“Go get a job right after you take a bath”: Occupy Wall Street as Matter Out of Place

Anthropological studies of purity reveal how notions of cleanliness influence political and social life. During its 2011 Zuccotti Park occupation in Lower Manhattan, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) contested spatial and symbolic manifestations of neoliberalism by re‐inserting Otherness into sanitized and privatized space. But the demonstration provoked reactions from politicians and news media that entwined discourses of cleanliness and productivity (such as Newt Gingrich's riposte to the protestors: “Go get a job right after you take a bath”). This ethnographic study argues that such representations had spatial and political effects. In particular, our account illuminates the plural agency of Occupiers, where resistance to depictions of dirt and idleness existed alongside the use of such discourses to discipline each other. We trace a discursive legacy of these events as notions of productivity and cleanliness have circulated within activist responses to 2012's Superstorm Sandy and the 2014 Flood Wall Street mobilization.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

L.F. Crisp, Federation Fathers (ed. John Hart: Studies in Australian Federation) (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1990) pp.xv + 484. $48.00 ISBN 0 522 84399 3.

I.M. Cumpston, Lord Bruce of Melbourne (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1989) pp.xviii + 291. $n.p. ISBN 0582 71274 2.

John Forster and John Wanna (eds.), Budgetary Management and Control (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1990) pp.vii + 206. $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0332 7.

Hal L. Kendig and John McCallum (eds.), Grey Policy: Australian Policies for an Ageing Society (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.xiii + 226. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442129 X.

Chandran Kukathas, David W. Lovell and William Maley, The Theory of Politics: an Australian Perspective (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.210 + vii. $15.99 ISBN 0 582 86806 8.

Scott Prasser, Rae Wear and John Nethercote (eds.), Corruption and Reform: The Fitzgerald Vision (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1990) pp.xvi + 267. $26.95 ISBN 0 7022 2234 8.

Kosmas Tsokhas, Markets, Money and Empire: The Political Economy of the Australian Wool Industry (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1990) pp.viii + 235. $29.95 ISBN 0 522 84417 0.

Comparative and international politics

Abdullahi Ahmed An‐Na'im and Francis M. Deng (eds.), Human Rights in Africa: Cross‐Cultural Perspectives (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990) pp.xv + 399. $36.95 ISBN 0 8157 1796 2.

Thomas A. Baylis, Governing by Committee. Collegial Leadership in Advanced Societies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) pp.236. $n.p. ISBN0 88706 944 4.

George C. Edwards III with Alec M. Gallup Presidential Approval: A Sourcebook (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990) pp.viii + 214. $US40.50 ISBN 0 8018 4085 6.

Kristian Gerner and Stefan Hedlund, Ideology and Rationality in the Soviet Model: A legacy for Gorbachev (London: Routledge, 1989) pp.xii + 455. $n.p. ISBN 0 415 02142 1.

John A. Hall (ed.), States in History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) pp.vi + 317. $39.95 ISBN 0 631 17136 3.

M.D. Hancock, West Germany: The Politics of Democratic Corporatism (N.J.: Chatham House, 1989) pp.v + 186. $US12.95 ISBN 0 934540 54 3.

Christine Jennett and Randal G. Stewart (eds.), Politics of the Future: the role of social movements (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xi + 471. $34.95 ISBN 0 333 50222 1.

Peter Jennings, The Armed Forces of New Zealand and the Anzus Split: Costs and Consequences (Aukland: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988) pp.xi + 108. $NZ12.00 ISBN 0 908772 04 1.

Ihor Kamenetsky (ed.) The Tragedy of Vinnytsia; materials on Stalin's policy of extermination in Ukraine during the great purge, 1936–1938 (Toronto: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1989) pp.xviii + 265. $n.p.

Martin Laffin, Managing Under Pressure (Hampshire and London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xvi + 207. $24.95 ISBN 0 333 44660 7.

Brij V. Lal, Power and Prejudice: The Making of the Fiji Crisis (Auckland: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988)

Garry Rodan, The Political Economy of Singapore's Industrialisation: National State and International Capital (London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.266. £35.00 ISBN 0 333 47079 6.

Richard Scase (ed.), Industrial Societies: Crisis and Division in Western Capitalism and State Socialism (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.xi + 260. $29.95 ISBN 0–04–301303–1.

G.A. Wood, Governing New Zealand (Auckland: Longman Paul, 1988) pp.ix + 164. $NZ16.95 ISBN 0 582 71822 8.

Political theory and methodology

J.M. Barbalet, Citizenship: Rights, Struggle and Class Inequality (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988) pp.119. £5.95 ISBN 0 335 15570 7.

Peter Calvert, Revolution and Counter‐Revolution (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990) pp.vi + 90. $24.95 ISBNO 335 15397 6.

Cynthia Farrar, The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The invention of politics in classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp.x + 301. $42.50 ISBN 0 521 37584 3.

Norman Geras, Discourses of Extremity: Radical Ethics and Post‐Marxist Extravagances (London: Verso, 1990) pp.xiii + 171. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 980 3.

Barry Hindess (ed.), Reactions to the Right (London: Routledge, 1990) pp.viii + 193. $32.95 ISBN 0 415 03385 3.

Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations (Brighton: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988) pp.vi + 376. $n.p. ISBN 0 7450 0556 X.

Joseph McCarney, Social Theory and the Crisis of Marxism (London: Verso, 1990) pp.x+217. $29.95 ISBN 0–86091–948‐X.

John Morrow, Coleridge's Political Thought: Property, Morality and the Limits of Traditional Discourse (London: Macmillan, 1990) pp. xi + 215. £29.50 ISBN 0 333 51192 1.

Peter P. Nicholson, The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists: Selected Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp.x + 359. $135.00 ISBN 0 521 37102 3.

Stuart Schram, The Thought of Mao Tse‐tung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp.242. $30.50 ISBN 0 521 32549 8.

Arthur Seldon, Capitalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) pp.xiii + 419. $45.00 ISBN 0 631 12558 2.     

An Analysis of Arrow and String Bag Craft Variability in the Upper Sepik and Central New Guinea

ABSTRACT This paper describes an analysis of relationships between language, geography and material culture in the upper Sepik region of New Guinea. We used Mantel tests and principal coordinate analysis to assess and compare the associations between arrow and string bag crafts and language and geographical distance. The Mantel tests resulted in a significant association between each class’ craft variability and both geographical distance and language, however, after statistical control was applied to either of the independent variables only a significant association with geographical distance remained. We argue that these results indicate craft techniques were readily disseminated and that craft distributions are unlikely to reflect any deeper historical relationships between groups. The spatial autocorrelation of arrow crafts was particularly great. A comparison of the principal coordinate analysis plots indicates a greater degree of diffusion and synthesis had taken place between lowland and highland arrow craft traditions. We conclude that the more intensive learning regimes needed to master string bag craft techniques, as well as a greater degree of interdependence between string bag components, had ensured more abrupt differences between bag types resulting in a more moderate degree of spatial autocorrelation.