GENERALI THEORETICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 189

the state nationalizes history, then commodi- fies nationalism, and, most importantly, uses violence spasmodically to accomplish both. There is also the nervous system of the univer- sity, where studies of putatively global terror- ism and collective violence “absorb and con- ceal the violence in . . . universities, work- places, streets, shopping malls, and even fam- ilies, where, like business, it’s terror as usual” (p. 12). The nervous condition of the outside world even makes bodies tremble internally, as physicians reify our body parts and label US

“dis-eased.” Taussig may claim more novelty than is warranted for these and his other per- ceptions of the obvious, and he is a bit chary about citing contemporaries whose work is relevant, but there is no exaggerating the power, social dedication, and political com- mitment of his portrayals.

Taussig’s nervous “system” is not the con- sensual structure of British social anthropol- ogy nor the fanciful feedback loops of systems theory. His nervous system is vibrant with the commodification, reification, and fetishization produced by capitalism, out of which shock waves of power, domination, and inequality emanate-and also sometimes tremors of re- sistance. Its structure depends on the creation of disorder and dissensus, from which develop the peculiar and quotidian institutions cre- ating an agitated social “cohesion” today: a world of the disappeared, the silenced, the ab- normalized, the dis-eased; a world, too, of state fetishism, where reason and terror com- bine to sacralize the power for evil of the state.

There is no way to calm the nervous system; resistance comes only from turning its energies back on itself. Taussig speaks of the “refunc- tioning of essences,” as when individuals do battle with the state over the representation of history, or when women use an essence- Motherhood-to name their disappeared children. For anthropology, Taussig suggests, resistance can come about if we “recycle” es- sentialing concepts formerly applied to oth- ers-like fetishism or sorcery-and use them on ourselves today.

Taussig’s masterful essays should be read by any scholar and in any class concerned with an anthropology of the present.

Partial Connections. Marily Strathern. Asso- ciation for Social Anthropology in Oceania Special Publications, No. 3. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991. 182 pp.

DEBBORA BATTACLIA Mount Holyoke College

Relativism, as Bourdieu commented re- cently (Visual Anthropology Review 7:129-133, 1991), can be disenchanting. If we acknowl- edge, among other things, that “the value of an object of research is dependent on the in- terests of the researcher,” then we must also accept the danger that meanings, properly reappropriated in the course of the anthropo- logical project, may be “negated by [their] . . . reification . . . in the opacity of abstraction” (Bourdieu, p. 129). Strathern’s Partial Connec- tions, perhaps her most theoretically exhilarat- ing and accessible work to date, offers a potent antidote to any disenchanting effects of the comparative project in anthropology.

Strathern states that her primary aim is to confront problems of scale and proportion that arise out of perspectival shifts in anthropolog- ical approach (p. xiii) and, analogously, within and across cultures and societies where information is differentially valued. Compar- ability, she suggests, may not be possible, just as accurate ethnographic representation may not be possible. Yet the possibility ofrecogniz- ing compatibility and analogy remains (p. 54), and these “remainders” are the story of an- thropology’s communicative endeavor. They are also, Strathern argues, a necessary-and sufficient-goal for anthropology, to be ap- preciated as a felt intellectual journey of real- izing partial connections between disparate cultural and social configurations. In short, anthropologists need to look at how they, and the others they take as their subjects, regen- erate and extend themselves, not at how they reproduce or replicate “cultures” or “societ- ies.” And anthropologists must understand “loss of knowledge as part of the data, not as loss of the data” (p. 97), along the complex way.

Strathern locates the importance of under- standing regenerative process in the use it has for practitioners. The points she raises by eth- nographic example cohere by virtue of a pas- sionate commitment to this pragmatic dimen- sion. Connections are partial “because there is no base line for analogy in the way they are used” (p. 74). It is an insight brought to focus in critical discussions of how actors control analogies (p. 76) and intend effects on partic- ular audiences (p. 80). And indeed, Partial Connections can itself only (but of course, only partially) be read as a model of anthropologi- cal rhetoric. Strathern’s position is delivered concretely in a narrative iconic of its message. Dialogues and confrontations with other au- thors ofanthropology (notably Clifford, Tyler, Haraway, Keesing, Wagner, Barth) and with the reader by means of the material images of others (net bags, sacred flutes, canoes, mas-

190 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [95, 19931

querade sequences) are written in the spaces or “gaps” between sections on aesthetics and politics, culture and society-refracted across the major “Parts” of the narrative: part 1, “Writing Anthropology,” and part 2, “Partial Connections.”

