(Links updated 29.5.2020) How can we make anthropology public? How survive as politically engaged anthropologist in conservative institutions? Nancy Scheper-Hughes answers these questions in the guest editorial in the new issue of Anthropology Today.

Public anthropology implies usually ‘writing’ for the public – making our work more accessible and also more accountable. A less conventional way of public anthropology is collaboration with journalists and the media, Nancy Scheper-Hughes writes. She did fieldwork on the global traffic in organs alongside journalists from USA, Canada, Brazil, Moldova, Albania, Turkey and the Philippines:

Most anthropologists fear ‘contamination’ by journalism: few scholars are comfortable with articles that may read more like ‘investigative journalism’ than ethnography. But that’s a risk I’ve been willing to take.

I continue to write in various registers with various publics in mind. The anthropological public is just one, though still – in terms of identity and affection – my primary audience. But thanks to collaborations with journalists I now know how to call on ‘fixers’ when I need them and I know how to conduct myself in radio and TV interviews, which does not come easily to academics.
(…)
To make anthropology public is to invite criticism as well as to face ‘erasures’ of ownership of research findings once we share these with journalists, for whom anthropologists are simply a ‘source’, sometimes named but never fully ‘acknowledged’. Even so, it is satisfying to see one’s work appear on the front pages of the New York Times or the Sunday Times Magazine, and thereby surreptitiously enter into a more public discourse than if we guard our research findings as ‘private property’.

Anthropologists have much to learn from journalists:

In teaching graduate seminars on genocide, the writings of anthropologists often pale beside the work of political journalists like Philip Gourevitch (1998), Mark Daner (1994) and Alma Guillermoprieto (1994). A little professional humility would go a long way to foster the potential for collaboration drawing on the strengths and skills of each.

Of course, collaboration with investigative reporters is not always easy:

However, the more I collaborate with skilled national and international reporters and documentary filmmakers, the more I am impressed with their thoughtfulness, thoroughness, dedication to accuracy and their own very different ethical and political sensibilities.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes stresses that the goal of public anthropology is to make public issues, not simply to respond to them:

This is what I have tried to do for the past decade with the Organs Watch project: to make the global traffic in humans for their organs into a pressing social issue requiring a global, multilateral response. At the beginning of the project (1998) I was ridiculed and drummed out of transplant meetings. (…) Bearing out Virginia Woolf’s contention that ‘ridicule, obscurity and social cen sure are preferable to fame and praise’, my interventions eventually bore fruit at the 2008 Istanbul summit of international transplant professionals, where we jointly and unanimously passed the Istanbul Declaration on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism.

But as we know, it is risky to be a public intellectual:

Scholars who want to reach diverse publics – through popular writing, speaking, or participating in social activism – are not only under rewarded by their universities, they are often penalized for ‘dumbing down’ anthropological thinking, cutting social theory into bite sized ‘sound bites’, ‘vulgarizing’ anthropology, sacrificing academic standards or (in the US) for playing to the anti intellectual, illiberal American popular (working) classes. Public service here tends to mean service to the academy – our discipline or uni versity – rather than service to global publics.

Is it possible to both study and participate in social change? Nancy Scheper-Hughes tells us about her first mentor, Hortense Powdermaker. Originally, she saw the roles as activist and researcher incompatible. However, moved by the student campus rebellions of 1968 and ’69, towards the end of her life Hortense began to reconsider her views.

She held her last public speech at the student Kroeber Anthropology Association Meetings in May 1970, just a month before she died:

She concluded her cautionary tale by directly addressing the angry, radicalized Berkeley students: ‘So you want to do your own thing? Then just do it! I’ve always done my own thing and I’ve gotten away with it too! […] I was a rebel in the 1920s […] avant­garde before it was the fashionable thing to do! In [Goucher] college I was a rebel of one. So, if you want to be a rebel or a revolutionary, if you want to join the struggle of the workers or of racially oppressed minorities, my hat is off to you! Do it! But for heaven’s sake don’t expect to get college credit for it!’

Paraphrasing Hortense Powdermaker: you want to be a public anthropologist – then do it! I always did. But don’t expect to be rewarded for it. Instead, consider it a precious right and a privilege. Be grateful that, despite the tendency of bureaucratic intuitions toward social con servatism, we can still ‘do what we want and get away with it too!’

