, caching, burials, and mortuary goods illustrate status differences, political fragmentation, and eventually site abandonment. diehl reflects on the formative period in four ways (pp. 291-298): 1) its history; 2) the nature of the period (2000 bce-ad 250); 3) studies characterizing the period, 1900-1960; and 4) research revealing the period 1960-1980, with new technologies, directions, and understandings 1960-present. the latter has a cultural evolutionary framework with supporting demographic and settlement pattern studies. the 1967 dumbarton oaks conference on the olmec established a new research agenda. he observes that the new approaches employed by the authors examine several longstanding concerns about the mesoamerican formative. lastly, diehl comments on the nine contributions (pp. 298-308), concluding that formative studies are thriving and in good hands. he laments the destruction of archaeological sites and foresees “several great syntheses of formative mesoamerica in the near future.” this unique approach to formative studies provides a foundation for the reassessment of social identity complexities and interactions during this critical period in mesoamerican studies which precede the rise of multifaceted states during the classic period. prior research focused on materiality and socioeconomics whereas this volume demonstrates how nontraditional approaches can lead to new perspectives and interpretations. the essays by murakami, ochoa castillo, and santasilia are especially outstanding. this volume joins other recent publications that demonstrate transformations during the formative; especially love and guernsey (eds.) (2022) early mesoamerican cities: urbanism and urbanization in the formative period; delance and feinman (eds.) (2022) framing complexity in formative mesoamerica; doering (2014) “mesoamerica in the preclassic period: early, middle, late formative” in encyclopedia of global archaeology; williams (2018) “ancient west mexico in the formative period” in ancient west mexico; and ebert (2023) “the formative period in mesoamerica” in elsevier reference collection in social sciences. diehl’s other syntheses have arrived. charlie kolb holds a b.a. in history from the pennsylvania state university and earned his ph.d. at penn state in anthropology and archaeology focusing on, latin america and central asia. from 1962-2018 he conducted archaeological field work in mesoamerica, central asia, and northeastern north america. he taught for 24 years at penn state, bryn mawr, and mercyhurst university, retiring after 23 years as senior program officer at the national endowment for the humanities. kolb conducted archaeometric analyses on ceramics since 1962, and served for 26 years as associate editor for archaeological ceramics of the society for archaeological sciences bulletin. since 1965 he has authored 6 monographs, 169 articles and book chapters, 858 book reviews, and 63 encyclopedia contributions. drs. diehl and kolb were undergraduate and graduate classmates at penn state in the 1960s mentored by bill sanders. they both excavated and conducted extensive site surveys in mexico’s teotihuacan valley. dick worked on the formative sites, while charlie labored on the classic period – their dissertations were on those subjects. © 2024 charlie kolb microsoft word marti gil dna review.docx 1 daniel strand, anna källén, and charlotte mulcare, eds. 2024. critical perspectives on ancient dna, cambridge, ma: mit press, 206 pp., isbn 978-0-262-548090. abstract: as the first comprehensive inquiry of its kind, critical perspectives on ancient dna critically interrogates the practices, narratives, and sociocultural effects of archaeogenetics. bringing together scholars from anthropology, archaeology, genetics, cultural history, media studies, and science and technology studies, the collection examines the epistemological and ontological challenges of ancient dna (adna) research. key themes include the fallibility of adna as incontrovertible evidence, the epistemic dominance of genetic frameworks over alternative knowledge systems, the risks of scientific racism and political instrumentalization, and the role of media in shaping public imaginaries of the past. through case studies ranging from neanderthal dna to the “female viking warrior” and genetic mapping in contemporary china, the chapters demonstrate that adna knowledge emerges not solely from laboratory analysis but from complex interactions between science, culture, and society. the volume ultimately challenges dna essentialism and calls for interdisciplinary collaboration to resist molecular chauvinism, foregrounding the cultural contingencies and interpretive dimensions of archaeogenetics. keywords: adna, paleogenetics, epistemic dominance, molecular chauvinism, social power. this edited volume offers the first comprehensive and critical examination of the practices and impacts of archaeogenetics, foregrounding its sociocultural as well as scientific implications within broader societal contexts. structured around an introduction and eight chapters, the collection addresses a central concern: the fallibility of ancient dna (adna) as incontrovertible archaeological evidence and the imperative to remain critical of the ways in which ancient dna findings are produced, interpreted, and mobilized. 2 in the introduction, d. strand and a. källén provide a clear and accessible entry point into the field. they trace the exponential growth of adna research over the past fifteen years, enabled by advances in bioinformatics and innovations such as next-generation sequencing, and situate this trajectory within the broader recognition paleogenetics has received in both scientific and public arenas—culminating in the awarding of the 2022 nobel prize in medicine to svante pääbo for his groundbreaking work. crucially, the introduction underscores how the discourse and practice of archaeogenetics have evolved in continuous interaction with popular imagination. this framing establishes the book’s core argument: that adna research, shaped by contextual demands, scientific and social pressures, and expectations of revolutionary discovery, has often been misapplied. in this process, it has acquired qualities of what the editors call “sensational science” (p. xi)—empirically speculative and affectively charged (p. 114). this volume foregrounds the epistemological and ontological challenges that define the field of archaeogenetics. epistemologically, the lack of genuine interdisciplinarity, coupled with the shaping effects of knowledge-production and visualization technologies, profoundly influences how raw data are analyzed and interpreted. in chapter 1, geneticists c. mulcare and m. pruvost address these challenges from a personal perspective, emphasizing the need to recognize the fundamental epistemological distinctions between genomic sciences and the humanities and social sciences. rather than seeking to collapse these differences, they call for acknowledging them and engaging in acts of translation across disciplinary boundaries. these epistemological issues have direct consequences for the ontological dimensions of the field. the portrayal of adna as incontrovertible proof, combined with a lack of cultural awareness— arguably a symptom of interdisciplinary shortcomings—raises pressing concerns. chief among these is the narrow, biologically reductionist definition of ancestry that dominates genetic science. in chapter 4, hopi tribe member s. koyiyumptewa and anthropologist c. colwell interrogate this limitation by contrasting the strictly biological conception of ancestry in archaeogenetics with hopi understandings, which conceive ancestry as an intricate tapestry of humans, nonhumans, material objects, places, and historical events. their analysis reveals the inadequacy of genetic frameworks for capturing the complexity of social identity and highlights the epistemic dominance of genomic perspectives. the chapter ultimately underscores the need for collaborative approaches 3 capable of negotiating and reconciling divergent conceptualizations of ancestry within archaeogenetics. also within the epistemological realm, chapter 2 by cultural scholars m. sommer and r. amstutz demonstrates how software programs—often presented as neutral, data-driven tools—are in fact generative, producing divergent research outcomes depending on the decisions of programmers and researchers. such technologies not only structure scientific results but also risk perpetuating traditions of scientific racism. whether advertently or not, racism and racial politics emerge as central by-products of contemporary adna research, as illustrated in chapters 5 and 7. in chapter 5, anthropologist a. m’charek interrogates the cultural meaning-making surrounding concepts of race and identity by examining how archaeogenetics informs popular imagination. drawing on personal memories and fieldnotes from her leadership of a laboratory working with neanderthal dna, m’charek argues that the recent “whitening” and cultural assimilation of the neanderthal stem from the discovery of genetic relatedness between neanderthals and modern humans. this reframing has reshaped both scientific and popular understandings of human evolution, with profound implications for the conceptualization of sameness and otherness. she warns of the dangers inherent in using adna to construct singular evolutionary narratives—in this case, a whitewashed account of the neanderthal—that reinforce racialized imaginaries with significant consequences for racial politics in europe and beyond. in a parallel critique, anthropologist m. fiskesjö (chapter 7) highlights the political stakes of genetic racism. he exposes the ways in which archaeogenetics, through the classificatory power of naming in genetic mappings of past and present populations, becomes complicit in the politicized manipulation of ethnicity. his analysis of contemporary china reveals how genetic research can be mobilized to serve state agendas, thereby contributing to violations of human rights. this case underscores the broader potential of archaeogenetics to be harnessed for political ambitions with severe consequences. these chapters also illuminate the pivotal role of language: the terminology used to frame, interpret, and communicate adna research not only constrains scholarly discourse but also powerfully shapes public understandings. media historian a. nyblom emphasizes the importance of attending to the “mechanisms of closure” (p. 133)—the rhetorical strategies employed in 4 archaeological research to obscure necessary and ethically important ambiguities in historical interpretation. nyblom develops this argument further in chapter 6, where he explores the mediatization of science and the social power of dna through the widely publicized case of the so-called “female viking warrior.” he demonstrates that archaeogeneticists who conducted genomic analysis of the remains interred with weapons in birka (present-day sweden) misused the symbolic authority of dna as a truth-confirming device. although genomic analysis played only a marginal role in determining the biological sex of the individual, genetics was invoked as the ultimate authority to affirm both the identification of the skeleton as female and the existence of professional, highranking female warriors in the viking age. in reality, the figure of the female warrior emerged not directly from genomic evidence but from complex interpretive processes involving archaeology, mythology, and contemporary fiction, shaped by interactions among archaeologists, academic journals, popular culture, news outlets, and social media. this social power of dna is also examined in chapter 3, where science scholar v. oikkonen analyzes cultural representations of ancient pathogens preserved in permafrost. the author situates these narratives within broader anxieties about climate change, highlighting fears that dormant pathogens might be revived and pose new threats to human health. this chapter underscores that adna research concerns not only reconstructions of the past but also speculative futures. the volume concludes with chapter 8, a commentary that returns to the central claim set out in the introduction: archaeogenomics does not represent a scientific revolution in the kuhnian sense, but rather a “hyperbolic euphemism” (p. xii). as molecular anthropologist a. horsburgh observes, “despite the grandiose claims to the contrary, adna data have not, and will not, revolutionize reconstructions of the past” (p.173). drawing on her own experiences with adna research, horsburgh argues that genetic data only become meaningful when interpreted in relation to other forms of evidence, particularly social and historical contexts. her reflections highlight the necessity of sustained interdisciplinary collaboration to resist “molecular chauvinism”—the treatment of genetic data as inherently pure or privileged—and instead embrace the epistemological complexity of adna studies. in sum, this volume makes a significant contribution by interrogating the epistemological, ontological, and political dimensions of archaeogenetics, demonstrating how adna research is 5 entangled with media, cultural imaginaries, and disciplinary power relations. by exposing the risks of molecular chauvinism and epistemic dominance, while also pointing to the possibilities of genuine interdisciplinary collaboration, the book provides both a cautionary and constructive framework for future work. it should be considered essential reading for scholars across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences who are invested in critically assessing the promises and perils of adna. author bio: dr. irene martí gil is the educational outreach coordinator and anthropology collections manager at the lsu museum of natural science in baton rouge, louisiana. she obtained a ph.d. in anthropology from louisiana state university in 2023, which fulbright sponsored. previously, she earned her master’s degree in cultural heritage from university college london (london), a bachelor’s degree in archaeology from universitat autònoma de barcelona-université parissorbonne iv (barcelona-paris), and a degree in liberal arts from escuela de liderazgo universitario-universidad francisco de vitoria (madrid). her field of research encompasses a broad range of topics including archaeological looting and antiquities trafficking, southeastern us anthropology, museology, and digital anthropology, among others. © 2025 irene martí gil 1 brandi simpson miller, 2022, food and identity in nineteenth and twentieth century ghana: food, fights, and regionalism. cham: springer international, 327 pp. isbn: 978-3030-88403-1 food and identity in nineteenth and twentieth century ghana: food, fights, and regionalism, by brandi simpson miller (2022) deals with the historic developments of ghanaian foodways1 in the nineteenth and twentieth century. rooted in her own identity as a nigerian-us american scholar and women of color she resolves – despite most of her archival sources being european – to write from a more local (ghanaian) perspective. this has proven to be dearly needed as this volume advances the current body of literature on food and identity in africa. the monograph unveils how culture, gender, age, and ethnicity structure food production, eating habits and values attached to commodities and meals in different regions. based on a bouquet of well-connected historical and archival sources combined with her own empirical evidence, this book offers a densely knit understanding of ghanaian foodways that has not been easily accessible before. thus, without question, the cumbrous work that went into finding, analyzing, and accurately piecing together different sources, deserves to receive recognition in its own merit. simpson miller successfully relates her work to the current political discourse on food, globalization, and nutrition in ghana. further, the interspersed local recipes throughout the book allow a unique level of engagement with its content. simpson miller quickly establishes that – despite general similarities – there is no allencompassing-agreement of a shared national food identity in ghana (chapters 1 – 2). instead, she distinguishes three eco-culinary regions based on a comparatively homogenous belief system around the main meal of the day and the concept of proper food (chapter 3). this prominently includes the gendered character of meal preparation, cooking, and responsibility for the feeding of a family. consequently, the book follows those three eco-culinary zones 1 foodways stands for “the eating habits and culinary practices of a people, region, or historical period” (merriam-webster 2024). 2 separately in chapters 4 – 6: the forest, coastal and savanna zones. in all three cases, adjustments were made in times of (natural, political, and economic) crisis. those led to changes in the key ingredients (starches), while the composition of the meals remained relatively stable. the same is true for the integration of new world foods which were incorporated either into the main meal of the day (“the proper meal,” chapter 3) or as a meal with less implications for the region’s identity. strongly related to simpson millers aim to decolonize literature on foodways and identity, chapter 7 examines the influence of colonialism and trade with europeans on local foodways. through the very early trading relationships with western countries, exchange can be traced back to as early as the midfifteenthcentury. the portuguese were the first european nation to have “landed” on the west african coast (hargrove 2015). as this chapter reflects the book’s initial purpose, it rightly so takes up the most space. simpson miller concludes that the cultural importance of regional meals and foods form ethnic identity and embody sense of community that endured centuries of european influence. in fact, recently the location-dependent character of foodways has been celebrated as a national good distinguishing ghana from other nations. in the final chapter simpson miller connects previous developments in regional foodways with the consequences of globalization and current debates about food security. she argues that the limited outlook of current debates that merely look at food in terms of insecurity neglects the creativity and agency that characterize ghanaian foodways. simpson miller herein demonstrates the relevance of her work by highlighting the persistence of certain patterns related to foodways today. this makes hands-on-policy recommendations possible to overcome issues that have been prevalent for the past decades. rooted in her own analysis, she sensibly points out that the current discourse on food security, focusing on nutritional issues, does not target long-standing basic issues. instead, she proposes direct action towards food production and infrastructure. further work may use this as a starting point to investigate potential ways of improving the ghanaian food system by keeping the eco-culinary origin of regional foodways in mind. brandi simpson miller’s work contributes to the decolonization of literature on african foodways through countering the current body of literature that is either relatively broad or is concerned with how african concepts of food translated through the transatlantic-slave trade to the americas. here, however, simpson millers outstanding work contributes both a focus on local historical knowledge and a thorough and detail-oriented investigation. whilst doing 3 justice to the prominent position starchy staples occupy, simpson miller examines the role of other foods, that became relevant over time. this allows for a holistic understanding of ghana’s food landscape and the relation of different foods to each other. hence, simpson miller provides an excellent vantage point that goes beyond her own disciplinary boundaries and invites interand trans-disciplinary considerations to benefit from her work. thus, further work may expand on this in conducting long-termand in-depth forms of ethnographic research. potentially, narrative case studies could be related to this book to supply more of an understanding of the day-to-day making and (re)production of