Migration, Memory, and the Violence<?Brk?>
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AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST BOOK REVIEWS Single Reviews Creating a Nation with Cloth: Women, Wealth, and Tradition in the Tongan Diaspora by Ping-Ann Addo New York: Berghahn, 2013. 252 pp. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12380 Tongan culture and New Zealand political economy” (p. 72) and struggle with poor job opportunities, they nevertheless Susanne Kuehling “occupy a critical position in the facilitation of global flows University of Regina and guarantee the everyday and ceremonial sustenance of their families.” This book connects discourses on value, gender, and tex- Chapter 3 presents three case studies that take a close tile wealth and demonstrates how they relate to notions look at the real-life pressures and strategies, the emo- of nationhood and home. There are now at least as many tions and considerations, and the skills and shortcomings of Tongans in the diaspora as there are in Tonga itself, and today’s handling of koloa in multiterritorial Tonga. Family family ties form an ethnoscape marked by “Tongan” prac- events, although burdensome, provide a stage for “fluidiar- tices of gift giving. Ping-Ann Addo’s multisited research in ity” (Teaiwa 2005), “creating contexts for solidarity that also Tonga and with Tongan families in New Zealand and the incorporate fluidity between multiple social roles and social United States discusses the ways in which Tongan com- situations” (p. 115). moner women, especially second-generation migrants, lead In chapter 4, the notion of love (‘ofa) is foregrounded as Tonga’s modernity as a multiterritorial nation, creating and a motherly, womanly virtue that morphs into the textile, in- exchanging gifts and investing in the “creative possibilities in creasing its value together with the life events that mark the this tension between movement and dwelling” (p. 30). exchange of these textiles. The role of the church as recipi- This approach opens a microscopic perspective on the ent of gifts “beyond reason” represents a particular challenge options and strategies of Tongan women and textile wealth, to low-income Tongans in the diaspora who cannot afford called koloa. A table (pp. 34–35) is useful for keeping track to compete appropriately and who may change churches of the different types of koloa (bark cloth, plaited, old, to avoid the shame (ma¯) of underperformance (p. 136). shiny, large, sewn, embroidered, crocheted, decorated, The case studies all illustrate the need to include the reality repaired, etc). In brief, the love and care, the work and of a modern global economy into gift-exchange considera- sacrifice, of a woman coalesces in the textile when it is tions. Cash is now an important element of gifting practices. created, infused with her thoughts and emotions, her mana Chapter 5 highlights the various ways in which Tongans in (spiritual efficacy or potency) and skills, showing what it the diaspora are challenged by tensions, contradictions, and means to be a good, loving Tongan mother. By making and pressures resulting from overlapping exchange spheres and exchanging koloa, Addo convincingly argues that Tongan requests for remittances. Addo presents examples of inno- women “keep people, place, and values connected through vative strategies for handling wealth in settings like a New time and over space—in a continually renewed sense of Zealand funeral or the performance of allegiance to church being at home” (p. 198). This is how Tongan women and homeland in fundraising events outside of Tonga. Koloa create a multiterritorial social universe, “simultaneously can be pawned and sold and are often sent as gifts from characterized by movement and dwelling—routedness and Tonga to supportive relatives in the diaspora. As chapter rootedness, in the words of James Clifford (1997)” (p. 18). 6 argues, cash can enter the gift category and gain what In chapter 1, Addo discusses the textile genre of koloa, Annette Weiner called “symbolic density,” especially when focusing on the accepted variations, innovations, stylis- donated at a church event (p. 174). Generous cash donations tic continuity, and creativity of, and within, the various are valued evidence that diasporic Tongans are “generous, categories. Chapter 2 describes the creative group work interested, and invested on numerous levels in langa fonua, involved in making bark cloth sheets (ngatu) from vari- or nation building” (p. 186). ous materials, including synthetic fiber. While commoner In conclusion, the book provides a convincing case for women “are marginalized within the twin patriarchies of the “fluidarity” embodied in female wealth as well as how AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 117, No. 4, pp. 813–882, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. C 2015 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12380 814 American Anthropologist • Vol. 117, No. 4 • December 2015 koloa valuables “keep people, place, and values connected how gift exchange maintains the ethos of generosity in spite