So, how does one survive in the academy as a politically engaged anthropologist? Ironically, by keeping one’s public engagements fairly private, she writes:

And very much like the first generation of working mothers, you do double time, keeping up with expected home front duties, with the expected rate of scholarly productions of books, arti cles and graduate students, participating in academic meetings, etc. while simultaneously doing human rights work, serving on international panels, giving keynote speeches in places and at events that don’t matter a hoot to one’s peers.

And something important: Express your views, don’t wait unitil you’re tenured:

Finally, don’t be overly cautious in expressing heterodox views or taking heretical positions. Don’t wait until you are safely tenured to jump into the public fray. If you do, you may find you have lost what I call ‘the habit of courage’. But protect yourself by keeping up with the expectations of the academic home front.

And, she adds, don’t complain about overwork and under pay:

Just be glad they don’t pull you off the stage and haul you off to jail for speaking your mind, and for being what academic administrators sometimes call a ‘loose cannon’.

That is the privilege of academic freedom in a flawed but still viable democratic society, the privilege to be engaged in national and global struggles against injustice, exploita tion, racism, homophobia, unjust wars and for the rights of immigrants, minorities and political prisoners. If anthropology cannot be put to service as a tool for human liberation why are we bothering with it at all? A public anthropology can play its part in all these devel opments: it has an opportunity to become an arbiter of emancipatory change not just within the discipline, but for humanity itself.

The whole article “Making Anthropology Public” is not available to the general public (!), only to subscribers.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes has been much in the American media recently. The American Anthropological Association has collected some links, see their entry Anthropologist Investigates Organ Trafficking Ring.

UPDATE Times Higher Education writes about Scheper-Hughes’ article: Institutions slap down those who speak up, argues campaigning scholar

SEE ALSO:

Why anthropologists should become journalists

Marianne Gullestad and How to be a public intellectual

“Anthropology needs to engage in an activist way”

“Discuss politics!” - How anthropologists in Indonesia engage with the public

More and more anthropologists, but they’re absent from public debates - “Engaging Anthropology” (1)

Blogging and Public Anthropology: When free speech costs a career

One year after anthropologist, author and indigenous rights activist Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila was beaten to death in Southern Mexico, there has been silence from the Mexican authorities. The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN askes people to take action.

The killing may according to PEN be related to Gutiérrez’ documentation of attacks by the authorities against an indigenous community radio station.

In a letter to the Mexican Embassy in London the WiPC writes:

A few days before his death, between 23 and 25 July 2008, Gutiérrez had visited the Suljaa’ and Cozoyoapan communities in Costa Chica, Guerrero, in connection with a documentary film he was making on indigenous cultures and traditions. Gutiérrez had been carrying out research into the indigenous people of southern Guerrero for more than 20 years, particularly in Costa Chica, and had been involved in various cultural projects there, including the community radio station Radio Ñomndaa and the establishment of the first Amuzgo community library.

During his last visit to the area, Gutiérrez documented alleged human rights violations on the part of the authorities against the staff of Radio Ñomndaa/ La Palabra del Agua (The Word of the Water), including an interview with one of the station’s founders, which he reportedly intended to include in his documentary.

According to local press reports at the time of Gutiérrez’ death, one lead pointed to the involvement of Aceadeth Rocha Ramírez, mayor of Xochistlahuaca municipality in Costa Chica. Rocha is allegedly one of a number of local political leaders opposed to indigenous movements and Radio Ñomndaa. Another lead reportedly suggested that Gutiérrez may have angered the authorities by filming members of the Federal Investigations Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigación, AFI) while they were conducting a raid on the radio station.

In August last year, the WiPC wrote to the Guerrero state and federal authorities asking them to ensure that a full and impartial investigation into Gutiérrez’ murder was carried out and that those responsible were brought to justice. However, a year after the killing, there has been no response from the authorities; nor have we received any reports on the progress of the investigation from other sources. Our understanding is that the crime remains unsolved.

>> read the whole letter

It seems that his case hasn’t received any attention in the English speaking media.