foodways. to conclude, brandi simpson miller’s book was much needed to liberate the western dominated-discourse of food (in)security in ghana and other (west) african countries. she provides an excellent understanding of the historical developments of ghana’s foodways that should stand as the starting point for similar research. works cited: hargrove, jarvis l. the political economy of the interior gold coast: the asante and the era of legitimate trading, 1807–1875. lanham: lexington books, 2015. merriam-webster.com dictionary, s.v. “foodways,” accessed january 4, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foodways. chiara scheven holds a b.a. in political science and ethnology from the university of freiburg as well as an m.a. in development studies from the university of passau. for the latter she conducted ethnographic field work in ghana on informal social security networks of so-called kayayei (head-porters). in accra young migrant women and girls provide for their own security based on a shared place of origin and ethnicity to cope with the informal nature of their occupation. scheven recently started a phd in global development at the university of east anglia and the university of copenhagen. her project is concerned with market women’s and market queen’s role within the ghanaian food system. © 2024 chiara scheven https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foodways 1 sampson, christina perry, victor d. thompson, and scott m. fitzpatrick, eds. 2023. fisherhunter-gatherer complexity in north america. first edition. gainesville: university press of florida. keywords: prehistory, complex societies, historical processualism, subsistence, landscape. fisher-hunter-gatherer complexity in north america offers a collaborative examination of the dynamic and intricate nature of prehistoric societies that once thrived in aquatic environments across north america. spanning from the southeastern coast of the united states to the aleutian islands of the north pacific, this edited volume underscores the pivotal role that coastal, riverine, and estuarine landscapes played as catalysts for the emergence of sociocultural complexity among fisher-hunter-gatherer communities. to confront progressivist orientations and evolutionary paradigms, this book adopts a historical processualist perspective to understand the shared experiences of communities living near water, reconcile human agency with multiscalar cultural processes, and analyze the interplay of ecology, history, and landscape engagement in shaping the trajectories of fisher-hunter-gatherers. following a compelling introductory chapter by c. perry sampson, which outlines the theoretical frameworks and methodological foundations of the book, the volume presents eight diverse yet thematically linked case studies. together, these chapters investigate five central themes that recur throughout the volume: (1) how people used and transformed landscapes, (2) the mechanisms and meanings behind social memory, (3) the evolution of social organization, (4) the development of craft specialization, and (5) the interaction via travel and exchange networks. regarding landscape use and manipulation, c. grier (chapter 2) examines the historical development of the salish sea region over the past 2,500 years, emphasizing how landscapes— both terrestrial and intertidal—were shaped and inscribed with meaning through construction and engineering practices. drawing on archaeological data from major sites, grier demonstrates that landscape modification was closely tied to shifts in community organization and household 2 structure. these transformations were instrumental in facilitating emerging elite strategies that controlled resources, reconfigured social hierarchies, and expressed collective identities. the examination of high-intimacy transmission and social memory persistence as indicators of complexity is led by c. funk et al. in chapter 4. they examine the material and immaterial results of transmitting curated information through time (intergenerationally) and space (across interconnected communities on the rat islands of alaska). the authors review oral histories and archaeologically identifiable evidence of social memory and information transmission, which include earthen moundbuilding, the patterned harvest of birds, and plant management. they conclude that social memory, or the shared knowledge of ways of doing things and its manifestation in ritual behaviors, narratives, and objects and representations, was only possible by intense multilevel cooperation and horizontal and vertical interconnectedness. a.m. prentiss et al. (chapter 3) bridge the topics of social memory and organization in the continuation and maintenance of complexity. they examine the ethnographic and archaeological records in the middle fraser canyon of southern british columbia during 1000-1300 cal bp, a period that witnessed high levels of demographic density and complex cultural practices. to understand their demographic organization, the authors analyze village size, spatial organization, settlement stability, degrees of social inequality, and the potential autonomy of individual villages. subsequently, they conclude that the sociopolitical landscape does not align with the expectations of the egalitarian band model often associated with the plateau region, nor with a traditional chiefdom framework. instead, they propose a ranked local group model by which the mid-fraser societies were composed of clan-based intervillage entities that afforded their members unequal access to resources. these sociopolitical formations supported internal ranking systems based on competition for prestige and authority. likewise, t. pluckhan et al. (chapter 6) delve into the dynamics of social complexity. they examine the changes in cooperation from middle to late woodland periods (300bc-ad1050) along florida’s central gulf coast and identify two main stages. first, an escalation in continued cooperation between the neighboring shell mound and midden complexes of crystal river and roberts island during the middle woodland, evolving from episodic to more sustained collaboration. the second shift occurred in the transition to late woodland, when cooperation was 3 concentrated but intensified among related households. these kin-based units worked together more intensively in the production and consumption of both subsistence and ceremonial goods. s. sunell and c. jazwa explore the complexities of settlement and craft production in chapter 7. they analyze settlement organization in california’s northern channel islands between 1500 and 650 bp. during this period, there was a shift from widely distributed and relatively homogenous sites, to fewer but larger coastal sites with evidence of increasing inter and intra-site variation. this transition in household size between the middle and late holocene periods occurred in tandem with the development of the bead industry. the production of specialized crafted goods is frequently associated with inter-community exchange. c. perry sampson (chapter 5) compares the regional trade of crafted goods on the central gulf coast of peninsular florida during the late woodland and early mississippian periods. focusing on the production and movement of marine shell artifacts, sampson argues that coastal safety harbor residents used community-level specialization to shift their relationships with neighboring groups strategically to partake as artisans, exporters, and consumers. that way, marine shell trade provided a mechanism for community cohesion and ritual expression, while facilitating relationships of power with remote communities through long-distance trade. similarly, m. fauvelle and j. perry (chapter 8) investigate the interconnections between ritual economy and regional political organization in the channel islands and adjacent mainland areas of southern california during the period of european contact. the authors demonstrate that the intensification of trade networks during the middle and late periods (500 bce to 1782 ce) was tied to cyclical ritual events. these events, including feasts and ceremonies often orchestrated by elites, catalyzed the circulation of a diverse range of value-added goods. the ritualized exchange of commodities not only underpinned the development of complex regional economies but also contributed to the emergence of sociopolitical hierarchies and institutional complexity in the region. chapter 9, authored by t.r. kidder, serves as a reflective conclusion to the volume, offering a critical historiographic analysis of the concept of “complexity” as it has been applied to hunterfisher-gatherer societies. while acknowledging the epistemological value of embracing variability within complex social formations, kidder underscores several persistent challenges in the discourse. these include the overly expansive use of the term “complex,” the predominant focus 4 on political and economic dimensions, and the scholarly tendency to impose binary categorizations such as simple versus complex. in response, kidder advocates for a more nuanced understanding of human social organization—one that recognizes individuals’ capacity to enact multiple roles across different social domains concurrently. to illustrate this perspective, he examines the archaeological site of poverty point in northeast louisiana, the largest known archaic-period hunter-fisher-gatherer settlement in north america. while the site reveals evidence of complexity in its monumental earthworks and extensive lithic economy, it lacks indicators typically associated with hierarchical social organization, such as social stratification, political centralization, or economic specialization. poverty point thus exemplifies how communities can simultaneously exhibit elements of both complexity and simplicity. in conclusion, this volume demonstrates that aquatic environments were not passive backgrounds but active agents in the formation and development of social complexity among prehistoric societies in north america. the advantages afforded by the proximity to water— the reliable access to subsistence resources and long-distance trade through navigable waterways—enabled the emergence of often sedentary communities characterized by varying degrees of social, political, and economic organization. by focusing on variability and context-specific trajectories, the book questions paradigms that equate complexity with linear progression models, critically reconsiders mid-twentieth-century typologies, and offers a more nuanced and pluralistic understanding of hunter-fisher-gatherer lifeways and worldviews. in doing so, it makes a substantive contribution to ongoing anthropological debates about the nature of complexity and enmeshment of ecological and historical factors in defining prehistoric societies in north america. dr. irene martí gil is the educational outreach coordinator and anthropology collections manager at the lsu museum of natural science in baton rouge, louisiana. she obtained a ph.d. in anthropology from louisiana state university in 2023, which fulbright sponsored. previously, she earned her master’s degree in cultural heritage from university college london (london), a bachelor’s degree in archaeology from universitat autònoma de barcelona-université parissorbonne iv (barcelona-paris), and a degree in liberal arts from escuela de liderazgo universitario-universidad francisco de vitoria (madrid). her field of research encompasses a 5 broad range of topics including archaeological looting and antiquities trafficking, southeastern us anthropology, museology, and digital anthropology, among others. © 2025 irene martí gil microsoft word kilinç revised review.docx 1 ryo morimoto, 2023, nuclear ghost atomic livelihoods in fukushima's gray zone, 1st edition, california series in public anthropology, university of california press, 356 pp., isbn: 9780520394117. ryo morimoto's nuclear ghost is a poignant and richly immersive ethnography that probes the interwoven lives, ongoing uncertainties, and contested landscapes of post-disaster fukushima, over a decade after the 2011 tōhoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. the book is positioned at an intersection point of anthropology, environmental studies, disaster studies, and science and technology studies (sts), and it engages forcefully with japanese cultural and philosophical framings on risk, loss, and continuity. the overarching hypothesis of nuclear ghost is that the “fukushima disaster," determined by morimoto as the "tepco accident" to emphasize corporate responsibility, cannot be adequately understood by biomedical and technoscientific measures of radiation exposure, but instead by situated, lived experiences of people living in minamisōma and adjacent regions. these are "gray zones" where visibility, belonging, trauma, resistance, and continuum occur daily. according to morimoto, radiation is a biophysical agent and a sociocultural construct that affects and is affected by stories of space, history, and ways of livelihood. at its most essential level, then, nuclear ghost is a radical departure from mainstream disaster ethnographies because it refuses radiation-based narratives of nuclear disasters. in contrast to a preoccupation with contamination as a measurable, medicalized danger, morimoto turns the ethnographic eye toward what he terms "atomic livelihoods," lived realities, coping strategies, and existential negotiations by people who decided to stay or come back to the areas contaminated by radiation in coastal fukushima. the key argument is that knowing about the tepco nuclear accident involves decentering technoscientific and state-based narratives regarding radiation in favor of noticing the multi-faceted, embodied, and at times contradictory terms in which people in cities like 2 minamisōma live in what morimoto refers to as "the gray zone." this is not a geographical term but a conceptual zone in which binary oppositions break down "safe-unsafe", "contaminated-clean", "victim-resister". in this zone, the nuclear ghost is a ghostly figure representing haunting radiation, loss, and uncertainty. it is not metaphorical but an ontological state through which people understand their worlds and futures. the book is organized thematically into an introduction, nine central chapters, and an epilogue. the chapters are not strictly chronological; morimoto develops concepts and narratives in ways that connect with and reinforce one another to build a palimpsestic sense of life in the fallout. the organization permits morimoto to interlace experiences from his fieldwork, oral histories from interlocutors, cultural reference points, particularly to haruki murakami's fiction and cosmologies of japanese buddhism, and critical encounters with theories of exposure, precarity, and affect. morimoto's narrative voice seems reflexive and ethically committed, where he repeatedly interposes his mistakes and develops a grasp as a fieldworker, most notably his transformation from a technoscientific outsider with a geiger counter to a listener sensitive to the local textures and silences. by this tiered composition, nuclear ghost does not provide closure. nevertheless, it brings ambiguity, contradiction, and coexistence factors that make it an exemplar of what morimoto terms a "social science of the surreal." i assessed morimoto's conceptual design as one of the most rewarding elements of this fieldwork research. the "nuclear ghost" metaphor contains an essential insight into how people might understand radiation: not merely something that can be weighed and measured, but an uncannily haunting presence socially mediated, emotionally charged, and temporally open-ended. this ghost is different from radioactive fallout; it is a cultural phenomenon, a felt uncertainty, an ethical residue. in describing it, morimoto is contributing to a larger project in contemporary anthropology to take seriously non-material or extra-scientific incidents, which has been termed the "social science of the surreal." another strength of morimoto’s position is that the book removes the narrative from state and science domination. rather than focusing on national rhetoric, epidemiological statistics, or the state's reconstruction efforts, morimoto focuses on the everyday life of individuals, temple caretakers like hatsumi, altar movers, farmers, hunters, and returnees. these people live in the literal and symbolic "in-between" spaces whose experiences are 3 often erased in official reports and media coverage. this research reclaims ethnography through this position to challenge and reframe who gets seen and heard. morimoto's deeply personal reflections on his role as a researcher from lugging a geiger counter to grappling with his involvement in "disaster porn" through documentary work are not just self-revealing but epistemologically powerful. they provoke essential questions about academic extraction, authority, and the moral complexities of witnessing. his care in addressing the ethics of representing trauma adds depth and seriousness, particularly for readers committed to participatory, decolonial, or reflective scholarship. momentously, nuclear ghost challenges how nuclear fallout is typically visualized. through critical reflection on tools like the geiger counter, radiation maps, and sensationalist photojournalism, morimoto asks readers to confront the unseen aspects of radiation and life that cannot be measured or mapped. his concept of "atomic livelihoods" is not merely a poetic phrase; it is a methodological stance that insists on holding risk with endurance, damage with commitment, and danger with the will to live and survive. morimoto also enters policy conversations indirectly yet consequentially in this book. while it does not hand out policy fixes, it quietly critiques japan's centralized approach to disaster recovery and radiation tracking. it pushes readers to consider how harm is defined, how compensation is allocated, and how certain lives that do not fit tidy victim or recovery narratives are invisible. despite its numerous strengths, nuclear ghost also has limitations, some inherent to the ethnographic form and others stemming from its theoretical paths. i assess that these limitations have no ability to diminish the book's scientific and research value; however, they invite a deeper and more nuanced engagement with the tensions running through its methodology and scope. morimoto's use of the "gray zone" concept, his conscious commitment to embracing uncertainty, strongly critiques binary thinking such as "safe-unsafe," "victim-resister," and "contaminated-pure." however, while this position may be regarded as insightful, it simultaneously presents a challenge for readers not well-versed in the field of anthropology. though an honest and often painful experience for residents of minamisōma, ambiguity sometimes weakens the clarity of the book's core aim. 4 this research also features many rich, personal narratives; however, it could have explored more deeply how gender, age, class, and social roles shape people's experiences of displacement, exposure, and recovery. for example, women's roles in caregiving, domestic radiation exposure, or informal post-disaster economies are only partially explored. while characters like hatsumi are well-developed, the book avoids a broader critique of gendered labor or reproductive risk in the gray areas of fukushima. similarly, the labor involved in decontamination, cleanup works, or bureaucratic compensation processes could have been more fully addressed through an intersectional lens. furthermore, morimoto demonstrates self-awareness about the ethical risks of extractive research, which he calls "disaster pornography." nevertheless, the book sometimes veers close to the same spectacle it aims to resist. though he critiques his use of a geiger counter and reflects on working with a european filmmaker drawn to visual drama, his position as a u.s.