American Ethnologist • Volume 30 Number 4 November 2003
features of social structure—social
stratification and the presence of court
systems, for example. Examining the
historical and sociological data, Irvine
finds this explanation insufficient and
argues that grammatical honorifics in
these very different societies are all accompanied by ideologies about the
importance of flattened affect, conventionality, and the avoidance of engagement with the concrete or sensory.
Jane Hill finds that the speakers of
Mexicano (Nahuatl) who are most nostalgic for the past are the ones who are,
ironically, the most Hispanicized; the
ones most likely to dispute the nostalgic vision of a past in which respectful
people spoke Mexicano are those who
speak it now. But where Irvine seems
to suggest a sort of analytical autonomy to the notion of language ideology, Hill seems to imply that Mexicano
language ideologies might be linked to
the political economy of disenfranchisement experienced by Mexicano
speakers over the last century or more.
Don Kulick finds that in the tiny
Papua New Guinea village of Gapun,
despite villagers' insistence that they
value their local language, Taiap, it is
rapidly disappearing because of local
ideologies that associate it with anger,
femininity, vulgarity, and self-display.
Here is a striking example of the multiple layerings of ideology.
Kroskrity's piece introduces the useful concept of "strict compartmentalization"—an ideological proscription
by Arizona Tewa speakers against the
mixing of sociolinguistic varieties,
"lust as ceremonial practitioners can
neither mix linguistic codes nor use
them outside of their circumscribed
contexts of use, so—ideally—Tewa
people should observe comparable
compartmentalization of their various
languages and linguistic levels in their
everyday speech" (pp. 109-110). For
example, the mixing of Tewa with
either English or Hopi is explicitly devalued.
A second group of essays focuses on
the operations of language ideologies
in institutions of power. Elizabeth
Mertz audio-taped the first semester of
contract law classes in eight different
law schools. Although she does not attempt any quantitative generalizations
(despite the existence of what must be
a very large corpus of data), she nonetheless notes the way in which professors use language to force students to
adopt role playing in which there are
"right" and "wrong" answers, and in
which hesitation, uncertainty, and silence are not permitted. The professors' tactic socializes students for life
in a legal system that constructs only
"winners" and "losers" and in which
people are translated into roles (plaintiff or defendant) and their actions into
legal categories (tort, breach of contract). Debra Spitulnik examines the
ideological presumptions guiding the
state allocation of radio air time among
Zambia's multiple languages and discovers that beliefs about demographic
predominance, urban provenience,
and linguistic distinctiveness are subtly interwoven with official ideologies
of egalitarian pluralism. Jan Blommaert and Jef Vershueren's essay on
the role of language in European nationalist ideologies makes the intriguing observation, based on the authors'
reading of German, Belgian, and
French newspapers, that in Europe,
multilingualism is acceptable and
praiseworthy as a feature of an individual but is a more dangerous and corrosive force when part of a nation or society. They argue tiiat the media they
surveyed overwhelmingly assume an
ideology of one nation, one culture,
and one language. Their sample was
small, however, and their conclusion
might have been stronger had they reviewed, for the sake of contrast, some
of Europe's minority-language newspapers.
A third group of essays focuses on
the collision of multiple ideologies of
language in particular contexts. Charles
Briggs argues in his essay on the Warao
of Venezuela that there is no single ideology of language that encompasses
the discourse of the senior male curers,
women, younger men, and older men
lacking the status of curers. He shows
how, for example, the discourse of the
curers, in particular, devalues and deflects the speech of challengers as a
form of gossip. James Collins provides
a vivid account of how his commitment to professional linguistics nearly
ran afoul of his Tolowa friends' efforts
to produce their own grammar as a tool
for preserving—indeed reviving—their
native language. Joseph Errington uses
the context of an extraordinary Javanese Language Congress held in 1991
to reflect on Indonesian ideologies of
language development. On the one
hand, all participants supported the
egalitarian, nationalist sentiments that
gave rise to the national language; on
the other hand, much concern was expressed over the decline of (relatively
esoteric) courtly and refined politeness
and literary forms. Like Errington,
Schieffelin and Rachelle Chariier
Doucet discuss elite commitment to
rare but cherished language usages; in
the case of Haitian kreyol, conflict
arises over what "real Haitian Creole" is
and how to write it down: Is it a dialect
of French? Or is it an autonomous language of the masses, and if so, which
one (e.g., rek, swa, gwdi). Susan Gal
concludes with a particularly clear and
concise summary and an intriguing
proposal outlining some general features—iconization, fractal recursivity,
and erasure—by which forms and
functions interlock in language ideologies to produce linguistic and social
change.
