Book Reviews - J. Abbink, Edward LiPuma, The gift of kinship; Structure and practice in Maring social organisation. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, x + 241 pp. - Martin A. van Bakel, P. Bonte, Dictionnaire de l éthnologie et de l ànthropologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991., M. Izard, et al (eds.) - M.A. van Bakel, C.J. Healey, Maring hunters and traders; Production and exchange in the Papua New Guinea highlands, Berkeley: University of California press, 1990. - Guido P.F. van den Boorn, H.J.M. Claessen, Verwenen koninkrijken en verloren beschavingen; Opkomst en ondergang van de vroege staat. Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1991. VIII + 250 pp.; 21 zw/w kaarten). - Martin van Bruinessen, Werner Kraus, Islamische mystische Bruderschaften im heutigen Indonesien, Hamburg: Mitteilungen des Instituts für Asienkunde 183, 1990. 205 pp., bibliography, index. - Martin van Bruinessen, Michael Charles Williams, Communism, religion, and revolt in Banten. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, 1990 (Monographs in international studies, Southeast Asia Series, no.86). - J. Bijlmer, R. Jordaan, A. Niehof, Paul Alexander, Creating Indonesian cultures, (Oceania ethnographies 3), Sydney: University of Sydney, 1989, vii + 230 pp. - J.G. De Casparis, J. Fontein, The law of cause and effect in ancient Java. Koninklijke Academie van Wetenschappen, Verhandelingen Afdeling Letterkunde, Niewe Reeks, Deel 140, 1989. - Victoria M. Clara van Groenendael, Mally Kant-Achilles, Wayang Bèbèr; Das wiederentdeckte Bildrollen drama zentral Javas. Stuttgart: Franz Stiener Verlag, 1990. 262 pp. + 133 pp. of illustrations. Photographs, maps, bibliography, glossary cum index, authors index, appendices., Friedrich Seltmann, Rüdiger Schumacher (eds.) - J.R. van Diessen, Susan Abeyasekere, Jakarta - A history. Oxford, etc.: Oxford University Press, 1989. - Caroline Dissel, Colin Clarke, South Asians overseas; Migration and ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 375 pp., Ceri Peach, Steven Vertovec (eds.) - P. van Emst, Ron Brunton, The abandoned narcotic; Kava and cultural instability in Melanesia. Cambridge studies in social anthropology 69. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge, University Press, 1989. - Th. van den End, Karel A. Steenbrink, De islam bekeken door koloniale Nederlanders. Utrecht/Leiden: Interuniversitair Instituut voor Missiologie en Oecumenica, 1991, 174 pp. - Th. van den End, Sutarman S. Partonadi, Sadrachs community and its contextual roots; A nineteenth century Javanese expression of Christianity. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1990, 317 pp. Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access - Antonio J. Guerreiro, Bernard Sellato, Nomades et sedentarisation a Borneo; Histoire économique et sociale. Paris, Editions de lEcole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Etudes insulindiennes/Archipel 9, 1989, 293 p.; ill. - Jos G.M. Hilhorst, P.J.M. Nas, De sad in de Derde Wereld; Een inleiding tot de urbane antropologie en sociologie. Muiderberg: Coutinho, 1990; pp. 244. - S.R. Jaarsma, Stefan Dietrich, Kolonialismus und Mission auf Flores (ca. 1900-1942), Hohenschaftlarn: Klaus Renner Verlag (Münchner Beiträge zur Süd- und Südostasienkunde Band 1), 1989, vii + 347 pp. - M.C. Jongeling, Th. van den End, Ragi carita; Sejarah gereja di Indonesia I 1500-1860, 3rd impr. Jakarta 1987, - Roy.E. Jordaan, Michaela Appel, Dewi Sri und die Kinder des Putut Jantaka; Beziehungen zwischen Mensch und Reis in Mythologie und Brauchtum auf Java und Bali. München: Anacon Verlag, 1991. - S.C. Kersenboom, Joel C. Kuipers, Power in performance; The creation of textual authority in Weyewa ritual speech, 1990. Philadelphia, Pa: University of Pennysylvania press, conduct and communication series. - J. Kleinen, Marie Alexandre Martin, Le mal cambodgien; Histoire dune societe traditionelle face a ses leaders politiques 1946-1987, Paris: Hachette, 1989. - G.J. Knaap, A. Booth, Indonesian economic history in the Dutch colonial era, Monograph series 35 Yale University Southeast Asia studies. New Haven, 1990. xiii + 369 pp., W.J. OMalley, A. Weidemann (eds.) - Gisele de Meur, F. Tjon Sie Fat, Representing kinship; Simple models of elementary structures. 1990. (Doctoral thesis. Leiden, published by the author.) - Toon van Meijl, Maurice Godelier, Big men and great men; Personifications of power in Melanesia, Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la maison des sciences de lHomme, 1991, xviii, 328 pp., maps, tables, figures, bibliography, index., Marilyn Strathern (eds.) - J.A. de Moor, B.A. Hussainmiya, Orang rejimen; The Malays of the Ceylon rifle regiment. Bangi: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1990, 185 pp. - Pieter Muysken, J.M.W. Verhaar, Melanesian pidgin and tok pisin; Studies in language companion series 20. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1990, xiv + 409 pp. - Niels Mulder, Paul Voogt, Thailand. Amsterdam/s-Gravenhage: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen/NOVIB, 1991. 70 pp. + kaart, slappe kaft., Han ten Brummelhuis, Irene Stengs (eds.) - Ton van Naerssen, George Cho, The Malaysian economy; Spatial perspectives. London: Routledge. 1990, 300 pp. - Julianti Parani, J.R. van Diessen, Jakarta/Batavia. Het centrum van het Nederlandse koloniale rijk in Azië en zijn cultuurhistorische nalatenschap. Cantecleer Kunst - Reisgidsen. De Bilt: Cantecleer, 1989. 343 pp. - A. Ploeg, Christopher J. Healey, Pioneers of the mountain forest, University of Sydney, 1985, Oceania Monographs no. 29, v + 64 pp., plates, figures, maps. - Els Postel-Coster, Carla Risseeuw, The fish dont talk about the water; Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka, Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1988, 415 pp., also published as Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka; The fish dont speak Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access about the water, New Delhi: Manohar Book service, 1991. Ca. 400 pp., - Willem van Schendel, Mya Tan, Myanmar dilemmas and options; The challenge of economic transition in the 1990s. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian studies, 1990, 288 pp., Joseph L.H. Tan (eds.) - Heather Sutherland, James R. Rush, Opium to Java; Revenue farming and Chinese enterprise in colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 1990. x + 281 pp., photos, index. - A. Teeuw, Arena Wati, Syair pangeran Syarif Hasyim al-Qudsi, 192 pp.,'Syair perang Cina di Monterado. 195 pp.,'Syair pangeran Syarif. 182 pp.,'Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 1989. - Albert A. Trouwborst, R. Schefold, Harmonie en rivaliteit; Verbeelding van botsende principes in Indonesië. Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar in de culturele antropologie en sociologie van Indonesië aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden op vrijdag 23 maart 1990. - James F. Weiner, D. Gewertz, Twisted histories, altered contexts; Representing the Chambri in a world system. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991, xiv + 258 pp., F. Errington (eds.) In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 148 (1992), no: 1, Leiden, 135-194 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 06:19:44PM via free access BOEKBESPREKINGEN Edward LiPuma, The gift of kinship; Structure and practice in Maring social organization. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, x + 241 pp. Price: £ 27.50. J. ABBINK University of Nijmegen For a long time, the study of New Guinea Highland societies has been bogged down in misleading and confusing discussion - based both on the 'descent model' of social organization and the disjunction between the practice of social life and its symbolic or ideological aspects. The efforts of many anthropologists, while ethnographically often superb, must be recast along theoretical lines that restore the interplay of 'structure' and 'practice' of New Guinea 'tribal' societies as they socially sustain or reproduce themselves in the flow of daily life. This, briefly, is the thrust of Edward LiPuma's brilliant new book on the Maring peoples, al- ready famous through the works of Brown, Clark, Lowman, Rappaport, Strathern, Vayda, Wagner and others. We have here a very challenging work which offers something new for any ethnologist interested in theory. Its premises, analyses and conclusions are relevant well beyond the ethnographic context treated here, and many readers will experience refreshing moments of recognition, having strug- gled with similar problems of analysis in their own work. The book presents a very clever and realistic view of social life in 'kin-ordered societies'. Many pseudo-questions about kinship, descent, local group, rules and cultural ideals or norms can be avoided, or better, redefined and answered by an approach such as LiPuma's (he calls it 'pragmatic structuralism'). The author's strategy, in answering the question as to how Maring societies work and reproduce, is to completely abandon the framework of 'descent' theory. Instead he returns to the elementary basis of social life as an interactive play between cultural categories and principles (the more or less 'given' ideas about social and natural order) and practice (the actual behavioural strategies and actions of individuals in daily work and life). Local Maring ideas about how they live and should live within the frame- work of their exogamous clans and local groups are central. These ideas show underlying 'generative schemes' (p. 2), operating in the overall social reproduction process of clans and local groups. One such generative scheme involves the