-based academic returning to japan with institutional backing is not intensely interrogated. ultimately, this research's intellectual intensity and cultural specificity, especially its use of japanese cosmological and philosophical ideas such as "en," "obake," "innen," "kū," might alienate readers unfamiliar with japanese studies or buddhist concepts in an ethnographic text. although morimoto does explain many of these terms, the text assumes a significant level of prior knowledge. as a result, it may be less accessible to non-academic readers or policy professionals despite its relevance to both groups. reviving morimoto's nuclear ghost book is a critical experience for understanding what happened to residents after the fukushima disaster and how japanese culture impacted the recovery process. it lingers much like the "nuclear ghost" that shadows minamisōma, not through dramatic spectacle or shock but by slowly accumulating feelings of uncertainty, contradiction, and an unsettling closeness to often forgotten lives. what stands out most is the book's deep commitment to rehumanizing disaster both as an academic project and as a personal one. instead of leaning on the language of hazard maps, risk assessments, or biopolitical trauma, i think morimoto invites scholars and readers to witness life in all its disorder, persistence, and ghostly brilliance. from a scholarly view, this book pushes the boundaries of how ethnography is practiced and written in the anthropocene. it also exemplifies an anthropological approach that is methodologically reflective, politically conscious, and poetically extensive. it insists 5 scholars or readers do not need to choose between theory and narrative, structure and story, or visibility and subtlety. doing so furnishes a robust framework for scholars engaged in the interdisciplinary study of disaster studies, environmental anthropology, nuclear humanities, and japanese cultural contexts. i enthusiastically recommend this book; however, with one critical note: this book does not provide comprehensive answers related to the fukushima disaster. it is a book about ethnographic questions, ghosts, and fieldwork priorities. it challenges us to notice what scholars and readers often overlook, listen for what is not spoken, and consider what it means to live ethically in the face of uncertainty. morimoto's work is both timely and essential in a world increasingly shaped by prolonged dangers, and it will help us understand the public aspect of the disaster stemming from nuclear energy. this book has the ability to impact different studies in disciplines beyond anthropology and ethnography in the future. atilla kilinç is an ethnographer specializing in the energy market. he is a research associate at istanbul technical university. © 2025 atilla kilinç 1 stein, rebecca. l. (2021). screen shots: state violence on camera in israel and palestine. stanford university press, 234 pp., isbn 978-1-50362-803-8. keywords: palestine; israel; state violence; visual anthropology; during the last seven months, we have been exposed to extremely sensitive content from the gaza strip. young palestinian journalists like motaz azaiza, bisan owda or hind khoudary have documented their daily lives amidst the latest israeli aggression on gaza, becoming digital influencers and attracting millions of new followers. at the same time, a myriad of tiktok videos from israeli soldiers during the ground invasion of gaza have become viral, awakening disparate opinions from social media users. during these months, much has been discussed regarding the veracity of pictures from the events of the 7th of october and its aftermath, proving that in a narrative war, pictures become weapons. this “visual war” is exactly what rebecca stein, an american cultural anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at duke university, documents in her book, screen shots: state violence on camera in israel and palestine. published in 2021 by stanford university press, it focuses on the “entanglement of consumer photographic technologies and israeli state violence” (p. 5) during the first two decades of the twenty-first century, a period marked by the second intifada and multiple israeli aggressions on gaza (2008, 2009, 2014). the core focus of the book is jewish israeli actors and institutions such as human rights workers and activists (paying special attention to the international information center for human rights in the occupied territories (b’tselem)), the jewish settler population and the israeli military. however, it also highlights the stories of palestinian video activists and civilians living under occupation. the ethnography analyses the changing media landscape in palestine and israel by incorporating visual devices such as cameras into the daily routine of different political constituencies and the attendant challenges. instead of focusing on the life of pictures after they 2 are taken, the book focuses on what precedes their entry into social worlds: “the various forms of labour, political and aesthetic assessments, negotiations and contestations, that make images and visual circuits possible” (p. 13). throughout the chapters, stein answers questions such as: how are images used in the israeli and palestinian political and legal arenas? what visual policies emerge? how do different actors adapt to the new use of cameras and mobile devices? in what ways are the images processed and distributed? what strategies are used to communicate a specific message through visual evidence? by answering these questions, stein shows how, despite having completely different goals, both israeli and palestinian actors use visual devices with the aspiration of achieving their political dreams. chapter 1 explores military photography in the twenty-first century's first decade and the use of private optical devices in the israeli military arena during the second intifada (20002005), the war on lebanon (2006), and the 2008-2009 assault on the gaza strip. israel uses images to document, acquire information, and ensure spatial control in these contexts, becoming occupation tools. stein observes how the camera nature changes from a personal device to a wartime actor. in this sense, cameras and cell phones oscillate from personal use and occupation technologies, which require special policies and raise new challenges. chapter 2 is a “counterpart to the global dreams about digital revolution” (p. 69) and shows the experiences and challenges of palestinian videographers and camera activists in the west bank who collaborated with b’tselem between 2000 and 2012. stein documents the beginnings of amateur eyewitness videography and how digital technologies spread through the west bank, paying special attention to the temporal and spatial constraints they faced due to military restrictions, settler attacks, technical problems or material confiscation. these struggles hindered the arrival of the pictures to israeli media or human rights organisations. chapter 3 explores the credibility of palestinian visual evidence within israeli society, analysing the appearance of a repudiation script which emerged from the zionist social margins (israeli settler media outlets and pro-israeli bloggers in the united states) and has gradually been consolidated and normalised, reaching israeli mainstream media and even political discourses. the palestinian “fakery” (what some call “pallywood”) serves as a political tool to improve israe’ls international image, heavily damaged by the violent scenes coming from the occupied territories. stein articulates the connection between colonialism and visual 3 authenticity; showing how the repudiation campaigns of videos from palestine serve as a colonial strategy to invalidate the native narrative, this time in the social media era. chapter 4 focuses on the work of b’tselem’s west jerusalem office staff, showing what precedes the circulation of visual evidence from the occupied territories. through ethnographic fieldwork, the chapter explores how human rights defenders watch, analyse and distribute the eyewitness videography coming from the west bank. it also sheds light on the discussions within the organisation and the strategies used to appeal to the israeli audience at a time when human rights institutions grew increasingly vilified. the chapter is a good opportunity to discover all the labour involved before images are displayed to the world. chapter 5 centres on israeli media policy, exploring how the israeli military responds to the visual evidence from palestinian video activists and israeli human rights defenders. stein articulates the chapter through three “hasbara fail” cases and the consequent strategies to win empathy from the public audience. these often require military investment in cameras, media technologies, photography-trained soldiers, and visual campaigns. throughout the chapter, we approach the israeli military from a public relations perspective, discovering their struggles and strategies to adapt to the new digital battlefield. screen shots: state violence on camera in israel and palestine offers a solid contribution to visual anthropology studies in palestine and israel from an anti-colonial perspective. her status as an american jewish researcher allowed her to access a myriad of spaces, from the offices of b’tselem to the military’s jerusalem offices, which allows the reader to understand the visual goals and aspirations from different perspectives. even though the book documents events that go back up to 20 years ago, the book's content still resonates with what is happening today in the gaza strip, being a useful tool for analysing the use of visual content around the current war. neixé castellano is a phd researcher at the department of social anthropology at the university of barcelona. she holds a ba in social and cultural anthropology from the university of barcelona and an ma in arabic and hebrew culture from the university of granada. her current research work focuses on mobilities and tourism in israel and palestine. 4 © 2024 neixé castellano 1 trigger, david s., 2025, shared country, different stories: an anthropologist’s journey, new york: berghahn books, pp. 248., isbn 978-1-83695-148-3 key words: forensic and expert social anthropology, fesa, native title; land rights, cultural heritage protection, legal pluralism, customary law, indigenous australia, aboriginal australia shared country, different stories traces the 50-year career of professor david trigger, a leading member of australia’s fourth generation of forensic and expert social anthropologists (fesas) (rose 2024a; 2023; trigger 2023; 2025a). the book spans both trigger’s extensive practical work with urban, regional, and remote aboriginal1 australian communities on customary land rights and cultural heritage preservation, and his concurrent academic engagements at the university of queensland (uq) and the university of western australia (uwa). although the central chapters of the text deal almost exclusively with trigger’s professional experiences, replete with sprawling and detailed accounts of dozens of people and relationships, the opening and concluding chapters provide an intimate personal context rooted in his progressive jewish upbringing in suburban brisbane. the development of fesa practice in australia can be divided into approximately five generations, commencing with the admission of social anthropological evidence to australian courts and tribunals in the late 19th century (rose 2022). following the academic institutionalisation of social anthropology in the 1920s, and until the late 1960s, the first three generations of social anthropologists who specialized in indigenous australian cultures both practiced and trained in a form of what has historically been termed ‘applied’ anthropology, contributing to government regimes of coercive control over indigenous communities (rose 2024b; 2024c; 2022; trigger 2011; 2013; asche and trigger 2011). this situation was 1 in australia, the term ‘aboriginal’ denotes individuals and communities occupying the mainland continent of australia prior to british invasion in 1788, including their descendants. the term ‘indigenous’ is used more broadly to include both aboriginal and torres strait isander peoples, the latter of whom are indigenous to a region also administered by the australian commonwealth, but who bear a more distinctive social culture. 2 completely reformed from the late 1960s, with simultaneous federal political recognition of indigenous australian peoples via amendments to the national constitution in 1967, and an unprecedented supreme court challenge to commonwealth power over indigenous peoples in 1968 (rose 2024c; 2022). these events ushered in statutory customary land rights in 1976 and the broader emergence of legal pluralism in australia (rose 2024c; 2022). it was in the midst of this political and economic upheaval that trigger graduated with an honours degree in social anthropology from uq in 1975, and was thrust into the dynamic and groundbreaking work of australian fesa practice in the late 1970s and 1980s. trigger’s upbringing in a lower-middle class jewish family, whose income came from his father’s work as a builder, meant that he was open to both cross-cultural encounters and rugged working conditions. his subsequent encounters with queensland aboriginal communities visiting at uq, the glib activism and intellectualism of university life, and his own initial employment as a builder’s and surveyor’s labourer, primed him both for independently minded intercultural analysis and remote area fieldwork. at the same time, he was initially uncomfortable writing about aboriginal cultures for solely academic purposes. for his honours thesis he turned instead to auto-ethnography, interviewing brisbane jewish youth about their experiences straddling the boundaries of a cultural enclave. unsurprisingly, when he presented a summary of his thesis to the local chapter of the betar, boldly titled ‘israel is only one form of jewish expression,’ he found his pragmatic and independent thinking not uniformly welcome. after initially taking a job teaching social anthropology to community development workers and schoolteachers in the northern territory capital of darwin, trigger was offered a more substantial role mapping cultural heritage sites in the gulf of carpentaria, in a region spanning the queensland/northern territory border. while split administratively between brisbane and the canberra-based federal australian institute of aboriginal and torres strait islander studies (aiatsis),2 the project’s operations were based at the remote aboriginal community of doomadgee, 2,000km northwest of brisbane in the heart of the ‘gulf country.’ it was here that trigger was fully embraced for the first time by a community into which he had not been born, but which would remain a central part of his personal and professional outlook. in the 1970s, doomadgee was still controlled by a white christian missionary bureaucracy that governed most aspects of residents’ lives. this form of coercive control had been the norm 2 www.aiatsis.gov.au 3 across australia since the late-19th century, before being rapidly dismantled following the 1967 constitutional amendments, albeit at an uneven pace (rose 2024c). for the people of doomadgee, trigger was a source of relief. with the aiatsis-funded resources that he brought, including his professional and technical training, a four-wheel-drive vehicle, mapping, photographic, and audio recording equipment, senior community leaders were able to begin reversing the corrosion inflicted by mission management on their customary culture. trigger spent the next several years driving thousands of kilometres with community members through the bush, recording cultural heritage sites, mythology, and the history of the garawa, waanyi, and ganggalida people. in return, trigger was welcomed into the community as an adoptive younger brother of garawa man, johnny watson, making him classificatory son of elder matriarch and community leader emily arthur, who genuinely ‘took him on’ as a family member. as a consequence, trigger was conferred the garawa sociocentric kin term or ‘skin name’ bulanyi, transforming him into a ‘socially meaningful person’ (trigger 2025b, 75). the agnosticism towards individual ethnicity that trigger experienced at doomadgee in the early 1980s is a fundamental and shared feature of traditional hunter-gatherer kinship cultures across australia, the flexible inclusivity of which is a major factor in their endurance for more than 50,000 years (rose 2017). from this point forward, shared country, different stories tracks trigger’s rapidly developing career as an expert in traditional customary aboriginal land and resource tenure and cultural heritage. soon after starting his site recording work in the gulf country, he was also commissioned to deliver fesa services to the recently established aboriginal-run statutory ngo, the northern land council (nlc).3 as a fesa consultant to the nlc while based at uq, trigger went on to undertake forensic investigations and to provide expert evidence and advice first to the nicholson river (waanyi/garawa) land claim (kearney 1985), and then to the garawa/mugularrangu (robinson river) land claim (olney 1990). from then on, trigger was contracted to deliver fesa services to a range of clients engaged in multiple statutory and litigated matters in various courts, including both civil and criminal proceedings involving aboriginal claimants, respondents, plaintiffs and defendants. throughout this expanding professional experience, one persistent theoretical, methodological, and ethical contradiction seemed to repeatedly appear. on the one hand, trigger’s sought-after expert knowledge was substantially the product of his membership of the doomadgee 3 www.nlc.org.au 4 community, and his ethical commitment to aboriginal people’s customary rights more broadly. yet, on the other hand, trigger’s professional independence and objectivity as a fesa practitioner was also demanded by the legal-administrative processes through which those rights could be recognised. trigger was repeatedly required to demonstrate to lawyers and judges that deference to the latter does not require disavowal of the former. through the 1980s to 2010s, trigger notes that the demand for fesa services ballooned as australia’s pluralistic legal system continued to expand and diversify. fesas with formal training in the provision of cultural translation and explanation services came under increasing demand from lawyers, judges, and government officials (morphy and morphy 2023). this demand intensified especially after the 1993 passage of the federal native title act. the new legislation greatly expanded available legal pathways for indigenous australians to pursue customary rights in land and natural resources, as well as their statutory power to negotiate with government and industry. however, the native title act also elevated the burden of proof and requirement for attendant forensic investigations and expert evidence and advice under a regime maintained by the federal court of australia (trigger and blowes 2001). at the same time and counter-intuitively, trigger observes, australian universities began to abrogate their role in properly training social anthropologists to do this work. as part of a trend starting around the early 2000s, he suggests, university anthropology departments began leaning away from training in core subjects of customary kinship, religion, language, and economics, and towards a form of bureaucratic policing in which a didactic philosophy of ‘moral order’ became the primary focus. students were no longer taught how to map sites, model kinship networks, or conduct consultations in respectful and ethical ways, but instead how to centre their own personal experiences and perspectives. this trend permeated trigger’s experience at uwa, where he spent the late 1990s and early 2000s. as head of the anthropology department, he undertook a major investigation into competing non-aboriginal cultures of land and natural resource tenure, while also establishing and running a universitybased fesa consultancy supporting aboriginal communities with land claims and heritage protection work (trigger 2020). after his departure from uwa and return to uq in 2007, the uwa fesa consultancy expired. ultimately, trigger concludes the book with what might be characterised as a sense of unease at the trajectory of social anthropology in australia since the 1980s. on the one hand, the field has played and continues to play a critical role in enabling and supporting indigenous 5 australians’ hard-fought struggles for political, economic, and legal equality and equitable access to justice under the law. on the other hand, the historical academic home of social anthropology in australian universities has, for the past 20 years, increasingly disavowed the legitimacy and factual basis of the very expertise that makes the field useful to this ethical and pragmatic role. this book will be illuminating and inspiring for emerging generations of fesa practitioners hopefully yet to come forward, especially those committed to achieving real and tangible legal justice for culturally marginalised individuals and communities. references asche, wendy, and david trigger. 