through time and over space—in a continually renewed of an overwhelming global pressure to accumulate and keep sense of being at home” (p. 196). Addo makes clear that “at gifting to a minimum. New generations of diasporic Ton- all levels, women are crucial to Tongan people’s realization gan women should be studied as well to follow up on this of their highest cultural ideals because women produce the fascinating process. most important objects that people exchange and thereby re- inforce social values through ritual exchange” (p. 191). This REFERENCE CITED book is an important addition to the literature on Pacific Teaiwa, Teresia diaspora and textile wealth. Addo could have added more to 2005 Solidarity and Fluidarity: Feminism as Product and Produc- the growing literature on empathy and emotion by unpack- tive Force for Regionalism in the Pacific. Paper presented at ing the notion of ‘ofa and its ambiguities, like the idea of “Gender, Globalization, and Militarism” conference, Univer- suffering, shame, and face (mata). She lucidly demonstrates sity of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Honolulu, February 4. Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers by Mark W. Allen and Terry L. Jones, eds. Walnut Creek: Left Coast, 2014. 391 pp. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12381 6,000 BP; and, finally, a single chapter (by James Chatters) older than 9,000 BP. Because nearly all chapters deal only Douglas P. Fry with the Holocene, the editors’ claims of a long chronology University of Alabama at Birmingham are not based on relevant archaeological data. For Pale- oamerican remains dated before 9,000 BP, Chatters reports This edited volume is certainly a “must-read” for anyone no violence indicative of warfare and instead concludes that interested in the anthropology of violence or the origins of violence was mostly nonlethal, “between members of the war. Attempting to cover all 19 chapters in a short review same social group,” and that “it would appear that the in- would be a recipe for superficiality, so instead I will focus tent of the conflict was rarely, if ever, to kill the victim” on broader issues. The vast majority of the chapters are data (pp. 81–82). In short, there is absolutely no archaeological based and constitute the strongest aspect of this book. They data presented in this volume that support a long chronol- examine cases from various continents, sometimes employ ogy of warfare, contrary to the conclusions stated by the innovative methods (e.g., stable isotopes to assess in-group editors. or out-group membership and the analysis of contingency The editors contend that some chapters in the mobile tables by using simulations), mostly consider cases from forager part of their book show warfare. One problem here prehistory, and are interesting reading. is a misplacement of chapters into the nomadic forager sec- The weakest sections of the book come at the begin- tion on peoples that were not nomadic but lived in villages ning and the end. The theoretical grounding is shallow and and showed signs of social complexity. One such misplaced sometimes polemic. Because the editors are convinced that chapter is by Kenneth Reid on the interior Northwest of war goes way back, they do not fully examine how the North America, which explores “plateau pacifism,” as pro- topical chapters help to elucidate the patterns of violence posed decades ago by Verne Ray. Of significance, this study and warfare vis-a-vis` population growth, sedentism, and so- shows evidence of “emergent social complexity” (p. 177), cial complexity within the last 10,000 years. By contrast, a with villages, cemeteries, and other features that are atyp- topical chapter by John Darwent and Christyann Darwent ical of mobile foragers. Reid discusses fortifications, lack provides a lucid diachronic analysis that contrasts patterns of sacked villages, and low level of skeletal trauma, and he of war and violence in northwestern Alaska and the eastern concludes that, at 2,000 BP, “the scarcity of such evidence Arctic. The Darwents tie warfare and its absence to ecology [of group violence], certainly by comparison with neighbor- and social organization. ing areas, underscores the regional lacunae of organizational The editors assert that nearly all of the case studies “sup- features of warfare” (p. 170). Another fascinating chapter port a long chronology for war and violence” (p. 354)— by Matthew Des Lauriers focuses on the ethnohistorical and meaning millions of years. However, the chapters consider archaeological evidence for warfare on a small island off the European Paleolithic–Mesolithic transition; as far back Baja California. This study cannot be taken as evidence for as 9,000 BP; 4,000 to 400 BP; 1,000 BP; 2,000 BP; 6,500 to warfare in mobile foragers either. It has been misclassified 3,000 BP; back to 5,000 BP; 3,000 BP; 1,180 BP; 900 BP; because the islanders lived in permanent villages of up to Book Reviews 815 481 residences. Des Lauriers draws parallels to the complex vis-a-vispopulationdensityleadstomorespecializedfoodac-` foragers of the Northwest Coast.