It was not the first case of this kind in Mexico, see earlier story Engaged anthropologists beaten by the Mexican police

(picture: PEN)

SEE ALSO:

Mexico: Pride in Indigenous Heritage - Literally a Thing of the Past

Engaged research = Terrorism: Germany arrests social scientists

Blogging and Public Anthropology: When free speech costs a career

“Intolerant Universities": Anthropology professor Chris Knight suspended over G20-activism

Chinese authorities continue using the 16th congress by the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) to spread propaganda. This is the most recent article: Overseas anthropologists: Adventure in Chinese ethnic village “eye-opening”

The congress arranged fieldtrips to what Xinhua calls “ethnic villages” nearby Kunming. Among other things the anthropologists were attending a dance presentation by the Axi minority group:

“The dance represented the essence of the Axi culture, such as primitive beliefs, songs, musical instruments, traditional costumes and religious rites.”

Anthropologist Chukiat Chaiboonsvi from Chiangwai University in Thailand said according to Xinhua that “the village’s traditional culture is “under proper protection":

It looks very likely for the village to protect the culture and pass it to the next generation. The village is a good example of achieving economic development while at the same time protecting the precious culture.

I think the Chinese government has always been trying to support and take care of ethnic minorities. It’s difficult and it takes time, but so long as the government keeps going on, it will have good results.

Anthropologist Hillary Callan from London was according to Xinhua “impressed by the way the ethnic community works together with local government for its prosperity” and says:

China is absolutely one of the most interesting parts of the world for anthropologists. I wish I could stay longer to learn in greater depth about this country.

IUAES President Luis Alberto Vargas told Xinhua that he found the work made by the Chinese government in relation to the minorities was “something to be known world over":

Many countries have the same situation as China does. That is a country having multi-nationalities. But not all countries have learned to handle this situation. The way that China is doing is just one of several possibilities. I think it has to be known to the world because it’s getting good results.

>> read the whole story

UPDATE: Even more from Xinhua (incl video): Minority culture exhibition described as enchanting and World listens to Chinese voice as Kunming declaration approved

Similar Xinhua articles exist in other languages like French and German. The congress has so far not been covered by other media.

UPDATE: Some impressions by a participant of the conference at Culture Matters: Anthropologists and the Politburo: Ali Adolf Wu writes that “while the Chinese government used this event to boost the standing of its ethnic policy after the events in Xinjiang in Tibet, anthropologists in China may have benefited from this extra attention.” He finds Petr Skalnik’s boycott of the conference very naive.

SEE ALSO:

Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming

Anthropology in China: IUAES-conference boycott due to Uyghur massacre

(update 30.7: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities) As I wrote a few days ago, the vice president of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) Petr Skalník decided to boycott the IUAES congress in Kunming, China due to the recent massacre where several hundred Uyghurs were killed.

“I do not want to be part of overt and/or tacit legitimation of evidently erroneous handling of nationality question in China", he wrote in an open letter.

The conference started today and it is interesting to see how the Chinese authorities use the conference to promote both China and to legitimize their minority policy.

China anthropology enters new stage, more active in global study is the headline in People’s Daily Online.

They write about the vice-chairman of the 16th congress’s organizing committee, Hao Shiyuan, who said that “Chinese anthropology mainly focused on application research". And in one case, he said, “more than 1,000 local anthropological scholars had took up fieldwork in 1950s to collect first-hand data and advise the government on the management of ethnic groups.”

Then they quote the IUAES President Vargas with these words: “Many anthropologists are interested in studying specific questions in China, as well as looking at the solutions that our Chinese colleagues have proposed to problems that are similar in other countries.”

The headline of an article by the offical Xinhua news agency is China listening to int’l experts in pursuit of coexistence of diversified cultures. We read that the Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. He said that the Chinese government “has attached great importance to the development of anthropological and ethnological sciences, and actively promotes theoretical studies, innovation and application.”

In a critical blog post at gokunming.com, we read that Yunnan University, which is hosting the congress, is off limits to the general public: “entry is only granted to registered participants who must display passes. Additionally, the university’s perimeter is under heavy police watch":

No official explanation for barring the general public from Yunnan University’s main campus has been given, there are several possible reasons, including the attendance of Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu at this morning’s opening ceremony.

In his address to the congress, Hui said that “pushing forward dialogues and cooperation among different civilizations is a joint responsibility of individuals and governments.”

Despite Hui’s upbeat statement, the recent ethnic violence in Xinjiang that left hundreds dead is likely a cause for ramped up security. Another potential reason for government uneasiness may be the occasional overlap between anthropology and intelligence gathering operations.