2011. ‘native title research in australian anthropology’. anthropological forum 21 (3): 219–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2011.617674. kearney, justice. 1985. nicholson river (waanyi/garawa) land claim report by the aboriginal. report by the aboriginal land commissioner, aboriginal land rights (northern territory) act 1976. office of the aboriginal land commissioner. https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/indiglres/1984/7.pdf. morphy, frances, and howard morphy. 2023. ‘witness statements as cross-cultural (mis)communication? evidence from blue mud bay’. anthropological forum 33 (3): 176–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2023.2271673. olney, justice. 1990. garawa/mugularrangu (robinson river) land claim report no. 33. report by the aboriginal land commissioner, aboriginal land rights (northern territory) act 1976. office of the aboriginal land commissioner. http://www6.austlii.edu.au/au/other/indiglres/1990/23.pdf. rose, james w. w. 2017. ‘kinship, cohesion, and space-time: a network analysis of the indigenous population of the murray darling basin’. the university of melbourne. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/191247. rose, james w. w. 2022. ‘“proposition x”: social anthropology, science, and the law in australia’. paper presented at american anthropological association annual meeting, seattle. cultural expertise and the professionalisation of anthropology, november 9. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365358533_'proposition_x'_social_anthro pology_science_and_the_law_in_australia. rose, james w. w. 2023. ‘forensic and expert social anthropological practice: an introduction’. anthropological forum 33 (3): 153–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2023.2278405. rose, james w. w. 2024a. ‘forensic social anthropology: overview’. in expert evidence: law, practice, procedure and advocacy, seventh edition, edited by ian r. freckelton. thomson reuters (professional) australia, limited. https://anzlaw.thomsonreuters.com/document/i87e89da7f4a911e9a70db2c902807575 6 /view/fulltext.html?transitiontype=default&contextdata=(sc.default)&vr=3.0&r s=cblt1.0. rose, james w. w. 2024b. ‘from applied to expert social anthropology: emerging concepts, terms, and definitions’. australian national university anthropology seminar series (canberra), april 29. https://rsha.cass.anu.edu.au/events/appliedexpert-social-anthropology-emerging-concepts-terms-and-definitions; https://content.cass.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/2024/6/anthropology_seminar _1_2024.pdf. rose, james w. w. 2024c. ‘the role of forensic and expert social anthropology in peacebuilding and disaster recovery’. paper presented at 18th easa biennial conference, european association of social anthropologists, university of barcelona. july 23. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384868998. trigger, david. 2011. ‘anthropology pure and profane: the politics of applied research in aboriginal australia’. anthropological forum 21 (3): 233–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2011.617675. trigger, david. 2013. ‘anthropologists as expert witnesses concerning aboriginal australia’. in expert evidence: law, practice, procedure and advocacy, edited by ian r. freckelton and hugh selby. thomson reuters (scientific) inc. & affiliates. https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/publications/forensic-social-anthropology. trigger, david. 2020. ‘distinguished lecture: native title—implications for australian senses of place and belonging’. the australian journal of anthropology 31 (1): 9– 30. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12341. trigger, david, and robert blowes. 2001. ‘anthropologists, lawyers and issues for expert witnesses: native title claims in australia’. practicing anthropology 23 (1): 15–20. trigger, david s. 2023. ‘anthropology in australian indigenous legal cases: what i’ve learned from the law and what lawyers have learned from me’. anthropological forum 33 (3): 162–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2023.2278402. trigger, david s. 2025a. ‘land claim legacies, native title, and the rigours of indigenous politics’. the australian journal of anthropology 1 (11): taja.70006. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.70006. trigger, david s. 2025b. shared country, different stories: an anthropologist’s journey. berghahn books. james w. w. rose is senior fellow with the melbourne school of population and global health at the university of melbourne, director and senior consultant with the forensic and expert social anthropological consulting firm relational modelling & analysis (www.relational.net.au), and teaches with the royal anthropological institute in london. james is a fesa practitioner with over 20 years’ experience providing evidence to australian 7 courts, tribunals, ngos, and other legally empowered organisations presiding over land and natural resource claims, statutory cultural heritage protection regimes, child custody disputes, and medical negligence matters involving indigenous australian individuals and communities where customary culture has been deemed relevant. james was raised partly in the remote central australian freehold lands of the anangu pitjantjatjara yankunytjatjara (apy) and is ethnically western european. his most relevant recent peer reviewed work is rose, james w. w., david trigger, david martin, et al. ‘forensic social anthropology’. in expert evidence: law, practice, procedure and advocacy, seventh edition, edited by ian r. freckelton. thomson reuters (professional) australia, limited, 2024. © 2025 james rose trigger, david s., 2025, shared country, different stories: an anthropologist’s journey, new york: berghahn books, pp. 248., isbn 978-1-83695-148-3 references 1 kingfisher, catherine pélissier. 2022. collaborative happiness: building the good life in urban cohousing communities. new york: berghahn books, 242 pp., isbn 9781800732391 keywords: community, the good life, cohousing, happiness, shared living what are the ingredients of a good life? this is the question that acts as a red thread throughout the 242 pages of catherine kingfisher’s book, collaborative happiness: building the good life in urban cohousing communities. situated in the study of well-being and happiness, this work provides a compelling argument for urban cohousing communities as an alternative, collaborative, and feasible option for creating a good life in the urban context. drawing from extensive research spanning over multiple years of two urban cohousing/collective housing communities in canada and japan,i kingfisher offers a rich and detailed ethnographic account of the residents in quayside village and kankanmori to present the processes and happenings in the making of these communities, giving the readers a glimpse into their daily lives. the book has set out its goal “not only to describe what urban cohousing looks like but also to feed the increasing awareness of cohousing as a viable option and to argue for placing it on the list of interventions that can improve both our daily lives and the condition of our planet” (5), by “complementing breadth with depth—by providing a full-length movie, as it were, to fill out the snapshots” (17–18). and quite literally, the four film shorts accompanying the text and aptly referred to throughout the chapters contribute very helpful visual aids to help with the imagination of the space and put a face to the (real) names of the residents. the book is based on the premise that, against the rise of hyperindividualism in many societies (including such traditionally collectivist ones as japan’s), there exists a growing call to understand well-being and happiness as collectively built, and therefore cohousing as the solution to many social problems characterized 2 by loneliness and fragmented social relations, in addition to overconsumption and environmental concerns. the stories of the residents in kankanmori and quayside village gradually unfold in a meandering course, with the life histories of representatives from each community completed by the meticulous description of the interactions in community-building activities. the book starts with an introduction, offering the theoretical background on the study of happiness, with gordon mathews and carolina izquierdo’s framework centering on three levels (macro, meso and micro) and four dimensions of well-being as the guiding lens. chapter 1 sketches an overview of the two communities, with their principles, demographics, basic spatial summary and personal narratives laid out. chapters 2 and 3 elaborate further on the processes, activities and principles that make cohousing/collective housing what it is, focusing on the dimension of the interpersonal in the collective meaning-making. a parallel conversation between philosophy and practice, as kingfisher calls it, is conducted in each context, and this is where the ethnographic details shine through in presenting both the chartered rules and what happens on the ground. while in kankanmori, community “is collaboratively produced in a deliberate, overtly planned way” (133), and “intimate public space was seen as a mechanism for building and maintaining community (126), the permeable boundaries between the public and the private allow for more fluidity in connection among quayside village residents. through analyzing exemplary decision-making processes, characteristic activities such as common meals or cleaning of shared spaces, regular meetings, and their solution of conflict, the philosophy set out at the founding of the communities is carefully dissected in comparison with the practice of those principles in everyday life. the idea of the good life is also described for each of the communities: for the canadians, the comfort of connection afforded by proximity with others; and for the japanese, a balanced set of oppositions, a togetherness that nurtures and does not swallow the individual. while not having explicitly defined what community is, kingfisher has shown how communities are made and what they are about through the vignettes, stories and conversations retold. chapter 4 then merges the two communities together by detailing the exchanges that the research team facilitated for representatives of each community to visit the other. here, the researcher, as both a participant in the daily activities and the observer of community-making processes, took a step back to allow the voices of the protagonists—the residents in cohousing/collective housing— 3 to take center stage, embodying the collaborative nature of the research as much as the communities’ own. the self-reflection from the residents’ travel diaries, with them acting as coresearchers, as well as the discussion and implemented changes as a result of the two ten-day exchanges exemplifies the spirit of collaboration (and maybe friendly rivalry, where residents wonder “if we’re really doing things the best way,” 147), not just among the residents of kankanmori or quayside village, between the researchers and the residents but also between the two communities. the concluding chapter brings the argument back to the call to understand wellbeing, happiness and the good life in the bigger context of national and international development policies, asserting the need to focus on the social, the collective and the community and away from the personal, the individual. as the author recounted the remark by ikuko koyabe, a pioneer in the collective housing movement in japan, “individual well-being depends on being part of a community and developing bonds with multiple and diverse others,” rather than approaches that prioritize one’s own needs mainstreamed by positive psychology and popular culture (185). overall, catherine kingfisher has made a compelling case for the promotion, development and expansion of cohousing models as a viable alternative to other urban living arrangements, in the pursuit of happiness and the good life. the ethnography is well written, the language is accessible and generally the book can easily be read by an audience of various backgrounds, including policymakers; housing developers interested in cohousing; scholars in the study of well-being and happiness, housing and social transformation; as well as students of varying maturities in architecture, built environment and of course in the social sciences, especially anthropology. it can be an excellent reading for introductory courses in interdisciplinary studies. phuong nguyen is a doctoral researcher in the snsf project aspiration for change 4.0: the making of innovation in viet nam at the department of social anthropology and cultural studies (isek), universität zürich, switzerland. with interests in urban ethnography, youth and technology, for her phd project, phuong is investigating innovations in the sharing economy of the proptech industry (property technology), coworking and coliving spaces in urban viet nam. 4 © 2024 phuong nguyen i as the author noted, the term varies in the two contexts: while in canada, “cohousing” is adopted, japanese interlocutors prefer to call the model “collective housing”, which has connotations related to communism and socialism in the west. 1 dimitris xygalatas, 2022, ritual: how seemingly senseless acts make life worth living, london: profile books, 312 pp., isbn 978-1-78816-102-2 dimitris xygalatas’ book ritual: how seemingly senseless acts make life worth living delves into the profound significance of rituals across diverse cultures, exploring their role in shaping human behaviour, fostering group cohesion, and influencing social dynamics. xygalatas uncovers various functions of rituals, their evolutionary origins, and how they can affect our well-being in various contexts, from extreme rituals in village settings to elite sports and workplace practices. the themes of collective effervescence, the bonding effects of rituals, and their potential positive impact on mental health and group dynamics are central to xygalatas’ research and the ideas presented in the book. he draws connections between seemingly diverse rituals, ranging from extreme events like fire-walking to more common experiences like workplace activities and communal feasts. employing an interdisciplinary approach that melds anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, and sociology, xygalatas offers insights into the complex nature of rituals and their intricate effects on individuals and societies. having observed mesmerising candomble rituals in northeast brazil, documented intense shia ceremonies in india, learnt the exciting music and movement of combat-dancing rituals in indonesia, walked 380kms on pilgrimage in the north of spain, and participated in a firewalking ceremony in the philippines, i was keen to read this book to learn more about ritual in human societies. as i plunged into xygalatas’ book, i was excited to learn that much of what anthropologists observe in their fieldwork and much of what people participating in ritual report is being consolidated with experimental studies. learning how ritual can improve psychological health is both reassuring and affirming. this book not only affirms the value of ritual as an area of academic study and research but also explores how it can profoundly impact our psychological well-being. in ritual, xygalatas offers an accessible and engaging exploration of this essential aspect of human cultural life, inviting his reader to contemplate rituals more deeply and rigorously. 2 xylagatas’ expertise, and consequently the book’s primary focus, revolves around extreme rituals, those perched at the zenith of the spectrum of emotional stress, physical pain, or energy expenditure (p. 12). the front cover, featuring what appears to be a photo of a tea ritual, depicts ritual practices at the other end of the spectrum. in another edition of the book, sky lanterns grace the cover, evoking feelings of calmness and serenity. although the book does not extensively discuss every day or less extreme rituals, it effectively stirs curiosity about more familiar, common, and widespread rituals that often blur the fine line between ritual and habit. will most readers view ritual as something exotic, something done by others but not by ‘us’? after all, how do the body modification rituals of the global south differ fundamentally from extreme practices like plastic surgery, labiaplasty, or even gruelling gym routines? while the differences might seem apparent, the underlying similarities are, perhaps, even more intriguing to consider. xylagatas boldly posits that rituals are “truly universal human behaviours,” a premise that invites readers to explore the profound connections that bind us across cultural boundaries. to fully appreciate the spirit of the book, a glimpse into the author’s background is helpful. dimitris xygalatas, a cognitive anthropologist, stands as a prominent figure in the study of ritual, religious practices, and the underlying cognitive and social mechanisms. his expansive journey has taken him through esteemed institutions including aristotle university of thessaloniki, queen’s university belfast, aarhus university, princeton university, masaryk university, and university of connecticut, where he has collaborated with leading researchers in the field of religion. xygalatas’ approach to ritual behaviour aligns with cognitive and evolutionary perspectives, seeking to decipher the rationale behind seemingly irrational and resource-intensive behaviours such as rituals. he explores the adaptive functions that these behaviours might have evolved to serve, including group cohesion, identity formation, and social bonding. xygalatas’ methodology encompasses a blend of ethnography, experimental methods, and cross-cultural analysis to explore various aspects of ritual behaviour and its significance. through innovative means such as psychophysiological measurements and behavioural observations, he has probed into the intricate psychological and physiological processes that underlie ritual practices. he has applied this methodological approach to his fieldwork in various cultural settings, including the caribbean, india, mauritius, and greece. his crosscultural lens allows him to investigate how ritual practices and their effects differ across 3 different societies and contexts. ultimately, xygalatas’ research illuminates the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of ritual. beyond the realms of anthropology, his work reverberates through neighbouring disciplines including psychology, sociology, and religious studies, offering valuable insights into the profound and enigmatic human practice of ritual. comprising nine easy to read chapters with catchy titles, ritual seamlessly combines engaging narrative with the latest scientific findings to introduce readers to the wonders, significance and paradox of ritual behaviour. the key points illuminated in the book are that (1) ritual, as demonstrated by the ancient site of göbekli tepe, predates the hallmarks of civilization, including agriculture and permanent settlement, suggesting that it was a significant impetus for people to form large groups; (2) rituals extend beyond their social aspect to serve as psychological tools, providing