Thus, for example, (in part 2) we are asked to question, in the context ofa critique ofcom- parative histories from the interior of Papua New Guinea, what is meant by the concept of “complexity” (p. 101)-the argument being that we must substitute the principle of elab- oration for notions of complexity as these are commonly employed by social scientists. But this discussion in turn extends from points made previously in the context of a feminist critique (in part 1) , calling for an appreciation of the self as an embodiment of perspectival displacement and of feminist scholarship as “precursor to and an enactment of’ (p. 33) postmodern historical analysis. This book is not, in short, a work about perspectivism. Rather, it engages the reader in perspectival shifting, rupturing familiar conceptual bound- aries and calling to account our understanding of their ongoing value for cross-cultural com- parison.

More than a spectacular collection of pro- vocative thought bites, Partial Connectionr has far-reaching implications for the way we think about the future of anthropology, and about problems of authoring and authorizing crite- ria for comparison. Even without extensive knowledge of Melanesian ethnography, one is left with an experience of careful thought cre- ating afresh the ground of sociality to which it returns. This is essential reading for serious students of cultural criticism and, quite sim- ply, a brilliant piece of anthropological dis- course.

The Psychoanalytic Study of Society, Vol- ume 16: Essays in Honor of A. Irving Hal- lowell. L. B r y e Boyer and Ruth M . Boyer, eds. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press, 1991. 338 pp.

JOHN M. INCHAM University of Minnesota

This volume honors A. Irving Hallowell for his contributions to psychological anthropol- ogy and, simultaneously, implies that Hallo- well had a strongly psychoanalytic orienta- tion-this series has a history of honoring ac- complished scholars in applied psychoanaly- sis. Although it is not entirely explicit, an aim in recognizing Hallowell in this manner may have been to counter what was seen as a grow-

ing tendency on the part ofculturalists and so- cial constructionists to misconstrue Hallo- well’s ideas about the self. In the volume’s lead article, a revision of his 1976 appreciation (AA 78508-61 I ) , Melford E. Spiro stresses (as he did in the earlier version) Hallowell’s interests in human nature and psychoanalysis, and then adds that Hallowell would not have liked the way in which many anthropologists are using his concept of the “culturally consti- tuted” self to avoid consideration of person- ality and motivation. (Spiro, incidentally, se- lected most of the authors for this volume.)

i n fact, various papers here do address hu- man nature or psychoanalytic ideas about the self, or both. Erika Bourguignon suggests that we append altered states of consciousness to Hallowell’s list of subjective resources for cul- tural adaptation. Waud Kracke explores the Kagwahiv self by way of local understandings about dreaming. Taking issue with overdone distinctions between sociocentric and individ- ualistic societies, Fitz John Porter Poole finds cultural schemata of the self and expressions of individuality in the narratives of Bimin- Kuskusmin men. I n an illustration of how good ethnography can suffice for psychoana- lytic interpretation, Robert A. LeVine and Sarah E. LeVine show that Gusii domestic space encodes social identity while expressing anxieties about aggression and incest. In her marvelous paper, Jean L. Briggs describes how an Inuit child learns about power, agency, and social complexities while coping with teasing by adults; and she discerns con- textually constructed meanings and individ- ual differences in psychodynamic processes. Katherine P. Ewing notes that speech is al- ways to some extent pragmatic and self-refer- ential and perceptively traces idiosyncratic and normative meanings of family roles and relationships in the words of a Pakistani woman. She concludes that motivation of a shared culture may vary from one individual to another.

Several papers offer critical reflections on Hallowell’s work. Bourguignon reviews Hal- lowell’s contributions to psychological anthro- pology, and Raymond D. Fogelson writes on Hallowell’s interest in cultural dynamics. George and Louise Spindler recall their Ror- schach research among the Menominee and its relationship to Hallowell’s studies of the Ojibwa. Theodore Schwartz considers why Hallowell did not give more thought to the be- havioral evolution of mind and personality; besides implying that personality is culturally determined, he avers-disconcertingly , given the present context-that “Hallowell’s use of psychoanalytic theory was quite limited” (p.