Edwards, Jeanette and Maja Petrovic-Steger (eds.). 2011. Recasting Anthropological Knowledge. Inspiration and Social Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xi + 206 pp. Hb.: £55.00. KBN: 9781107009684.
Dedicated to the noted British anthropologist Marilyn Strathern; this compilation of papers by her former Ph.D students indicates both the immense applicability of the key concepts and theoretical insights of Strathern, as well as the remarkable range of topics to which this anthropological knowledge may be applied. As most people familiar with her work know, Strathern was a specialist in the societies of Melanesia but also of contemporary British society and issues of related to urban and complex societies including the universities of which most scholars are a part.
Uniquely, her students extend themselves much beyond these concerns but bring themselves back to using her in innovative yet relevant ways. For example, Annelise Riles (this volume) extends Strathern's notions of personhood to analyse the way in which even corporates are viewed as and dealt with as persons. In the same way, her insights seem equally useful in unravelling the complexities of customary law and more importantly to understand the cognitive dimensions of understanding what "law" may mean to the people; or to understand how mosquitoes may form a part of the social environment of people in Africa.
The various scholars contributing to this volume have referred not to the seemingly overt specificities of Strathern's works but to the underlying thoughts that stimulated these works in the first place. How is personhood constructed? What is the role of "analogic reasoning"? What are the methods of classification of the universe that people may use? Most importantly, Strathern had sought to see underlying unities in spite of overt differences, thus showing that transcending specific contexts the importance of "relational thinking" is universal. People always learn to make connections not only between things but also think of things as relations. Thus, her ideas of the role of kinship in other words relational thought that lie at the heart of a sense of belonging to a place, can be used in England as it can be used in Africa to define competing claims of resettlers and original inhabitants. Thus, what is pertinent here is not kinship but again the whole notions of relatedness that can be used variously and always.
Therefore, women's ability to introduce gender into urban design depends not as much on the actual existence or availability of this knowledge but upon the manner in which this knowledge can be introduced into the prevailing relational structure of knowledge practices that may restrain women's participation. Thus, urban design and universities in general may have in common the problem of governance, to cope with global situations and not just values but pre-existing norms as to what is "normal. Consequently, African mosquito research laboratories, resettlers in Africa, women's urban design, kinship in England and atypical families in Latvia may all fall back into one mode of analogic thought and while touching each other at one point, diverge in their own ways encompassing many different lived situations and retaining conceptual boundaries.
The question is what exactly is the common meeting ground of these scholars through their common mentor, Marilyn Strathern? How has she inspired and taught
them to be what they are? That her influence is important is evidenced by the self-confessed acknowledgements but what exactly is that about? The last two papers are more personalised, and while the one by Maja Petrovic-Steger dwells upon Strathern's representation and portraits inspired by her works and her intellectual stimulation; the one by Adam Reed talks not only about her but in a more generalised and philosophical vein about the concept of "inspiration". The disjunction between inspiration and the creative culmination of this inspiration in a fresh piece of work has been beautifully analysed to contextualize not only Strathern but all the other contributors. Each of them has done their own fieldwork, thought their own problems and solutions and although "inspired" are independent scholars in their own right. The work that they have produced goes beyond this inspiration and may also be seen independently away from the binding figure of Strathern as multiple works in highly diverse anthropological topics by scholars each working their own way.
In another dimension, this volume may also be looked upon as one that endorses the diversity of anthropological fieldwork and one that indicates how ethnographic and subjective analysis can throw insights into malarial research and attitude of states towards giant corporations as well as focus on family and kinship, even of "out" of "normal" variety. Gender, kinship and family retain the central position in these analyses thus making relevant anthropological theory in a changing world. Thus, change of focus does not necessarily imply change of method. It is the central paradigms that define a discipline, and anthropology is able to maintain these across a wide spectrum. What Strathern taught her students was a basic philosophy of approach that enabled them to navigate widely different worlds yet retaining a foundational attachment to the core of the discipline. In this sense, this volume justifies its claim to being dedicated to anthropology and its methods and goes beyond a usual volume dedicated to one particular scholar. It is not the particularity but the generality that is the contribution of this set of papers.
It may not then be necessary to be familiar with Strathern's works to understand what is being said in this volume. One may read it as a general book about the relevance of anthropology and as the title suggests "recasting" this knowledge into a variety of field situations much beyond the classical concerns of anthropologists and yet being rooted in all that anthropology has stood for including doing fieldwork in Melanesia.
SUBHADRA MITRA CHANNA
University of Delhi (India)