structure and predictability that alleviate stress and anxiety amidst uncertainty; (3) rituals possess a profound social dimension, acting not merely as social glue but as superglue, fostering togetherness, emotional alignment, and a transformative sense of unity and cohesion; (4) rituals mark pivotal life events, define social relationships, and craft meaningful experiences that mould an individual’s autobiographical self and shape their identity; and (5) while the manifestations of rituals may evolve, they endure across secular societies, persisting because they fulfill a fundamental human need for connection, meaning, and self-discovery. xygalatas’ work primarily aligns with the functionalist perspective on rituals. other anthropological lenses, such as structuralist and interpretive approaches, can bring additional layers of complexity to the study of ritual. in various cultural contexts, rituals can serve varied purposes that extend beyond group formation. they may reinforce power structures or accentuate social hierarchies rather than fostering unity. in certain scenarios, rituals might even exclude specific groups or individuals, challenging the notion of universal togetherness by creating divisions or perpetuating inequalities. extreme rituals, such as initiation rituals marked by elements of pain or humiliation, can even serve contradictory functions, often entailing significant stress and anxiety. to add to this complexity, the meanings attributed to rituals can be malleable over time. various segments of a society may interpret the same ritual through diverse lenses, resulting in nuanced and multifaceted understandings. additionally, rituals can undergo transformation or fade into obscurity due to shifting social, political, or economic landscapes. unpacking the adaptability and responsiveness of rituals to 4 changing contexts, as well as their profound and multifarious functions within diverse cultural settings, presents a complex challenge. xygalatas’ book leaves room to flesh out these dimensions of ritual with the possibility of turning to alternative and complementary ethnographic perspectives to add rich analytical layers. xygalatas’ functionalist perspective on ritual is coupled with an adaptationist understanding of its evolutionary origins. nonadaptationist theories, which xygalatas dismisses, extend beyond the evolutionary glitch description he briefly describes. nonadaptationist concepts such as exaptations, spandrels and relaxed selection could offer a complementary and nuanced view of ritual’s multifaceted nature. while i recognise xygalatas’ book is intended for a general audience, the urge to delve deeper is hard to resist. for example, could his characterisation of ritual as exhibiting a high degree of redundancy—a term, which strictly speaking, refers to structural repetition—be more intricately described by thinking about ritual in terms of degeneracy—a term which refers to the structural variation underlying functional plasticity? the concept allows for more flexibility in documenting varied ritual practices and potentially offers greater explanatory power concerning evolutionary dynamics. xygalatas lays a strong foundation for comprehending the significance and functions of ritual. yet, his work also sparks curiosity about uncharted territories within ritual theory. might there be fruitful intersections between adaptationist and nonadaptationist viewpoints, fostering a richer and more comprehensive understanding of this profoundly human phenomenon? ritual: how seemingly senseless acts make life worth living by dimitris xygalatas is tailored for a popular audience. as an educator, i can appreciate how useful this book would be for students studying introductory anthropology and for students of research psychology learning how to apply experimental methods outside the laboratory. this book, as a didactic tool, possesses the capacity to not only introduce more students to the discipline of anthropology but also kindle a deeper appreciation for anthropological theory and methodologies among those beyond our immediate academic sphere. while seasoned anthropologists may find themselves desiring more thick description and probably more ethnographic analysis, educators adept at pedagogical innovation can seize the opportunity to use this book to scaffold their student’s learning. though one may occasionally find themselves wishing for further elaboration, such desires are precisely what spark meaningful and captivating classroom discussions. it compels us to ask, what more remains to be 5 uncovered? what questions remain unanswered? xygalatas’ book transcends the mere provision of answers; it awakens a sense of awe, fascination, and wonder in those newly introduced to the world of anthropology. in celebrating this book, i recognise the tremendous effort it has made to bridge the gap, rendering complex concepts accessible, anthropological discourse readable, and the subject matter genuinely engaging. it is, in essence, a testament to the boundless potential for anthropology to captivate and enlighten a wider audience. ritual is an accessible launching pad to learn more about anthropology, to prompt students to ponder anthropological questions, and to inspire new research on human rituals. the true measure of its impact will be the extent to which this book reaches its intended audience, enticing more students to embark on the fascinating journey of anthropology. on the heels of several other academic books on ritual by harvey whitehouse, robert bocock, mary farag, martha rampton, robbie davis-floyd and charles laughlin and those edited by al-suadi, soham, richard s. ascough, and richard e. demaris as well as risto uro, juliette day, rikard roitto, richard demaris to name a few, xygalatas is pitching his work to a broader readership. his effort to make the subject accessible to a wider audience is indeed laudable, particularly in an era where the ability to bridge the gap between academia and the general public holds immense value. while some phrases and ideas may raise the occasional eyebrow among anthropologists, it’s crucial for colleagues within the discipline to extend generosity to a fellow anthropologist who has ventured beyond the confines of academic jargon to engage with a diverse readership. initiatives like this, aimed at bringing anthropology to a wider audience, enable us to ignite enthusiasm for the discipline and, subsequently, invite readers to delve deeper into the intricacies of anthropological inquiry. obscurity and abstraction have not been the most effective ambassadors for anthropology. embracing the occasional touch of exoticism might just be the catalyst we need to initiate conversations that should have been part of the public discourse long ago. getting books like this into the hands of a wide readership allows us to enthuse people about the import of anthropology and then say, “but wait, there’s more!” xygalatas’ book, despite the critiques that may arise within the field, serves as an essential vehicle for anthropology to engage, inspire, and educate beyond its traditional borders. paul h. mason is an anthropologist based in australia. his fieldwork experiences span australia, brazil, india, indonesia, papua new guinea, and vietnam and cover a variety of topics from music to dance anthropology, and global to planetary health. his teaching at 6 macquarie university covers medical, psychological, political and environmental anthropology. © 2023 paul h. mason 1 jasmijn rana, 2022, punching back: gender, religion, and belonging in women-only kickboxing, new york: berghahn books, 180 pp., isbn 9781800736900 keywords: anthropology of sport; gender; anthropology of islam; belonging; europe in punching back: gender, religion, and belonging in women-only kickboxing, jasmijn rana presents a compelling exploration of how the growing participation of muslim women in sports offers fresh perspectives on their lives and identities in contemporary europe. focusing on womenonly kickboxing classes in the hague, rana challenges dominant theories on learning, belonging, and secularity by showing how these ostensibly secular spaces become arenas where personal selfimprovement intersects with religious commitments. by taking the religious pursuits of the participants seriously, rana disrupts reductive narratives that portray muslim women as either oppressed by tradition or empowered only through secular practices. situated at the intersection of anthropology of sport, anthropology of islam, and gender studies, rana’s ethnographic work conducted between 2011 and 2013 reveals how young moroccan-dutch women use kickboxing to reimagine and negotiate their gendered and religious identities. her analysis critiques racialized narratives and integration discourses, demonstrating how muslim women’s agency in sports transcends simplistic binaries while remaining embedded in broader social structures. the ethnography is set in two gyms located in the hague southwest. both gyms offer women-only classes, although they differ in the extent to which they enforce the concept of “women-only”. one gym predominantly serves turkish women, while the other is largely frequented by moroccan women, offering a comparative lens through which rana investigates themes of gender, religion, and ethnoracial minorities. these spaces are emblematic of broader societal dynamics in the netherlands – a country that often perceives itself as a homogeneous, secular, and modern nation, yet one where racialized minorities, specifically muslim communities, face persistent scrutiny. through her focus on women-only kickboxing classes, rana reveals the ways in which racialized 2 narratives about young muslim women are reproduced and resisted within dutch society. this ethnographic study is grounded in the broader societal context of the netherlands, where government sports programs in probleemwijken disadvantaged neighborhoods) are often promoted as tools for integration. however, rana critiques these initiatives for being deeply racialized and gendered, portraying young moroccan men as violent and undisciplined and muslim women as oppressed victims requiring empowerment. through her detailed ethnography and critique of topdown approaches, rana bridges experiences at these gyms with debates on policy, integration, and societal belonging. chapter 1 sets the stage by introducing the neighborhoods of the hague southwest, known for their high concentration of kickboxing gyms, and contextualizes the rise of women-only kickboxing within the broader societal framework of dutch integration policies. rana critiques the role of sports as a mechanism for producing disciplined citizens, arguing that the “integrationthrough-sports" model reinforces existing power imbalances of race and gender. while such policies ostensibly promote inclusivity and participation, they often function to discipline muslim youth in ways that reproduce racialized and gendered inequalities. rana asserts that sports create a “vicious circle” for muslim women, where inclusion is conditional upon conformity to hegemonic secular norms. the second chapter delves into the embodied processes through which young women and girls become kickboxers, examining how skills are developed differently across gyms and contexts. through ethnographic insights, rana explores how enskillment – learning kickboxing techniques – goes beyond athletic proficiency to cultivate a collective sense of belonging and identity. the chapter demonstrates how kickboxer identities are shaped by training methods, pain, endurance, and sparring, creating a sociability that transcends traditional athlete identities. rana argues that the ways in which kickboxer identities are crafted vary by gym, generation, and gender, illustrating how these identities reflect broader structures of belonging within dutch society. kickboxing provides young women a space to differentiate themselves from non-athletes and reimagine their position within intersecting gender, racial, and religious dynamics. chapter 3 examines the intersection of femininity, masculinity, and empowerment in women-only kickboxing settings. it explores how young women navigate gender norms through practices such as self-defense, aesthetic concerns, and gym sociability. rana highlights how kickboxing becomes 3 a space for crafting new gender subjectivities that, while empowering, often maintain an “apologetic” stance toward male dominance. the chapter argues that women-only kickboxing appropriates traditional narratives of empowerment by blending them with motivations rooted in sociability and personal aesthetics rather than competitive achievement. these dynamics reflect broader social norms and hegemonic power structures, illustrating how kickboxing enables young women to construct gendered self-realizations that balance physical strength with societal expectations of femininity. chapter 4 focuses on the interplay between piety and gendered self-realization in women-only kickboxing. by exploring practices such as gender separation, sartorial choices, and romantic relationships, rana reveals how women integrate their religious and athletic aspirations. the chapter argues that women-only kickboxing is a secular means for realizing piety, challenging stereotypes of muslim women as submissive or disempowered. instead, it shows how kickboxing serves as a catalyst for heightened religious observance for some women, blending secular practices with religious ambitions. rana further argues that the practice is neither purely resistant nor submissive to male authority or western feminist ideals but represents a complex negotiation of religious and secular sensibilities. this negotiation demonstrates the agency of young muslim women in redefining pious practices through sports. the last chapter presents a detailed case study of alia to illustrate the intersection of race, religion, and gender in the pursuit of a kickboxing career. through alia’s story, rana examines the challenges faced by women navigating expectations from family, friends, and society while striving for success in a male-dominated sport. the chapter argues that gendered subjectivities in kickboxing are shaped in relation to male counterparts, highlighting the complexities of racialized and gendered dynamics in competitive sports. alia’s humility, piety, and blend of femininity and masculinity reflect broader societal pressures and reveal how muslim women’s pursuit of kickboxing careers embodies both resistance and conformity to existing social hierarchies. this chapter underscores the multifaceted nature of negotiating inclusion within layered structures of dutch society. the book concludes by revisiting the themes of gendered self-realization and belonging arguing that kickboxing serves as both an emancipatory practice and a reinforcement of heteronormative and racialized norms. rana critiques traditional feminist and integration discourses that 4 essentialize muslim women, showing how the practice of kickboxing challenges stereotypes of passivity and secularism without detaching participants from their religious aspirations. womenonly kickboxing emerges as a space where young women negotiate gendered, racialized, and religious subjectivities while navigating the temporal dimensions of their lives, such as expectations of marriage and adulthood. rana ultimately argues that kickboxing provides a unique avenue for muslim women to reimagine their identities, blending secular and pious sensibilities in ways that transcend dominant narratives of integration and empowerment. this nuanced exploration highlights the agentic power of submission to religion within the framework of sports, revealing how muslim women carve out spaces of belonging within a nation that continues to view them through a racialized lens. one of the key strengths of punching back lies in its remarkable ethnographic depth, offering rich, nuanced accounts of muslim women’s experiences in the context of women-only kickboxing gyms in the hague. rana’s detailed and empathetic engagement with her interlocutors brings to life the complexities of their identities and choices, showcasing the intersection of gender, religion, and race. this intersectional lens is a significant contribution to understanding how muslim women navigate societal expectations, power imbalances, and personal aspirations. by challenging dominant narratives and stereotypes about muslim women as either submissive victims of their religion or emancipated only through secularism, rana offers a refreshing counterpoint to both mainstream and academic discourses. the book makes a vital contribution to anthropology, broadening the scope of the anthropology of sports by demonstrating how combat sports intersect with issues of piety, gender, and integration, and enriching the anthropology of islam by focusing on the embodied practices and secular-religious negotiations of muslim women. in doing so, rana effectively bridges these fields, illustrating the transformative potential of interdisciplinary scholarship in capturing the lived realities of marginalized communities. eilis lanclus holds a phd in social and cultural anthropology from ku leuven, belgium. her research is situated at the intersection of anthropology of sports, sensory ethnography, and endurance, with a particular focus on the embodied and emplaced practices and experiences of running and walking. 5 © 2018 eilis lanclus microsoft word kolb review revised (1).docx 1 kenneth g. hirth, david m. carballo, and barbara arroyo (eds.), 2020, teotihuacan: the world beyond the city. dumbarton oaks pre-columbian symposia and colloquia, washington, dc: dumbarton oaks research library and collection. isbn: 978 088402-4675. 528 pp. teotihuacan: the world beyond the city is a scholarly coffee-table size volume of 15 chapters, written by two dozen authors, and is the result of a dumbarton oaks pre-columbian symposia symposium which brought together specialists in art and archaeology to develop a synthetic overview of the urban, political, economic, and religious organization of a strategic power in classic-period mesoamerica. it provides the first comparative discussion of teotihuacan’s foreign policy with respect to the central mexican highlands, oaxaca, veracruz, and maya lowlands and highlands. contributors discuss whether teotihuacan’s interactions were hegemonic, diplomatic, stylistic, or a combination of these or other social processes. the authors draw on recent investigations and discoveries to update models of teotihuacan’s history ce 100-650, in the process covering various questions about the nature of teotihuacan’s commercial relations, political structure, military relationships with outlying areas, the prestige of the city, and the worldview it espoused through both monumental architecture and portable media. the volume is organized into an “introduction” by the three editors (chapter 1); three parts: i “the organization of teotihuacan society” (chapters 2–4); ii “iconography at teotihuacan and abroad” (chapters 5–7); and iii “teotihuacan outside the city” (chapters 8–15); “discussion” (chapter 16); a list of “contributors”; and a valuable, detailed “index.” each chapter has its own “references cited” rather than a conflated compilation, so that each chapter stands alone as a publication. 