UPDATE 29.7.09: More from the offical Xinhua news agency: China says its ethnic policies “on right track”:

A senior Chinese official said Monday the government’s policies on ethnic affairs are “on the right track” and have helped create conditions for equality, unity and common prosperity among the country’s different ethnic groups.

Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top political advisory body, made the remark in his meeting with Luis Alberto Vargas, the President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), who is in China to attend The 16th IUAES World Congress held in China southwest province Yunnan.

Jia said the living standards of the ethnic groups were rising steadily and their political, economic and cultural rights were well safeguarded.

UPDATE: More propaganda: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities (Xinhua 30.7.09)

SEE ALSO:

Anthropology in China: IUAES-conference boycott due to Uyghur massacre

The Problems with Chinese Anthropological Research

Anthropology: a Taboo Topic in China?

(UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming? / UPDATE 30.7: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities )
Last year, the conference was cancelled by the Chinese government for fear of protests. Next week, the 16th congress by the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) finally will be held - but without the IUAES vice president Petr Skalník. He decided not to participate due to the recent massacre where several hundred Uyghurs were killed.

“I will not meet and shake hands with people who must be responsible for the above tragedy", Skalnik writes in a letter to the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People´s Republic of China that he also emailed to a large number of anthropologists (and that was forwarded to me), hoping many will read it.

Two weeks ago, Skalnik received an invitation letter from the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, indicating that on July 26, on the eve of the 16th World Congress of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), “several IUAES high officials” will meet in Beijing with "a senior State leader of China":

This invitation was a surprise to me as I was not at all planning to travel via through Beijing on my way to Kunming. No agenda for the meeting was mentioned except that it is „in honor of the IUAES leadership“.

At the same time as the letter was coming, there was this massacre happening in Urumqi:

Although this grave event directly touching the field of activities of your Commission, namely ethnic affairs, there were no signs either directly from PRC SEAC or from the Chinese Association of Anthropology and Ethnology. 

My life experience of studying ethnic problems in other countries (e.g. South Africa, West Africa, Soviet Union and Europe) have taught me that conflicts of the size like that in Urumqi this July or Lhasa last year are not and cannot be caused just by some malicious plotters. There must be also a deal of responsibility on the side of the power holders, your Commission not excluded. However, no self-criticism and constructive proposal for remedy has come out from China till this very day.

Therefore, I have to turn down your invitation for the above ethical reasons. Human rights were served a crippling blow in Urumqi by apparently wrong analysis and heavy-handed response of the Chinese state, your Commission included.  I will not meet and shake hands with people who must be responsible for the above tragedy. I will not accept reimbursement monies and other perks mentioned from the Chinese state. I protest in this way against policies which smack of demographic aggression and ethnocide.
 
I also will not participate in the Kunming congress (to be held next week, July 27-31, 2009) because I do not want to be part of overt and/or tacit legitimation of evidently erroneous handling of nationality question in China. As a person with a particularly strong IUAES loyalty who participated in almost all its congresses and other events starting from Permanent Council meeting in Prague back in 1962 I was very keen on participating and playing active role as a Distinguished Speaker, member of the Executive Council (EC) of IUAES, Czech member of the Permanent Council of IUAES, chairperson of the Commission on Theoretical Anthropology (COTA) and thrice paper giver. The above mentioned reasons, however, thwarted these intentions. Under present circumstance I would not feel free to express my thoughts and research findings.

He also indicates possible discrimination of Chinese scholars with ethnic minority background who were not able to register for the conference. Also some scholars from abroad were not able to obtain Chinese visa.

He closes with these lines:

I would like to emphasize that this letter was written by myself alone and I express my views freely as I did when I criticised apartheid policies in South Africa, misguided theories and practices in ethnic field in the Soviet Union or failure of American anthropologists to warn the then U.S. government of the adverse consequences of its war plans and acts in Iraq. Anthropologists and ethnologists by the nature of their work which includes ethics of research, respect for human life and culture, do not know of any „internal affairs“, especially if human rights are violated.

I have made a pdf of the documents, including the letter he sent by email.

See also Chinese translation of this post on uighurbiz.net

UPDATE 27.7.09: Chinese media propaganda at IUAES anthropology conference in Kunming?