Although many of these important
essays have appeared in print elsewhere, their publication together in a
volume in the distinguished Oxford
Studies in Anthropological Linguistics
series makes it more likely they will
reach the wider audience they deserve.
Selves in Time and Place: Identities,
Experience, and History in Nepal. Debra Skinner, Alfred Pach III, and
Dorothy Holland, eds. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. xii + 338
pp.
JANA FORTIER
Southwest State University and University of
California, San Diego
Selves in Time and Place is a collection
of essays by Himalayan area anthropologists that attempts to integrate
various perspectives on human
agency, history, and experience into "a
practice theory of the self (p. 4). These
essays contribute important insights
into human selfhood based on the
authors' ethnographic field research
and experiences. Many of the chapters
have been published previously (those
Book Reviews » American Ethnologist
by Mary Des Chene, Todd Lewis, Stan
Mumford, Sherry Ortner, Steve Parish.
Debra Skinner, and Dorothy Holland).
Those chapters are reconfigured with
heretofore unpublished contributions
into a coherent collection, enabling
readers to rethink the older material in
terms of history and agency from
widely diverse niches of Nepal.
The editors divide the volume
loosely into three thematic parts, focusing on experiences of selves, cultural identity, and political identity formation. In part 1, "Personal
Trajectories," the contributions by Des
Chene, Parish, Skinner and Holland,
and Alfred Pach focus on the socioculturally mediated abilities of Nepali
men and women to act in the face of
various social and political constraints.
These narratives tend to consider
agency as a synonym for resistance, as
the actors resist patriarchies (Des
Chene, and Skinner and Holland) and
state-sanctioned Hindu social hierarchy (Parish). Such narratives of oppositional agency contain rich ethnographic substance illustrating how
women and low castes, as subalterns,
assert their own political agendas and
interests. For example, Parish's essay
on narrative subversions of caste hierarchy details how Newar occupational
castes such as butchers emphasize a
moral standard of human equality that
ideally should triumph over Hindu
caste codes of social hierarchy. Yet
subalterns' narratives of social hierarchies do not simply invert the powerfully entrenched realities of social
caste but, instead, represent nuanced
Utopian alternatives. For example,
subaltern groups may simultaneously
contest "closed" hierarchies yet validate "open" systems of hierarchy in
which low castes may have a chance of
upward social mobility. Parish notes
that some members of low castes remark bitterly that "power, wealth, and
knowledge are held by some, and not
by others' (p. 68). It would have been
informative to read more about the
pragmatics of these narratives as fragments of liberation ideologies, especially about how untouchables act out
their frustrations through political
demonstrations or other forms of political resistance.
In part H. "Cultural Production of
Identity." contributions by Mark
Liechty, Ernestine NicHugh. Mumford,
Premalata Ghimire, and Kathryn
March revolve around notions of identity and its construction. Each essay in
this set can be read alone, as they thematically intersect only loosely. Each,
however, is wonderfully full of ethnographic details and contains interesting theoretical perspectives on identity. For example. Liechty argues that
Kathmandu's middle classes must
delve "ever deeper into consumer values" to maintain their social position
in contemporary Nepalese society. In
support of his argument, he collects
numerous historical pieces of material
evidence that indicate Nepalese fascination with things English and occidental, demonstrated by his ethnographic subjects' interests in various
consumer goods and ideas. Although
at times the essay reads as too subjectively interpreted through his own
lived experience as an American, overall Leichty brings together rich ethnographic details and insightful perspectives on the growing problems of
consumerism in Kathmandu.