2 in the initial chapter, the editors discuss the development of teotihuacan commencing with its cultural influence throughout mesoamerica and correctly note that that our knowledge of its past has emphasized more about the urban center than its role as a state. the cultural phases, evidence of foreign enclaves, and direct and indirect contact with further distant polities for commerce, pilgrimages, political alliances, and militarism are reviewed. in part i, michael smith considers teotihuacan as an international cosmopolitan city with evidence of neighborhoods of foreigners, and a distributor of foreign goods, plus foreign writing and artistic styles. he contends that teotihuacan was a “world city” like imperial rome. david carballo reviews its political organization beginning in the late preclassic, citing models, mechanisms, the evidence for sacred precincts, urban governance, and social inequality polycentric organization within the barrios. kenneth hirth examines the internal economy of the city (notably obsidian sources and craft activities) and details teotihuacan’s long-distance trade as a collaborative, cooperative, and commercial enterprise involving the intermediate elite. the chapters on iconography include the nawa sugiyama et al. assessment of teotihuacan-maya interactions from the plaza of the columns complex in the teotihuacan ceremonial center, particularly maya murals with mythological creatures and offerings of high-quality maya-made ceramics dated ad 300-350. in another chapter, mathew robb reviews gulf coast evidence, including stela, slate discs, and pyrite mirrors, the latter which became elite mortuary offerings. diana magaloni-kerpel and her associates focus on ceramic vessels and wall murals from elite residential compounds and uses in burials, offerings, and caches. they analyzed pastes, finishes, and pigments (reds and greens) using x-ray, pxrf, plm, sem-eds, and raman, and sem-eds analyses. in chapters 7, the late deb nichols (1952-2022) characterizes teotihuacan as a primate city, and its architecture, pottery (imported wares such as thin orange and granular), and craft production, and hinterlands as components of state polity. she assessed the evidence for residential workshops, hydraulic cultivation, transportation corridors, and the corporate commercial model proposed by hirth with intermediate elites governing neighborhoods. mexican archaeologists gabriela uruñuela y ladrón de guevara and patricia plunket examine the relationships between the citystate of cholula and teotihuacan starting with the middle formative period and trade in commodities to illustrate relationships between the two polities. they also examine the 3 chronological growth sequences of teotihuacan’s moon pyramid and the great pyramid at cholula. agents and political and economic interaction networks between teotihuacan and the gulf coast are documented by wesley stoner and marc marino. four divergent networks were characterized using ceramics, iconography, lapidary, and mortuary evidence. gary feinman and linda nicholas assess teotihuacan-oaxaca models of exchange interaction, notably foreign inmigration, social emulation, commercial relations, and political alliances. they also examine teotihuacan’s external trade expeditions as related to chronologies and calendrics. marcello canuto and ernesto arredondo explore binary opposites: foreign conquest versus elite emulation, in teotihuacan and the maya lowlands as seen in stelae and obsidian sources at the el achiotal ruins in the northwest peten, guatemala, and argue that the lowland maya were not integrated into the teotihuacan empire. next, claudia garcía-des lauriers examines cacao, copal incense, jade artifacts, tropical bird feathers, and obsidian as major objects of in the economic interactions between teotihuacan and the southeastern pacific coast of mesoamerica. the los horcones and montaña sites are proposed as hubs of economic exchange and religious practices. barbara arroyo focuses on relationships between teotihuacan and the guatemalan sites of kaminaljuyu, and escuintla, and the maya highlands’ trade and sociopolitical connections. the local maya adopted teotihuacan customs in architecture and ceramics, and other parallels include landscape manipulation, water control for cultivation, building and offerings, and multiethnic enclaves. michael smith suggests models that enable scholars to better appreciate the significance and implications of the rich data of archaeology, epigraphy, and art history presented in the other chapters of this book. he suggests a three-stage procedure that can help create a better scholarly understanding of teotihuacan and its role in classic period mesoamerica. lastly, he presents case studies and characterizes the teotihuacan empire. in the final chapter, william fash provides a detailed, substantive review of the conference papers, and critiques and expands some concepts presented by other contributors. teotihuacan residents and corporate groups abroad suggest new models of the organization of commerce and revisions to earlier thinking. he elaborates three main topics: 1) the organization of the city and relations with its partners which changed through space and time; 2) the origins and development of teotihuacan ideology which promoted pilgrimages and commerce; and 3) economic benefits that came to all parties, provided by the centripetal and centrifugal power of a market economy. 4 the editors and international contributors to teotihuacan: the world beyond the city must be congratulated for producing this significant achievement in mesoamerican archaeology and art history, and have established a benchmark that will likely not be succeeded in some time. the volume is the product of the well-attended dumbarton oaks pre-columbian symposium in the autumn of 2017 and promptly published thereafter. the editors were the symposium’s organizers and selected scholars who had, and continue to conduct, substantive research at teotihuacan and in regions of mesoamerica where the classic period polity influenced local societies’ economies and religious practices. the chapters present current information and propose a number of paradigms based upon the assembled data. collectively, the authors have compiled a work upon which future research can and will be based. the volume is a valuable asset to research libraries and an important contribution to regional studies, and should be emulated in other areas of the globe. charles c. kolb, ph.d., rpa. independent scholar. he holds a b.a. in history from the pennsylvania state university and earned his ph.d. at penn state in anthropology and archaeology focusing on latin america and central asia. from 1962-2018 he conducted archaeological and ecological field work in mesoamerica, central asia, and northeastern north america. he taught for 24 years at penn state, bryn mawr, and mercyhurst university, and retired after 23 years as senior program officer at the national endowment for the humanities (usa). kolb has conducted archaeometric analyses on ceramics since 1962, and served for 26 years as associate editor for archaeological ceramics with the bulletin of the society for archaeological sciences. since 1965 he has authored 6 monographs, 168 articles and book chapters, 856 book reviews (print and internet in 69 different professional publications), and written 63 encyclopedia contributions. © 2023 charles c. kolb 1 agata mazzeo, 2020, dust inside: fighting and living with asbestos-related disasters in brazil, new york: berghahn books. 202 pp., isbn 978-1-78920-931-0 keywords: activism; disease; asbestos; brazil; bodies agata mazzeo opens the book with the shared feeling of disappointment and indignation among activists over the eternit trial, the first trial of an ac corporation accused of environmental disaster manslaughter. on these feelings of disappointment and indignation hinges a story of activism around the anti-asbestos movement. a poignant and layered ethnographic work shows how the antiasbestos movement based in brazil which is formed in relation with local, national, and international activism. tracing the connections between italy’s anti-asbestos movement to brazil, the author explores the history of migration, material and knowledge transfer between italy and brazil. they settle on osasco, where eternit built its first asbestos cement plant in brazil, as a place to explore the lives and relations formed in the production and activism against asbestos. asbestos tells the story of bodily debilitation over time. asbestos is the generic term that indicates a group of fibrous silicate minerals including amphibole, chrysotile, amosite, and crocidolite. it lingers on clothes and laces lungs. it causes a condition of incessant painful suffering caused by asbestos related diseases (ard), exacerbated by the company’s concealment of their rights. the knowledge created from this embodied experience and the activism stemming from that connects the brazilian activist movement with a struggle for global health. through this, the book explores 2 a case of health-based activism from an anthropological perspective centered on the bodily experience of disasters and activism. the author conducted interviews with professionals in the field of public health (biomedical doctors, epidemiologists, and lung specialists), lawyers, trade unionists and members of ngos and associations of workers who had been exposed to other toxic substances. most importantly, they remained an active part of abrea (brazilian association of exposed to asbestos) where they met anti-asbestos activists for discussions, reflections and proposals for action that might be feasible in the local context, but with connections to national and international organizations. the author’s focus on memory as a method leads them to reconstruct the worlds of their interlocutors’ youth and work at the plant through narratives and bibliographic research, reading the traces and the resonances left by that past in the present. the author described their role as rooted in research, where they let themselves be “‘affected by the events’ (foucault 1997) but does not claim to equate the public and social contribution that might derive from [the] study to the actions resulting from the daily commitment of anti-asbestos activists” (149). in chapter 1, the toxic market of asbestos and global health disasters, the author presents their interlocutors’ narratives, showing how the disaster processes occur and which practices have exacerbated the impact of asbestos exposure on their lives. global market of asbestos promoted the possibility of establishing a safe threshold of asbestos exposure and focused on promoting the use of masks, moistening asbestos material before proceeding with disposal, and washing work clothes inside the factories. the way risk from asbestos was understood and managed globally in reports, rulings and research created the knowledge for its invisibility. by managing what counts and is diagnosed as asbestos related disease (ard), the veil of invisibility of risk was made more 3 impenetrable and asbestos market was managed to prevent exposed workers and citizens from framing their own experiences of danger into risk categories. linking the local struggles of workers to global discourses around asbestos sets the stage for the interconnections regarding the flourishing of the anti-asbestos movement that the author brings to light later on in the book. the author provides the historical and socio-cultural context for the anti-asbestos activism in chapter 2, osasco: city, work and struggles through a description of the process of industrialization, exchange, migration, and urbanization in the city of osasco in brazil. between the late 19th and early 20th century, when italians were migrating to brazil for factory work, the former são paulo county of osasco was a labor-class suburb. osasco was born and developed with a unionist past and the anti-asbestos activism stems from it. the author shows how the practices of activism develop from the “involvement of the sufferers, who develop knowledge and therefore acquire the power to act” (65). anti-asbestos activism has provided ard sufferers with language, including political, judicial, and biomedical words, to think about and name their private experiences of exposure, illness, and grief in terms of injustice. this anti-asbestos activism is based on the knowledge of workers own bodies made into socially relevant knowledge often in the battle for their recognition as ard victims. chapter 3, suffering and embodied disasters, engagement, is a look into anti-asbestos activism which gives workers the space to perform their victimhood as agents by developing a theoretical knowledge through their experiential knowledge of asbestos dangers. the book provides a deep understanding of affective worlds formed in and through the realization of disease, the work done for the acknowledgement of disease, and the activism for the anti-asbestos movement. the sensorial 4 recollections of working at the plant are used to make claims on the local, national, and international judicial system and activist networks. chapter 4, the politics of anti-asbestos activism, the author shows how antiasbestos activists use the memory of their loved ones as a tool to legitimize their campaigns affectively. secondly, they use biomedical documentation proving contamination to take action and claim their rights for compensation, access to health care and relief while facing basic needs and everyday difficulties. the chapter also reflects on the role of abrea in negotiating rights and elaborating knowledge through continuous dialogue since the 1990s with political and local administrative settings, public health centers, judicial arenas, and the transnational movement for the global prohibition of asbestos. chapter 5, engaging global health, anti-asbestos activism and ethnography, shows how antiasbestos activism can be situated within global health by focusing on the actions of antiasbestos activists, health professionals and researchers who conceive of their engagement in activism and research as a moral commitment. the chapter shows how the work of biomedical doctors who, by engaging in interdisciplinary collaborations and exchange of knowledge with the exposed communities, made diseases like pleural plaques considered a disabling disease. these examples are illustrative of how the anti-asbestos movement takes part in the ‘quest for equity’ in a global arena by contributing to and making use of global knowledge about asbestos. the moral commitment of activism that chapter 5 explores is also linked to the author’s own moral commitment. the book ends with exploring their place in the research where they engaged with their interlocutors as well as the process of activism but did not assume full participation. they also developed their own relationality of exposure through this research. further, they situate the 5 research in the political landscape of violence and poverty in brazil while embedding the narratives of interlocutors in transnational frameworks of global health. it is the well-nested argument from everyday narratives of people to activism including the work of organizations and judicial systems in understanding the impacts of asbestos. this is a must-read book that adds to the field of the study of bodies, memory, activism, and care. ramsha usman is a phd candidate at the university of california, santa barbara. her research focuses on disability, industrial labor, sustainability, and care in south asia. © 2024 ramsha usman 6 1 lata mani, 2022, myriad intimacies. durham and london: duke university press, 104 pp, isbn: 978-1-4780-1827-8. keywords: feminist anthropology; spirituality; activism; decolonial theory; south asian studies in a recent essay, tanya luhrmann (2023) described ethnography as a spiritual practice. spiritual practices, writes luhrmann, are “practices that are meant to transform your life.” myriad intimacies holds this potential: it does not merely describe but embodies and enacts what a spiritually-driven intellectual and activist practice can be. myriad intimacies is lata mani’s eighth book (not counting the four children’s books she has also authored) in a long and storied journey as a feminist theorist, scholar, and filmmaker. a graduate of the history of consciousness program at uc santa cruz, mani studied alongside ruth frankenberg, chela sandoval, lisa lowe, bell hooks, and others who would become, along with mani herself, leading figures in postcolonial and women of color feminism. in 1993, mani’s life irrevocably changed after a traumatic head injury. as she describes in interleaves (2011), her disability simultaneously opened a new meaning, purpose and promise of life, what she came to describe as a tantrically-attuned path.1 mani’s body of work not only questions euro-american 1 the word tantra is derived from the sanskrit root tan, which means to expand, spread, or stretch; the word tantra is also translated as ‘loom’ or ‘weaving,’ suggesting the interconnectedness of all things. tantra is an ancient, heterogeneous indian tradition of knowledge and practicethat seeks to ‘divinize’ the human person by harnessing mental and physical energies as well as the ‘magical’ properties of language and sacred visual imagery, among other things. in tantra, the universe is alive, a manifestation of divine consciousness. tantra is thus a worldand bodyaffirming tradition that cuts across popular and elite expressions of hinduism, buddhism, jainism, and other religions. 2 epistemologies, but theorizes from tantric principles, which offer radically different ethical, epistemological, and ontological starting point. although she does not herself use the term ‘decolonial,’ myriad intimacies is a profound experience of decolonial feminist methodology. myriad intimacies is not a book that can be consumed or read in any straightforward sense. you must immerse or even submerge yourself in it. for that reason, it might be challenging to those who are unwilling to radically undiscipline themselves. but letting go of normative expectations of what a scholarly book is and what arguments are will yield bountiful rewards. myriad intimacies undoes staid hierarchies and binaries that structure scholarly and activist thought–between the spiritual/intellectual, mind/matter, observation/theory, art/science–and instead celebrates the radical interconnectedness with all persons and things as a precondition of creativity. in so doing, mani reminds us that intellectual and activist work express, at their heart, aspects of our creativity. this creativity is also embodied in the book’s composition. as she describes at the beginning of myriad intimacies, mani’s dis/ability shifted her away from the methods of close reading and textual analysis in which she had been trained as a historian, to new mediums–the visual, poetic, mnemonic, intuitive, and contemplative. the book consists of 8 poems, 13 short essays, and 5 multimedia/video pieces (collaborations with the argentinian filmmaker nicolás grandi), ranging from 1 to 38 minutes in length. though a slim work (104 pages), myriad intimacies is playful, enthralling, and kaleidoscopic (the word myriad comes from the greek stem mȳriás, which means, “ten thousand”), honoring the natural world with which it frequently conspires. its dreamy movements, from poem to video to essay, are intentional, allowing readers to find the path most suited to them. borrowing from gloria anzaldúa (2000: 38, 178), myriad intimacies is a work of “spiritual activism.” although “spiritual” implies an inward-looking, intellectual focus, and “activism” implies outward-directed, material action, for mani, as for anzaldúa, these facets of being are inseparable; they must come together in any project to transform oneself and one’s worlds. if this sounds “new age-y,” it is not. unlike the navel-gazing tendencies of new age spirituality, spiritual activism demands a transformation of existing social structures and ways of thinking, and mani draws from a deep well of meditative practice. this is at its core a deeply inter-active work, 3 in not just exhorting us to see or analyze the world differently but giving us tools to do so. the sense of co-creating along with mani, that which lends myriad intimacies its brimming vibrancy, is facilitated by the ingenious design of including qr codes that link directly to the multimedia pieces, so readers can watch them on their phones or computers while reading (hopefully, more publishers will follow this elegant design). the resulting experience is a profoundly meditative one, where theoretical, political, and philosophical insights flow uninterrupted, like water sliding over glassy rocks. the book’s thirteen short essays connect and apply tantric philosophical insights about interconnectedness and the sacredness of embodiment to the political crises of our contemporary moment. covid-19, structural racism, caste oppression, anti-authoritarian protests in india, contemporary feminist activism, identity politics, and #metoo, are among its many subjects. writing in prose, mani implores us to explore what counts as action or efficacy in activism; why leftist politics sometimes replicate the violence they stand against; and why progressive social movements seem so brittle today. no ordinary cultural critic, mani’s aim is not to merely diagnose, but to heal. in the masked philosopher, michel foucault writes that “what we are suffering is not a void but inadequate means for thinking about everything that is happening” (1998: 325). some of the most profound costs of covid-19 virus, political polarization, and perpetual war, argues mani, are how they have eroded our sense of connectedness and wholeness. and our response to these crises, on both the political left and right, reinforce our separateness, depleting us politically and spiritually. this is because we have come to see politics as “tactical moves against an external enemy.” instead, mani leads us to a different meaning of politics, as an “imaginative discipline of living together artfully (65).” she implores us to (re)imagine politics, activism, and scholarship not as a battlefield, but as a space of unimaginable diversity and heterogeneous complexity. as she puts it, “there is no outside. there is no other. there is only intimacy” (53). in the gorgeous and moving essay, ‘“a glorious thing made up of stardust: what pat parker and rohith vemula ask us to consider’” (the title of which is taken from rohith vemula’s suicide 4 note2), mani relates vemula’s life to the contradictions inherent to social justice movements. born into a dalit family, vemula experienced violence and exclusion throughout his life. the affirmative action measures that granted him access to institutions of higher education in india simultaneously marked him as only dalit, a constraint of agency so severe that it eventually led to him ending his life. in his suicide note, vemula pleads for recognition of his humanity beyond social categories, as ‘a glorious thing made of stardust.’ attending to vemula’s demands–mani argues, putting into conversation with the words of black feminist poet pat parker–means recognizing a key dilemma in social justice activism: that it replicates and reifies the very categories it seeks to dismantle. to advocate for the rights of caste-oppressed people, dalitness is codified in law and social movements. rather than lead to caste abolition, then, we proliferate social categories that cannot “adequately express the rich actuality or fullness of who one is” (45). sensuous, illuminating, enchanting, and endlessly generative, myriad intimacies is a political necessity that feels like an indulgence because of its generosity of spirit. it is rare to meet a book that is both so intellectually precise and loving. its insights will deeply resonate with anthropologists interested in decolonial, feminist, and queer theory and methods because it offers a powerful–and hopeful–example beyond critique. the book also holds valuable insights for environmental anthropologists, scholars of social movements, anthropologists of religion, and south asianists. it is the perfect gift for a friend or colleague struggling with imposter syndrome, writer’s block, or just plain old ennui. after all, theorizing and meditating on our relatedness, wrote anzaldúa, can lead to “less-structured thoughts, less-rigid categorizations, and thinner boundaries,” allowing us to picture – “via reverie, dreaming, and artistic creativity – similarities instead of solid divisions” (2002: 568). you think you already know these truths, or you might not be ready for this kind of adventure, but the beauty of myriad intimacies is that you can start anywhere and still be awed. after all, as mani reminds us, our task as anthropologists to represent and interpret the world is infinitely “playful, mysterious, and magical” (4). 2 vemula was a phd student at the university of hyderabad when he died in 2016. his death sparked student-led protests across india. 5 works cited anzaldúa, gloria. 2000. interviews/entrevistas, ed. analouise keating. new york: routledge. foucault, michel. 1998. “the masked philosopher.” in ethics, subjectivity and truth: essential work of michel foucault, 1955–1984, volume 1, edited by paul rabinow, 321–28. new york: the new press. lurhmann, tanya. 2023. “anthropology as spiritual discipline.” american ethnologist 2023: 1 4. doi: 10.1111/amet.13244 mani, lata. 2011. interleaves: ruminations on illness and spiritual life. yoda press: new delhi. saiba varma is an associate professor of the psychological/medical anthropology subfield and the vice chair of undergraduate studies at the university of california, san diego. she is a medical and cultural anthropologist working on questions of violence, medicine, psychiatry, and politics as they pertain to indian-controlled kashmir and south asia more generally. saiba conducts ethnographic research in kashmir, the site of a chronic, unresolved conflict, and one of the most militarized places on earth. her research explores how spaces of psychiatric and humanitarian care confront, but also become microcosms of, the broader politics of violence and occupation that characterize life in kashmir. © 2024 saiba varma microsoft word el hawary-edited-031024 (1).docx eds. by mark micale and hans pols. traumatic pasts in asia history, psychiatry, and trauma from the 1930s to the present. new york, ny: berghahn books, isbn:9781800731844 traumatic pasts in asia focuses on how people reacted to horrific past events of wars, mass violence, and natural disasters across modern asian history, covering the period from the mid1930s to the present. the book includes twelve case studies examining social, cultural, and political manifestations of psychological trauma. the book can be read in relation to the original traumatic pasts: history, psychiatry, and trauma in the modern age, 1870-1930 volume, published in 2001 that exclusively focused on europe and north america. employing ‘trauma’ as a vantage point to excavate underrepresented social histories challenges the conventional contours of the term as both a diagnostic label and a moral frame. the contributors interrogate pasts suggested by our current time where ‘trauma’ is increasingly capable of evoking relatable meanings and moral concerns, dubbed the “age of trauma” (117). trauma is articulated in two distinctive ways. whereas ‘trauma’ is utilized in some cases to unravel the silenced forms of pain and suffering, some other cases critiqued the overt exporting of “trauma” to non-western realms through professionals obscured local priorities of healing. the overarching argument furthers the fact that “western concepts of psychological trauma provide a powerful lens of analysis through which to study modern asian history” (5). in that way, the book resembles a novel contribution to the growing interdisciplinary area of historical trauma studies with non-western accounts. most case studies provide a profound critique to the expansion of western psychiatric diagnostic categories like ‘trauma’ and its concomitant ‘ptsd’ as objective categories in recognizing psychological suffering and their potential incongruity in non-western contexts. the studies carried out mainly by historians and anthropologists in this volume explore “how individuals and communities reacted to these calamities, and how victims, survivors, and others crafted narratives and coping strategies to render their suffering legible, intelligible, visible, manageable and legitimate” (3). arguably, this book counts as a valuable endeavour to “decolonize mental health” by defamiliarizing current western conceptions of psychology and psychiatry that seek universalism.i it highlights the necessity of unsettling the hegemonic aura of biomedical psychological categories. that is, "taking asian experiences of trauma ‘on their own terms’” (micale and pols; 2021, 5). more precisely, “psychological trauma is culturally and historically situated and cannot be extracted from its complex social, cultural and political context” (4). the book, thus, exposes readers to a wide range of sociocultural patterns in handling psychological suffering, either by drawing on indigenous cultural references, importing foreign biomedical frames, or combining both modes of knowledge. after traumatizing events, people resort to diverse cultural strategies to restore their communities and gain a sense of normality that the book editors identify as a “blend of interpretations.” this “blend of interpretations” unfolds the intriguing fusion between traditional healing techniques along with other different streams of medical, psychological, and psychiatric traditions in interpreting the aftereffects of trauma. in other words, the chapters unpack “the dynamic interplay between dominant (western) psychiatric views on ptsd and various local idioms of distress” (19). some chapters have instrumentalized the concept of “trauma” to uncover the existing silences on experienced violence. however, words like “trauma” and “traumatic” are not part of the various spoken languages in asia. chapter 3, “atomic trauma,” by ran zwigerbery tackles the paradoxical phenomenon of the rising interest in studying the psychological ramifications of the nuclear age after the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki (in japan), as a “psychological weapon of ‘mass terror’” as an unprecedented event witnessed by the entire world, while overlooking the actual survivors of these bombings who faced neglect for their mental suffering for decades (78). the historical excavations uncovered a confluence of reasons behind the negligence of atomic bomb survivors’ psychological trauma. the failure to acknowledge the psychological pain among the survivors is attributed to multiple reasons, namely american censorship, japanese researchers’ suspicion of trauma, and the immense interest in radiation damage. likewise, chapter 6 tries to read the psychological trauma implied in the letter-writing friendship between western activists and a group of indonesian women imprisoned as part of anti-communist purges in indonesia. the author, vannessa hearman, recognizes the fact that these women never used the term “trauma,” but applying psychological trauma allows the research to subvert the imposed stigma on female communist activists in contemporary indonesia. similarly, hua wu relies on the connections of trauma and memory in addressing the remembering of the experiences of sent-down youth programs that mobilized urban educated kids to the countryside during the communist restructuring of 1960s china. the ethnographic studies in chapters 5, 10, and 11 defy the globalization of ptsd. in fact, ptsd screening has been indoctrinated as an integral humanitarian effort to elevate the suffering of inflicted populations since the 1990s. such standardization of psychological relief has obscured the complex dynamics that take place in processing traumatic events, especially in protracted conflicts, like in vietnam, burma and kashmir. as the editors nicely put it, “many individuals in asia today remain in situations that continue to traumatize them: they therefore are not yet post their trauma” (16). in chapter 5, “no ptsd in vietnam,” narguis barak attends to the vigorous marketization of ptsd, by bringing into play an array of particular cultural, contextual, socio-political history and environmental factors that condition suffering and healing in the vietnamese context after the war. barak discovered that foreign theories of french and soviet psychiatry found resonance in traditional vietnamese medicine that “emphasized the somatic and social over the intrapsychic and individual” (134). the subsequent chapters 10 and 11 thoroughly describe the transferring of the public health model of trauma and its intersection with local common-sense-making processes, one in burma and the other in occupied kashmir. most importantly, the authors of both chapters notice the constitution of “trauma” and its associated terms as a form of “public testimony” (246) to gain international visibility for the inflicted populations. another curious moment that some of the studies trace is the non-linearity of the development of psychiatry and psych-sciences in the early twentieth century. they, rather, unravel the dialectic dynamics in transferring and applying these modern western realms of ideas and traditional cultural frames, in various contexts, cultures, and times. in chapter 4, jennifer yumpark discusses the time in south korea in which army psychiatrists struggled to diagnose and treat the psychiatric victims of war after the korean war. this historical case simultaneously highlights the role of war in facilitating the global exchange of medical ideas, and the dynamism of ideas in psychiatric thought and practice, at that time. for instance, the neofreudian dominated american psychiatry which extended freud’s thought in explaining mental breakdown in the army. the neo-freudians ascribed the mental breakdown to the “preexisting psychological and interpersonal disturbances since their early childhood” (102). in chapter 7, caroline bennett—through her focus on haunting in post-khmer rouge cambodia—provides what she describes as “a counter-narrative or alternative approach to totalizing approaches” that perpetuate “the notion of ptsd as a normal stress response to traumatic events” (194). bennett dissects the cambodian ritualistic offerings for the dead in the re-ordering of sociality. to wrap up, the book represents insightful cases that expose the diversity of how people react to horrific past events across asia’s modern history. the careful contextualization included in each chapter confronts the inherent bias of the historical trauma studies of well-documented traumatic experiences in the western world. untangling intricate social and cultural mechanisms people deploy in times of turbulence and rapture challenge the discursive hegemony of trauma as a self-evident moral imperative. nevertheless, a significant cluster of studies have relied on trauma as an entry point to discerning extraordinary violence, its longlasting psychological residue, and identifying potential silences. imills, china. decolonizing global mental health : the psychiatrization of the majority world. london ; routledge, taylor & francis group, 2014. nouran el-hawary is a phd candidate in the social anthropology programme, at the university of otago. her research topic explores the concepts and practices of wellbeing among arab refugees, who recently resettled, since 2016, in the city of dunedin, new zealand. unpacking ‘wellbeing’ critically challenges the trauma-centric discourse in humanitarian practices which depict refugees as helpless victims, in need of saving. focusing on ‘wellbeing’ draws on the creativity, life-sustaining techniques, and dignity that refugees carve out along their displacement journeys. in 2019, she ethnographically examined the everyday lives of sub-saharan refugees and migrants in tracking their experiences in accessing healthcare in rabat, morocco, as part of her ma degree. applying anthropological inquiry provided grounded and nuanced understandings of complexities and ambivalences stemming from the implementation of global health polices that promote refugees’ healthcare access, through studying specific locale situated within particular national context and historicity. © 2024 nouran el-hawary 1 author interview in a tale of two surrogates, sociologist elly teman and anthropologist zsuzsa berend bring years of ethnographic research to life through the vivid and accessible medium of comics. the graphic novel delves into the complex emotional, medical, legal, and ethical terrain of assisted reproduction, following women whose lives intertwine through their experiences as gestational surrogates. blending scholarly insight with compelling visual storytelling, a tale of two surrogates bridges the worlds of academia and popular narrative, offering both a window into the lived realities of surrogacy and a model for how comics can communicate social science. comics librarian and 2022 eisner award judge jameson rohrer sat down with teman and berend to discuss how this groundbreaking project came to be, what inspired their turn toward the graphic narrative format, and how visual storytelling can reshape the way we teach and understand ethnography. rohrer: what drew you to this graphic narrative? teman: we were both frustrated during the covid lockdowns and felt the need to do something creative to keep ourselves sane. i had read the graphic novel logicomix: an epic search for truth about the foundational quest in mathematics, and my husband has always been a fan of non-fiction graphic novels so they were around our home. i convinced berend that this could be a fun and interesting project to undertake together and that was before we even knew about the growing body of comics on health and illness in the graphic medicine world. we also both shared the observation that our students have become increasingly visually oriented, and we thought an ethnographic graphic novel could be useful for teaching this new generation of students. after we decided to do this project we found some of the anthropological graphic novels that were being published and that made the project feel more concrete. we also knew that there is a general interest in surrogacy 2 beyond academia and thought this could be a good medium for communicating some of the take home points of our research to non-academic audience. rohrer: what inspired you to shift from academic research to the graphic narrative format for this project? berend: we didn't really "shift"; we relied on our own and our joint publications to create a graphic novel. it was more like an expansion, a creative way of communicating the findings from our empirical research through a different kind of storytelling. rohrer: how did your disciplinary backgrounds in anthropology and sociology influence the storytelling in the book? berend: we didn't want to do a fictional story; as social scientists, we wanted to be true to our data when we created the storyline, we chose commonly occurring events and outcomes and issues and followed the chronological trajectory of surrogacy arrangements. we searched out data for good, representative quotes and stories, we did not go for sensational outliers. teman: i think that because we think like an anthropologist and a sociologist, it was important for us to show how surrogacy is embedded in cultural context (israel vs. us), religious context (jewish vs. christian), regulatory contexts (the lack of federal legislation on surrogacy in the us vs. israel’s centralized national regulation). our disciplinary backgrounds also influenced the tone of the book in that our characters question the cultural assumptions and myths about surrogacy. we use our empirical data to show how the surrogate’s “talk back” to the often-held stereotypical views of surrogates and even to the theoretical debates about exploitation, commodification, and surrogates’ motivations. rohrer: how did you structure and coordinate the writing and visual narrative across alternating chapters and different settings? were there unique challenges in ensuring narrative coherence when interweaving two geographically and culturally distinct stories? zsuza: we worked out the two storylines together, tweaking it many times in the process. we collected our quotes, tried to avoid repetitions, storyboarded the whole book, revised... it helped that we had already cowritten several comparative articles, discussed/compared our data for years. knowing and understanding each other's data was essential: we understood the similarities and differences in the two countries as well as the socio-cultural and political reasons for them. teman: after around a year and a half, we had completed most of the storyboard and we searched through lots of graphic novels to agree on a style we liked. then we searched through online portfolios of artists who had the style we wanted. then we found andrea and worked out a pattern of working with him. teman would send 3 andrea the storyboard for a chapter. andrea would sketch a page, send it by chat to teman back and forth to tweak it. then teman would send it by email to berend. berend would okay it or make a suggestion for a change. this would happen again until the sketch was ready to be inked. same with inking: teman and andrea back and forth on messenger, then teman sends berend by email, then changes. same with the lettering. each page took between four days and a week. there were many challenges because of this: andrea had a lot of very cool ideas and we loved a lot of them and were often surprised by the creative way he used his knowledge of art history (in drawing the greek chorus of surrogates, for instance), of comics (in scenes such as where jenn's mom points at her across the panel, breaking the fourth wall), etc. but there were also some creative ideas that andrea had that we ended up not going for because we felt that they were not exact in regard to the empirical data, and i think that was a challenge for andrea to work with two professors who were so determined to stick to the data. on research and representation rohrer: how did you develop the composite protagonists of jenn and dana from your ethnographic data? berend: we wanted to avoid sensational outliers, while integrating some common expectations, joys, disappointments, medical problems, etc. we worked out two storylines that were similar to many ordinary surrogacy stories in our data. jenn's mother and sister end up becoming less critical and more accepting without being fully on board, for example, which happens frequently. there are cases when surrogates cut ties with family members over disagreements, but again, we tried to avoid very dramatic paths. the overall higher level of acceptance of surrogacy in israel is reflected in dana's story, although there are some critical views as well that we incorporated. teman: the composite characters were developed from the ground up. we wrote down all the themes we saw in our data. then each of us marked a theme as "their" chapter. then we aggregated a lot of quotes on that theme from our data, so for instance, on the topic of gift giving we both had lots of quotes and ended up having the gift theme go across two chapters (gift and then acknowledgement). the idea for the takeaways for each chapter were based on the quotes we listed under that theme, and we kept breaking up chapters as the themes got too big. we allocated quotes that show different views on each theme to the main characters’ interactions with other surrogates in their online communities. so jenn and dana emerged thematically from the mapping of our themes, and they became representations of our data. rohrer: were there any real-life stories or moments that you struggled to adapt to the narrative? 