UPDATE 30.7.09: More propaganda: IUAES-anthropologists “praise” Chinese government’s relation to minorities (Xinhua 30.7.09)

Concerning the canceled conference, see China Cancels IAES (Savage Minds, 8.5.08) and Anthropology: a Taboo Topic in China? (Angry Chinese Blogger, 24.5.08).

See also related posts The Problems with Chinese Anthropological Research and The special thing about the Tibet protests

Inspired by a lecture by Peter Geschiere, anthropologist Yara El-Ghadban discusses a difficult and central question in our discipline: How to deconstruct a notion without destroying the meaning that it has for people?

In order to challenge stereotypical Us-and-them-thinking, anthropologists show how notions like nationality, the nation state, ethnic group, race or culture are constructions. But for many people, belonging to “artifical” groups is extremly important. Anthropologists should therefore take people’s striving for belonging more seriously, Yara El-Ghadban writes:

Palestinians in diaspora have survived and continue to survive because they can still imagine being part of a shared homeland. Artificial or not, idealized or not, the imagined homeland has served as a catalyst of resistance and getting out of the refugee camps.
(…)
Constructed or not, artificial or not, these notions are invested in meaning, they are used and referred to in everyday life, so unless anthropologists are willing to go back to their old habits of telling people who they are and how they should think, we have an obligation to take seriously the meaning and value that groups and individuals invest in belonging.

The method of deconstruction, she continues, has been fruitful in denaturalizing and exposing implicit discourses of power. But it has been unsatisfying in understanding why people are attached to such notions beyond treating them as being manipulated and helpless.

So how to resolve this dilemma of trying to deconstruct a notion without destroying in the same exercise the meaning that it has or has always had for people, she asks. Anthropologists should change the root question, she suggests:

Instead of starting from the premise that autochtony is constructed and thus inevitably artificial, I would actually build on the premise that human beings are quintessentially social and can only enact their humanity by relating to others, and in that sense, the longing to be part of something, to be attached is a condition of being (be-longing to cite David Goldberg). The question then is not how artificial or hegemonic one form of being is or not, but how individuals and groups strive to find belonging in a contemporary world that is constantly calling into question canonized myths of origin.

>> read the whole post on her blog tropismes.org (LINK UPDATED 7.8.2020)

SEE ALSO:

How to challenge Us-and-Them thinking? Interview with Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Interview with Benedict Anderson: “I like nationalism’s utopian elements”

The debate on anthropology and the military is extremly polarized. Mats Utas, Head of the Africa Programme at the Swedish National Defence College, has written an interesting article where he challenges both sides. Among other things, he shows that there might be legitimate reasons for collaboration with the military even if you are against the U.S. war of terror.

“I currently would see many problems in cooperating with the US armed forces, or the Danish army for that matter, due to their cumbersome commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, I still describe the debate within our discipline as one of moral panic", he writes and asks:

It is important to remember that all relationships with the military do not imply the same type of structural involvement, just as doing work with the military means different things depending on which country one works in (it is obvious that engaging with the armed forces in Sweden or Switzerland is not the same as in US or North Korea).
(…)
Sweden is, still today, more or less neutral and has kept a low profile in the war on terror (or the terror on terror), and Swedish military interest in Africa is by and large peacekeeping missions. The Africa programme at the Defence College aims at servicing the army with knowledge about areas in conflict and potential future conflicts where a Swedish EU or UN force could employ as a neutral (as neutral as one can be anyway) and stabilising force.

It was far from an easy task, but after looking at pros and cons I decided to accept the offer of the Swedish National Defence College and I am currently directing their Africa programme. Does this imply that I fit into the derogatory category of ‘mercenary anthropologists’?

Specific task and regional political logic should guide us in how we commit ourselves, he writes and lists some tasks that anthropoloigists should not get involved with and that is for instance direct military intelligence:

Where research material can not be published for military reasons we should certainly stay out: We must keep working with open sources. Similarly we should not be involved in intelligence work where individuals are pointed out (unless this information is already available in other open sources). There is nothing wrong in teaching militaries how to understand some of the social complexity that exists in social life instead of letting them base their actions on social stereotypes.
(…)
If social embeddedness is part of the method for a subtle social anthropology then we must ask ourselves what happens with us if we enter alongside a military machinery, such as the US or Nato forces in Iraq or Afghanistan? Is it at all possible to carry out anthropological research? What happens if the fly in the soup becomes a ‘Stealth bomber in the soup’? My argument is simply that anthropological research cannot be efficient if the researcher is brought in alongside the heavy guns of imperial machinery. An anthropologist in military fatigues cannot conduct high quality fieldwork – results become seriously flawed. In this situation what the mercenary anthropologist can give to the military power is impotent research findings; in consequence not very much to fear.