Perhaps the most distinctive contribution in part 2 comes from Premalata
Ghimire. Ghimire writes about the Hod
(alt., Hor, Santal, San thai, Satar), an
Austro-Asiatic-speaking post-foraging
society of southern Nepal. The Hod
have developed a creative way of
maintaining their distinct ethnic identity as a group in the face of enormous
pressure to assimilate into the underclasses of Nepalese society. Although
marriage and descent normally are determined among the Hod on the basis
of their patrilineal kinship system,
when Hod women marry exogamously
with Hindu caste men or when they
give birth after involvement in illicit
exogamous affairs, their children have
the opportunity to be incorporated
into the Hod ethnic group through matrilineal recognition of Hod ethnicity.
Of all the essays in the collection, Ghirmire's is one of the most important because it uses detailed ethnographic information toward understanding the
dynamics of identity preservation
among people who face daily challenges to their human rights and cultural autonomy.
In part 3. Politicized Selves," Ortner, 1 lizabeth Enslin, and Lewis round
out the volume with essays devou-d to
the political dimensions of agency and
selfhood. Lewis's essay is interesting,
for example, for its historiographic
rendering of a young children's book,
called Jhi Muciui (Our Child), written
by the Newar author Chitiadhar Hridaya. In his essay, Lewis portrays Newars as ha\ing experienced submission to the Hindu hegemonic state
through prohibitions of Newar cultural
expressions, including laws against use
of the Newar language, banning of Newar religious associations, and restrictions on gift exchange in marriage
ceremonies. Lewis describes how the
writing and publishing of Hridaya's
book, which the author penned while
in prison, championed Newar traditions while simultaneously acknowledging the de facto multiethnicity of
the modern Nepalese state. Whereas
Lewis's rendering of how this Newar
children's book fits into a larger picture
of ethnopolitics is laudable, his conclusion takes a somewhat overambitious direction, as he ponders economic and ecological stagnation in the
Kathmandu Valley and the impact of
global mass media on Newar youth. As
a reader, I was interested in a more direct connection between the chapter
topic and its ramifications, for example, exploring how contemporary Newar families incorporate Newar children's literature into their children's
early social and political identity formation. Nevertheless, the chapter
makes a valuable contribution to our
understanding of the political dimensions of Newar cultural identities, and
it sheds further light on the impact of
repressive laws that limited Newar cultural expression.
The volume concludes with an afterword by Robert Levy that aptly sums
up and suggests trajectories for further
contemplation. Levy writes, "The conditions of life in Nepal, as the chapters
vividly suggest, are the sorts of conditions which cause a kind of hypertrophy of the T " (p. 328). Broadly, this
volume represents a vision of selfhood
that enables its authors to interpret
theories of self in diverse ways and ultimately allows a subjectively valid rendering of individual lives as social
B39
American Ethnologist • Volume 30 Number 4 November 2003
action. There is much here for specialists of many kinds, including those interested in comparative psychology,
Asian studies, South Asian modern history, ethnopolitics, indigenous human
rights, religion and politics, and contemporary cultural change. Selves in
Time and Place is a valuable contribution to the literature on identity,
agency, and personhood.
Celibacy, Culture and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence. Elisa
J. Sobo and Sandra Bell, eds. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 2001. vii
+ 274 pp., index.
JENNIFER S. HIRSCH
Rollins School of Public Health and Emory
University
In Celibacy, Culture and Society Sobo
and Bell present essays that explore
celibacy as an individual strategy, a domain of symbolic meanings, and a form
of social regulation, suggesting that examining what people choose not to do
sexually can lead to a richer understanding of sexuality itself. By saying
that they will use celibacy as a lens
through which to explore the "significance of the body and of desire as inherently social rather than as biological
givens upon which social practices are
inscribed" (p. 6), the editors imply a
desire to push the envelope on what is
meant by the construction of sexuality.
The chapters in the volume, however,
fall somewhat short of this goal. Michael Duke, Peter Phillimore, and Peter
Collins provide compelling accounts of
the locally and historically specific reasons why celibacy may help individuals
achieve status mobility and increased
autonomy. Hector N. Qirko, Mario I.