4 berend: all of the story incorporates real-life stories and moments. but there was one issue that we particularly struggled to portray: how the surrogates in my data were less attached to their eggs than the israeli surrogates were. we tried to show this in the storyline where jenn offers her eggs to the intended parents when she finds out they need a donor, but could not find a good contrasting emphasis to dramatize in the story how israeli surrogates would never do that. teman: something else we could not fit into the story was the different levels of loss the surrogates in berend's data spoke about, but we did make sure to put in jenn's story the one episode of loss. we also could not fit into the story the religious jewish surrogates in my more current data, because that opens up really complex issues regarding jewish law that would have taken a whole tangent to illustrate. rohrer: how does the book address the ambivalent emotions (joy, hope, heartbreak) experienced by the surrogates? berend: we were determined to represent ambivalence, however hard it is in this format, and comic artist andrea's compositions and drawings of facial expressions helped convey complex issues (e.g., ch. 8 when jenn is grappling with embryo transfer issues). we also selected quotes that showed ambivalent emotions, hesitation, and the interpretive work surrogates do. when we represented nuance and complexity, we realized that less text is often better, since we could not do the analysis we do in monographs and articles, and reliance on the graphic medium is the way to go. teman: i would add that this is something we learned from andrea. he would often tell us less text and that he could draw things instead. we would send him each page with a detailed storyboard indicating the kind of emotion we thought the character should express but he had to make that happen. family and relationships rohrer: how are family members (spouses, children) affected by the surrogacy experience for both protagonists? berend: both surrogates spend time convincing their husband and preparing their kids. overall, the immediate families are on board, and dana's larger family is also supportive. as so much of our data show, families do their part at home, picking up some of the household work and dealing with the emotional issues in case there are some problems with the ips, but generally, the families are proud of the surrogate and, unless there are some medical issues, there is no adverse effect. (my personal view is that surrogacy impacts the surrogate's kids much less than moving to a different city and different school do!) 5 teman: i'd add that based on conversations i've had with surrogates' kids years later, they are proud of their mom for doing this but it does not remain a big deal, it happened and is over and “what's next”. the husbands find themselves doing a double shift that they did not necessarily sign up for. husbands often see themselves as very central to this journey and i think we conveyed in the characters of the surrogates’ husbands in the graphic novel how involved they can be. mike is more involved throughout and emotionally supportive of jenn. david is present but less involved during dana’s pregnancy but suddenly after the birth he indicates how the surrogacy process affected him. the story also depicts two different trajectories we saw in our data about the extended family-jenn's mom and sister have to come to terms with jenn’s decision to be a surrogate, versus dana's grandmother and sister who are very supportive but protective. rohrer: how do jenn and dana communicate and negotiate their roles with the intended parents? berend: both surros make efforts to convey their desire to help the ips and their support for the "ips' pregnancy" and parenthood. they try to be understanding and patient, although at times feel the need to assert their own views and stand up for their interests (medical decisions, contract negotiations, some independence, etc.) they try to convince their ips that they are trustworthy and responsible as well as informed and helpful. teman: the relationships are representative of two different models that come up in our data: blurred boundaries versus distance. of course, there are all sorts of variations and in-betweens, but these are two models we saw often enough. in israel, where it is a small country with very emotive/intense/mediterranean familism, i (teman) observed intense relationships between surrogates and ims especially in which ims would usually accompany surros to every appointment and sometimes it was too intense, like in sarah and dana's case. pages 108-109 show the tension between shared pregnancy versus suffocation. in the us, where ips often live in different states or even countries, the surros in berend's data often experienced the relationship over telephone or internet. sometimes surrogates like jenn expected more and were disappointed by the distance, even though they were treated respectfully (see jen on page 133 speaking to ann about the distance). of course, sometimes in both countries surrogates were not treated respectfully. rohrer: what was the most challenging aspect of balancing empathy for all parties involved? berend: we did try! by presenting the ips' perspective in some key moments we tried to draw attention to the other side. our research was more centrally on surrogates, so the book reflects this, but having some understanding of ips illuminates how conflicts can emerge, and how surrogates try to give the ips the benefit of the doubt, because in some situations the parties’ interests do not coincide, even with the best intentions. teman: my research was also on ips, so we drew on that as well, to show some of the reasons that dana’s intended mother sarah, for instance, might have been a bit too controlling. we show her long infertility journey, her fear of more disappointments, her understanding that she might cause bad luck/the evil eye, and her need to 6 transition to motherhood through her relationship with dana. these are all based on my research with intended mothers. rohrer: jenn relies on online surrogacy forums; what role does online community play in her journey? and did you find the “chorus” of online voices analogous to support groups you’ve seen in other contexts? zszusa: online support was key in jenn's story and social media was very important in dana's story. the online communities were the source of support, advice, guidance, encouragement, empathy, understanding. the greek chorus that accompanies jenn on her “journey” was nicer than the actual support forum i studied which had quite a bit of judgment and competition as well as much support and sane advice. however, it would have been too complicated and distracting to portray the online support group as more contentious; it would have involved a fuller portrayal of the different views and goals women have and it would have undermined the tighter structure of our book and its focus on the two surrogates. overall, such support was essential for the surrogates in the us and jenn's story realistically shows some of the key variation and the types of advice women received. i was surprised, actually, during my research to see that some other support forums on other topics were much less contentious, more sympathetic and accepting, than the surro forum i researched (e.g., a ptsd support forum for veterans or cancer support groups had no cattiness or outright judgment of others!). legal and medical challenges rohrer: what legal or medical hurdles did each surrogate face, and how did these differ by country? berend: the legal and medical hurdles can be understood in the context of socio-political and regulatory contexts. jenn has to advocate for herself more because there is much less regulation in the us. dana asserts herself in medical decisions, highlighting her own expertise and knowledge of her own body. legally, jenn must negotiate the terms of her own contract with the cooperation of her lawyer and the ips lawyer and through the shared advice of her online surrogacy community who tell her what to watch out for. dana on the other hand relies mostly on the state and has to go through the screening and approval process of the centralized state committee. the standard contract includes protections that she might not have advocated for herself such as babysitting and cleaning help. the story arc that addresses the legal processes in each of the surrogates’ stories is based on a comparative article we wrote called “individual responsibility or trust in the state” which was published in 2021 in the international journal of comparative sociology. teman: medically, the two women represent two different ways surrogates go through surrogacy. jenn tries her best to do the hormone protocol as well as she can and she does not question that this medical protocol is the right way to go. dana, who lives in a country with national medical coverage, advocates for a natural cycle 7 transfer in which she will not receive hormone support. this is possible because she can go to the clinic for daily observation of her ovulation and uterine thickness. this would not be possible in the us where health insurance might not cover so many ultrasounds and blood tests because the surrogate wants to avoid hormonal intervention. the surrogates in israel often want a natural cycle transfer and negotiate for this type of protocol just as dana does in the story. rohrer: how did these hurdles impact their sense of agency or their relationships? berend: jenn compromises and caves a little more in legal/medical negotiations because of her definition that she is helping create a family for her ips and is willing to make some sacrifices for them, and because there are fewer and less stringent regulatory constraints. dana balances her own sense of what is safe and her own family interests with some concessions to her im's desire for control and safety. but she doesn't have to worry about legal negotiations as the contract is mostly a given in israel, so surrogates usually only make a few changes since the basics are covered. teman: i think that each of our main characters shows agency-jenn in the legal advocacy of her contract, but less when it comes to the pressure on her medically to transfer more embryos. dana shows less agency in the legal process and relies on the state, but in the medical aspect she advocates for her own embodied knowledge and resists the doctor silencing her and forcing her to do a medical protocol that she doesn't want to do. social and cultural context rohrer: how are attitudes toward surrogacy different in israel vs. california? how does the book portray these contrasts? berend: there are some negative views, e.g., in the us that destitute women do surrogacy for money, or that surrogates are too focused on money and neglect their own kids, and we portrayed jenn's mother and sister as holding such views (which we found in the us data). strangers also often ask about money, as in jenn's story. in both countries there are also notions that surros compensate for an abortion they had earlier in their life, as dana's friend represents. in both countries there are contentions that surros bond with the baby, and dana's friend also expresses such a view. we didn't want much repetition, so tried to have the two stories show a variety of views without much overlap, even if some of these notions are present in both countries. teman: because of israel's pronatalist culture and policies, popular perceptions of surrogacy may well be more positive than in the us. we portray this especially in the response to the jenn's birth announcement in her church group, where she is criticized by some and praised by others (p.162). contrastingly, we show how dana's birth announcement is received on fb, and as in teman's data (p.159), most surrogates are praised for 8 having done what is seen almost across the board as a mitzvah/good deed, whether or not the surrogate was compensated. rohrer: the graphic narrative includes international vignettes—did these brief “interludes” broaden your perspective? how? berend: we reread several books and articles looking for representative quotes that fit with our storyline and address some of the same issues in different socio-political and regulatory contexts. we already had a sense of the scholarship that they documented, and wanted to show a broader landscape. we also wanted to highlight how our two countries, in spite of the various differences, were more similar than different in many ways. we were hoping to broaden the readers' views. teman: we found it tricky how to portray these vignettes because the ethnographies we had read often stressed the way the surrogates’ lives were "discounted" (as in rudrappa’s book discounted lives) and how they had to keep surrogacy as secret (as in the scholarship on surrogacy in russia), but also that they had agency in that they were trying to better their lives. it was a challenge to portray that in one quote on one page. the artist we worked with, andrea, came up with the idea of showing some kind of touristic monument on most of those pages and then the voice of the surrogate who you cannot really see on most of those pages. we thought it expressed the reproductive tourism aspect as well as the ethnographic project of showing the surrogate's voices. ethics and impact rohrer: what did the story lead you to question about the ethics of surrogacy, both in individual cases and society-wide? berend: we did nor directly take up ethical issues but hope that the complex empirical issues we present orient readers to some such questions, without necessarily being able to answer them. surrogacy is a changing practice, as we see toward the end, when jenn's coworker tells her about new developments in the us, and also the last interlude shows some new issues. there are no ready answers, but one can draw some conclusions from how things work out in empirical situations. teman: i would add that there’s an overall message in the book that jenn felt more protected when she could have a say in her contract and that dana felt more protected because of the regulation. conversely, the interludes show that in countries where there is no regulation at all or where surrogates cannot read the contract let alone advocate for changes, that they may very well be harmed by the things that other ethnographers have documented in those contexts. so, we do make a commentary about surrogacy being potentially harmful to the surrogate and regulation of some degree being a way to make it less harmful. 9 regarding the other ethical arguments that are commonly made about surrogacy, we show that surrogates do not necessarily view themselves as exploited or commodified or harmed and that there are indeed ethical issues that should be addressed, such as pressures on surrogates to transfer multiple embryos, such as pressures on surrogates to do the medical protocol the doctor wants even if they are a candidate for a natural cycle, and such as pressures on surrogates in places depicted in the interludes to have a cesarean as part of the deal. rohrer: what has been the feedback from healthcare professionals or educators regarding the use of your narrative in raising awareness or prompting discussion about assisted reproduction? berend: we hope to hear from professionals, educators, students, and whoever reads the book! we think of it as a discussion starter and intro to reading more; we hope people will. our book is not a summary about how surrogacy is in these two countries, rather, it's designed to intrigue people, help them understand some issues better, and ask more questions and read more. teman: we were excited that on a facebook group for surrogates and ips one of the intended mothers wrote that she read the book and loved it especially because she said it showed the challenges and disappointments and did not gloss over them in a romanticized way. we also asked one surrogate, one mother through egg donation, one gay dad who had two kids through surrogacy, and one intended father together with his adult daughter who had been born through surrogacy, to do close readings of the book before we finalized it and they all had really important suggestions for certain things we needed to fix. actually, the best feedback i got was from a 12 year old girl whose brother was born through surrogacy who told me that she learned a lot about how her brother was born but that she did not understand everything. rohrer: were there moments in jenn’s or dana’s journeys that surprised you? berend: no real surprises... although sometimes the logic of the story discouraged certain turn of events as too dramatic. while there were such stories in our data, they did not really fit our narrative arc. teman: i think the end surprised and maybe delighted us to finally figure out how the two stories connect. as an aside, what most surprised us was how amazing the graphic medicine community is and how artists can communicate such nuance through comics. we were both impressed by some of the talks at the graphic medicine summit we attended online this past summer, and we are both really feeling lucky to be included in this world of graphic medicine. since our book is the first graphic ethnography in the psu press series, we hope there will be more. 10 this interview took place at the comics & care collective: a graphic medicine book club, monday august 11, 2025 7pm pacific time zone us © 2025 elly teman, zsuzsa berend, and jameson rohrer 