>> read the whole article over at Ruben Eberleins Africa blog (interesting comments as well)

SEE ALSO:

More and more anthropologists are recruited to service military operations

Military anthropologist starts blogging about his experiences

Militarisation of Research: Meet the Centre for Studies in Islamism and Radicalisation

Cooperation between the Pentagon and anthropologists a fiasco?

The dangerous militarisation of anthropology

“Arabs and Muslims should be wary of anthropologists”

Anthropology and CIA: “We need more awareness of the political nature and uses of our work”

War in Iraq: Why are anthropologists so silent?

Caste, Occupation and Politics on the Ganges is the title of a new book by anthropologist Assa Doron that Tereza Kuldova reviews here for antropologi.info. It is a book about the life of a marginalized group of people in India - the boatmen at the river Ganges in Banaras (also called Varanasi).

The pictures are taken by juicyrai (1,2), flickmor, omblod and Alex Craig.

Doron, Assa. (2008). Caste, Occupation and Politics on the Ganges: Passages of Resistance. Ashgate 198 pages. ISBN 978-0-7546-7550-1. Price £55.00.

Review by Tereza Kuldova

This anthropological study takes us straight into the everyday world of the boatmen at the river Ganges, in Banaras. It pictures their lives, narratives and practices and it contextualizes these within a wider historical perspective and social forces which have impact on their daily lives.

It is a study of a group of people disadvantaged and marginalized in both traditional and modern terms. It is a study of power and resistance in its everyday forms. It provides both a historical account of the evolution of the caste of boatmen during the colonial and post-colonial times and a discussion of the current position of this community, which faces the social and economic changes in the modern India as well as the impact of globalization. It shows how the boatmen, even though a low-status and under-privileged group, manage to challenge and contest the upper-caste and state domination. The book is first and foremost a thorough discussion of the processes of domination, subordination and resistance.

This book is intended primarily for anthropologists, historians and other social scientists or any student interested in the contemporary India, the topics of religion, everyday politics and globalization. Because of its historical and analytical rather than literary approach to the subject it is particularly interesting for the professionals, but I believe, less so for occasional readers of ethnographic accounts.

The first chapter, The Criminal Type: Domesticating the Ganges Boatmen, deals with the encounter between the boatmen and the colonial state and the classification of the Mallah (boatmen) caste by the British. It provides us with a historical account of how this occupational caste became classified and relegated into a criminal caste category and thus gained a reputation of thieves and gangsters and how the colonial rule imposed restrictions on the occupation and movement of the boatmen in Benares, which resemble to a great degree the limitations imposed by the modern Indian state.

But Assa Doron does not present the boatmen as incapable victims of this imposed classification in which “one was recognized by the bureaucratic administration of the state only as a number and part of an aggregate caste group” and where “individual capabilities were measured through one`s extended ‘body’: caste” (p. 36). On the contrary, he explores also the ways in which boatmen tried to manipulate these classifications and thus resist the domination. One of such ways was for example the idea to improve their status by claiming a different name, the name Nishada. “This name had positive connotations for the group as it placed the caste among an honorable people who, according to the epic Ramayana, devotedly served and protected the godking Rama during his tribulations in exile” (p. 37).

This is just one among the many strategies boatmen employed to resist the dominant classification. But, “nevertheless, claims for higher status were not always effective. The Mallah`s criminal reputation with its exotic, unlawful and immoral behavior (…) formed the basis of colonial census classification” and “being categorized as low caste often meant exclusion from recruitment to military service, the police force or administrative jobs” (p.37).

The second chapter, ‘Step-sons of the State’: Marginalization and the Struggle for Recognition, is devoted to the discussion of the influence of the state policies and particularly the development scheme known as Ganga Action Plan on the Mallah community. This development scheme imposed restrictions on the on sand mining, fishing and cultivation of the land on the riverbeds, which were all traditional occupations and part of the traditional rights of the Mallah caste. “The result is that the occupational diversity of boatmen working on the riverscape has been reduced to that of ferrying passengers” (p. 72). This led not only to the further development of the ‘marginalized boatmen identity’ identified with poverty, oppression and exclusion, but also to the establishment of caste community associations, which try at the same time to resist the state domination and collaborate with the state.

