Book reviews

AUSTRALIA IN WORLD AFFAIRS 1966–70. Gordon Greenwood and Norman Harper (eds.). Cheshire, for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Melbourne, 1974. vii + 489 pp. 0–7015–1571–6. $13.95.

FROM TWEEDLEDUM TO TWEEDLEDEE. THE NEW LABOR GOVERNMENT IN AUSTRALIA: A CRITIQUE OF ITS SOCIAL MODEL. Robert Catley and Bruce McFarlane. Australia and New Zealand Book Company, Sydney, 1974. 88 pp. + 24 pp. app. 0–8555–022–1. $3.50 paper.

FULL CIRCLE. S. F. Rowell. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1974, 206 pp. $9.90.

PUBLIC POLICY IN AUSTRALIA. Roy Forward (ed.). Cheshire, Melbourne, 1974. 276 pp. 07015–1741–7. $6.50 paper.

TO PHOENIX SEAT: AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY OF MAOISM AND THE CHINESE COMMUNIST QUEST FOR A PARADISE ON EARTH. Leslie R. Marchant. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1973. 276 pp. 0–207–12373. $7.95.

THE NORTH KOREAN COMMUNIST LEADERSHIP, 1945–1965: A STUDY OF FACTIONALISM AND POLITICAL CONSOLIDATION. Koon Woo Nam. The University of Alabama Press, Alabama 35486, 1974. 214 pp. 08193–4723–2. $7.50.

TRADITION AND REVOLUTION IN VIETNAM. Nguyen Khac Vien. Indochina Resource Center, Berkeley, California, 1974. 169 pp. $US 2.65.

POLITICS AND POWER IN CAMBODIA: THE SIHANOUK YEARS. Milton Osborne. Longman, Melbourne, 1974. 120 pp. $7.50 hard cover, $3.50 paper.

THE 1971 ELECTIONS IN INDONESIA: AN EAST JAVA CASE STUDY. Ken Ward. Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, 1974. 120 pp. 0–909835–09–8. $3.75.

TWENTY YEARS OF INDONESIAN FOREIGN POLICY, 1945–1965. Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung. Mouton, The Hague and Paris, 1973. 640 pp. $17.00.

HET EKONOMISCH BELEID IN NEDERLANDSCH‐INDIE, CAPITA SELECTA. EEN BRONNENPUBLICATIE (Economic Policy in the Netherlands Indies, Selected Subjects), PART II. P. Creutzberg (ed.). Publication No. 6 of the ‘Committee for the Publication of Primary Sources Concerning the History of the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942’. H. D. Tjeenk Willink, B.V., Groningen, The Netherlands, 1974. 792 pp.

FIFTEEN MEN ON A POWDER KEG: A HISTORY OF THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL. Andrew Boyd. University Paperback, London, 1973. (First published by Methuen & Co. 1971.) 416–70230–9. 383 pp. $4.20.

HAMMARSKJOLD. Brian Urquhart. The Bodley Head, London, 1972. 630 pp. $14.70.

THE NEW ZEALAND BUREAUCRAT. T. B. Smith. Cheshire, Wellington, New Zealand, 1974. 162 pp. $9.95.

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: FOUNDATIONS OF THE SYSTEM. Werner Levi. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1974. (Distributed in Australia by Oxford University Press.) 285 pp. 0–8166–0703–6. $11.00.     

Women,Pigs, God and Evolution: Social and Economic Change Among Kubo People of Papua New Guinea

This paper depicts connections and interactions between several apparently disparate themes of change observed in recent years at a village in the interior lowlands of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. Changes in patterns of association between men and women can be traced, in the first instance, to altered management practices necessitated by intensified pig production. That intensification, in turn, reflects the growing importance of money in the local economy, a shift which, through its predication on recognising the commensurability of differences, has ramifications far beyond the economics of pig production. An earlier emphasis on equivalence in exchanges has been replaced by a recognition of substitutability, with a consequent reification of categories at the expense of individuality. This trend has been reinforced by the influence of a new Christian cult that, in emphasising the distinction between men and women, has reified gender categories as a basis for structuring social action. The declining association between men and women which emerged as an adaptive response to changing economic realities has thus become incorporated as a structural transformation in Kubo social life.     

Intensification and Social Complexity in the Interior Lowlands of Papua New Guinea: A Comparison of Bedamuni and Kubo

Kubo and Bedamuni are linguistically, culturally, and technologically related societies of the interior lowlands of Papua New Guinea. They occupy similar environments and have access to essentially the same resources. They differ in population density (Kubo 0.4 people/km², Bedamuni 7/km²), subsistence orientation (Kubo are hunter-gatherer-like, Bedamuni are farmers who hunt) and intensification of plant food production (Kubo lower, Bedamuni higher). Relative to Kubo, Bedamuni are shown to exhibit increased differentiation within and between production units, greater integration within and between residential units, and heightened forms of evaluation within and between cultural systems. Each of these general characteristics is illustrated by particulars that refer, for example, to role differentiation, rights of access to land and resources, dispute resolution, mechanisms of inter-community cohesion, and exegesis with respect to subsistence practices and cultural identity. In turn, differences between the two societies in terms of these general characteristics sustain an interpretation that Bedamuni is a socially more complex society than Kubo. The awkward notion of complexity is examined; it is understood to comprise two independent dimensions—the “involvement of parts” (which is itself multidimensional) and the “individuation of form.” The latter dimension has received too little attention in discussion and definitions of complexity.     

‘Highway to Heaven’: the creation of a multicultural,religious landscape in suburban Richmond,British Columbia

We analyse the emergence of the ‘Highway to Heaven’, a distinctive landscape of more than 20 diverse religious buildings, in the suburban municipality of Richmond, outside Vancouver, to explore the intersections of immigration, planning, multiculturalism, religion and suburban space. In the context of wider contested planning disputes for new places of worship for immigrant communities, the creation of a designated ‘Assembly District’ in Richmond emerged as a creative response to multicultural planning. However, it is also a contradictory policy, co-opting religious communities to municipal requirements to safeguard agricultural land and prevent suburban sprawl, but with limited success. The unanticipated outcomes of a designated planning zone for religious buildings include production of an agglomeration of increasingly spectacular religious facilities that exceed municipal planning regulations. Such developments are accommodated through a celebratory narrative of municipal multiculturalism, but one that fails to engage with the communal narratives of the faith communities themselves and may exoticize or commodify religious identity.     

Introduction: gendered mobilities and transnational identities

In this short introduction to a themed section on gendered mobilities and transnational identities the articles are introduced and the three key conceptual themes which emerge from the collection are discussed. It is argued first, that gendered migration patterns reconfigure all the social relations within transnational family formations. Second, that chains of care need to be conceptualised in more complex ways recognising multiple forms and circulations of care. Finally, it is suggested that attention needs to be paid to the ways in which institutions intersect with migration and transnational family formations.