Aguilar, Peter Collins, and Mark S.
Fleisher and John R. Shaw perceptively
explore how institutions regulate sexuality through celibacy to achieve
greater social cohesion or social control. None of the authors, however, explore celibacy as an embodied practice.
This is a theoretical omission as well as
a substantive one; what is missing is a
more phenomenological approach to
celibacy.
A strength of the volume is the inclusion of ethnographic, structural, historical, bioevolutionary, and legal per-
641
spectives. Qirko, for example, explores
how the bioevolutionary concept of
"manipulated altruism" (pp. 70-71)
could explain how and why the Catholic Church manages to institutionalize
celibacy among recruits. He also
makes the inevitably controversial
point, echoed in the essay by Paul
Southgate, that the institutionalization
of celibacy was shaped more by the
centralization of church power and a
desire to keep recruits from investing
in relationships that could siphon resources away from the church than it
was by theology. If true, this certainly
provides a structural explanation for
why priestly failures to remain abstinent have not been more aggressively
prosecuted from within the church.
Two particularly compelling chapters use strong ethnography to make
clear theoretical points. In one, Duke
explores how the practice of ritual abstinence among the Mazatec in Mexico
draws on beliefs about gender, reciprocity, social roles, and the body and
allows the Mazatec to separate themselves symbolically from the "messiness and contingencies of everyday
life" (p. 133). Duke's sophisticated use
of culture is noteworthy; rather than
simply mapping out "the logic and internal consistencies" of abstinence as a
cultural form, he includes "its contradictions and silences" (p. 134). In the
other chapter, Aguilar discusses the local resonances and meanings of
priestly ordination in Chile and Kenya.
In both contexts, the ordination itself
follows a standard liturgy, but in Kenya
celibacy is viewed as a way of becoming more European, whereas in Chile,
with its longer history of Catholicism,
celibacy is seen as the fulfillment of a
local tradition. Aguilar provides a compelling example of how useful it can be
to explore local interpretations of an
externally imposed global practice,
and he highlights the importance of a
comparative and historically grounded
ethnographic approach.
The diverse theoretical approaches
of the volume's contributors, however,
could have been more integrated; the
more structural, sociological or historical chapters are ethnographically thin,
and the more ethnographic chapters
tend to lack a sense of social structure.
Furthermore, the geographical and
substantive range of the chapters
misses some key issues. Of the 13
chapters, three address celibacy in India but none address extended postpartum abstinence in Francophone
West Africa, which has been linked to
the spread of HIV. Victor C. De Munck
discusses the meanings of abstinence
to college students in the northeastern
United States but ignores social and
political factors behind these meanings; given that social conservatives
have been so successful in shaping sexual health policies requiring that all
states receiving federal funds for sex
education explicitly adopt a focus on
abstinence, this is a significant omission. Negative examples might also
have been usefully included in the
book, focusing either on how individuals understand their own failures to be
abstinent or on societies in which abstinence is not valued. Southgate, for
example, writes that celibacy is "alien
to Muslims, abnormal to Jews . . . impossible in Kikuyu . . . and sinful
among the Masai" (p. 249), suggesting
that one could also learn about sexuality by comparing those who value abstinence and those who do not.
Finally, although the editors note
that they explore the "political economy of female celibacy" (p. 19), nowhere is mention made of what is perhaps the most critical factor shaping
long-term abstinence globally: labor
migration. In central Mexico, for example, as around the world, widespread
labor migration means that many married couples spend 11 out of 12 months
a year apart from each other as involuntary (and sometimes noncompliant)
celibates. Furthermore, exogamy among
labor migrants means that many women
who remain behind never marry; they
are referred to as las quedadas, the leftover women. Exploring the experiences
of these "leftover women" around the
globe would have added a more explicitly political-economic approach
to the focus on how the social organization of gender shapes celibacy.
In spite of its flaws, the book would
be useful for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in sexuality or
gender studies and, given the three articles on India, for area studies. Ultimately, the list of topics and theoretical perspectives enumerated in this