Using the dominant rhetoric and the politics of positive discrimination, the caste organizations actually try to subvert and resist the state domination by engaging in open political action and articulating their objections to the governmental policies.

The boatmen claim that “Ganga has been exploited by corrupt politicians, local officials and powerful Brahmins who siphon (‘eat’) money on the pretext of cleaning the river. In the process, it is the poor, ordinary citizens who suffer, through loss of customary rights, police harassment and caste prejudice” (p.77).

The relationship between boatmen and the state is thus ambivalent and filled with tension. On one side there is a need to cooperate and to negotiate; on the other there is a need to resist.

But what we clearly see from Assa Doron`s account is that “the way in which boatmen express their plight and act to fend off state domination, demonstrated that they understand and are well aware of the inner workings of liberal democracy, including ideas of citizenship, public accountability, rational legal authority and democratic rule” (p. 79).

The third chapter, The Moral Economy of Boating: Territorial Clashes and Internal Struggle, takes into spotlight the sophisticated socio-economic system which organizes the everyday work of the boatmen and can be said to work as a ‘moral economy’, in that it regulates the space, mitigates the conflict and provides “an economic safety net for the boatmen” and prevents “the modern state, local actors and commercial entrepreneurs from infringing on their livelihood” (p. 18).

The work system stands for rules the differentiately positioned boatmen must respect, these rules direct their work, divide the space on the riverfront within which the particular boatmen can operate and direct the mutual relations between the boatmen. Though numerous tensions exist within the boatmen community, the work system still provides measures to ensure subsistence for all the members of the community.

In this respect the notion of haq (right/property) is particularly interesting; “there is a moral expectation that they /the ghatwars – the wealthier members of the boatmen community/ let other members of the community have their share of the earnings derived from the river economy” (p. 111). At the same time the wealthier members are dependent on the support of the poorer members of the community in the matters of political action. But though this system of mutual obligations and reciprocity, this ‘moral economy’ is still important in the daily lives of the boatmen, it is at the same time challenged by the social and economic changes – be it for example the changing nature of the tourist industry, or the introduction of motorboats – which are all transforming the nature of the relationships between the boatmen and even lead to the fact that the boatmen tend to take up different types of unskilled jobs elsewhere, reducing thus the dependency on the river economy. But as already pointed out, “the work system remains an important ideological and economic institution for ensuring stability and security of the community” (p. 114).

The fourth chapter, River Crossings: Boatmen, Priests and the Ritual Economy of Banaras, focuses on the role of boatmen as ritual specialists within the ritual economy of Banaras and on their relationship with the river Ganga. Assa Doron concentrates here on how the boatmen invoke their caste identity, myth and other cultural symbols to contest the Brahmanical authority and to assert their rights to conduct rituals and maintain a certain control over ritual spaces around the Ganga.

The ritual serves here for the boatmen as a way of gaining respect and recognition for their role and work on the riverscape. They argue that they are granted the role as ritual specialists by the virtue of their caste and occupation. “By firmly establishing their position as ritual specialists on the riverscape, the boatmen register their claim over physical space that is valuable beyond the ritual context” (p. 124).

These claims and the identity of the boatmen are related to the story of the boatman Khevat from Ramayana, in which Khevat ferries lord Rama, Sita and Lakshmana across the river, at the end of trip Sita wants to pay the boatman a fee, with the only thing she has, her ring, but the Khevat rejects it saying to Rama: “we are of the same profession, you carry people across the river of life (samsara) to the far shore of liberation (moksha) and I carry people from this bank of the river to the other side. (…) Rama you are also a boatman (tum bhi Khevat), how can I charge you?” (p. 127). This encounter of Khevat with the lord Rama is perceived as a transformative event for the boatmen collective identity; this encounter is an evidence of the dignified roots and esteemed position of all boatmen within the Hindu social order.

The “boatmen creatively appropriate the myth to denote their dignified existence and elevate themselves in the caste hierarchy, inflecting it with their own aspirations, which eulogize the community and its morality” (p. 130). The myth thus serves as a justification to conduct particular rituals in the riverscape, which at the same time interrupt the priestly authority. “They may contest Brahmanical order and authority, yet at the same time imitate it and draw their strategic positioning from it” (p. 137). But “it is important to emphasize (…) that while such actions clearly subvert priestly authority, Banaras` ritual economy is still very much organized around the governing principles and values associated with orthodox religion” (p. 138).

The fifth chapter, The Romance of Banaras: Boatmen, Pilgrims and Tourists, discusses the asymmetrical powers relation between the boatmen and the pilgrims and tourists. Assa Doron focuses here particularly on how the boatmen deploy strategies to control and influence the pilgrims and tourists at the riverfront and on how the boatmen appropriate, manipulate and take advantage of the tourist discourse emerging in the First World and how they thus further their social and economic interests.

To illustrate this let us have a look at an example of such practice in relation between boatmen and pilgrims, “a practice where the subordinate (in the extreme case, beggars) bless and praise ‘their (potential) benefactors’ trapping them in ‘the cultural implication of their roles as superiors, that is, in the obligation to be generous’. It is important to note, however, that for the boatmen a position of subordination is assumed strategically. In their capacity as culture brokers boatmen also assume a position of authority when guiding pilgrims, selectively informing them about the city” (p. 147).

But not only do the boatmen get use of the traditional language, they also use the modern tourist discourse in their daily activities. Banaras as a tourist place is subject to commoditization whereby the tourists consume the local culture, which is – among others – mediated by the boatmen, who deploy this dominant tourist discourse. This discourse “emanating from Western countries, serves to produce a series of Orientalist tropes, largely produced and disseminated by the travel industry and media as well as travel talk” (p. 141). The boatmen thus help to reproduce the Orientalist India, which the foreign tourists search for, giving them what they want.

Though the book is in all convincing in its description of the everyday life of the boatmen community and its relations with the state and the dominant Brahmins, it has according to my opinion also several weaknesses.

Firstly, the discussion of the actual methodology of the research is almost completely missing. We get no clear idea about how the author went actually about gathering the data and what do the data consist of. And also throughout the book, we get almost no access to first-hand data - concrete cases are almost missing (with the exception of several cases in chapter 3 and 5). The book thus provides us with very descriptive and abstracted statements about what ‘boatmen think, do, feel’, but we rarely hear the actual voice of the boatmen, concrete illustration of their conduct or are presented with actual cases which would support the descriptive and analytical language of the author.

Secondly, the author is not really present in the book in any reflexive sense. The reflection on one`s own positioning is not elaborated in any detail. We for example get to know that the author had a Brahmin research assistant, but this fact is not commented upon any further. We thus do not get to know how this crucial relationship could have influenced or affected the data gathered, or for what kind of work the research assistant was used; what was the nature of his relationship with the boatmen, and how his being Brahmin could have affected the data, etc. But this is a general problem which I experienced reading this book – the lack of the discussion of the concrete interactional data.

Thirdly, the author is obviously influenced by the subaltern studies and at the same tries to get beyond their explanations, but he only suggests the direction of his approach. Therefore I believe that the theoretical discussion presented in the Introduction could have been more exhaustive. Towards the end of the study one tends to get an idea that the boatmen, constantly labeled as subaltern, marginalized and oppressed, are continually trying to resist the oppression of either the state, represented most often by the local police and administration or of the traditional authorities, represented by the Brahmins. And that is what they basically do in their everyday lives, that their lives basically consist of resistance itself or are resistance. Every single action of theirs tends to be viewed in the perspective of resistance. So for example fishing in the night (which is actually prohibited, so it cannot be done during the day), is perceived as a convert form of resistance against the state authorities. It may be – too, but not only.

And fourthly, though the author notes that he did not have any contact with the police or the local Brahmins, because of his close relationship with the boatmen, which may be understandable, the fact that we thus never get to know the same story as told from the perspective of those labeled as “dominant”, is certainly disappointing, particularly when the author tends to discuss the ‘inter-relationships’ and ‘mutual relationships’ between the boatmen and Brahmins and local representatives of the state.

This being said, there is still no doubt that the book is extremely valuable in its account of the lifeworld of the boatmen community in Banaras, which is first of its kind. I definitely recommend it to all interested.

For more information about the book, see the presentation by Ashgate, where also the introduction can be downloaded (pdf)