Pies and essays: women writing through the British 1984–1985 coal miners' strike

During the 1984–1985 British miners' strike and in its immediate aftermath, women activists produced a series of publications involving creative writing, which sought to communicate the strike from their own perspective. The production and sale of publications were a practical activity in support of the strike and in defence of community. We argue that insofar as writing was also a means whereby the women who worked to make sense of themselves in an emergent situation for which there was no precedent, an analysis of such writing offers opportunities for a broader understanding of the strike. Writing enabled the women to affirm their class-based political loyalties while expressing the complexities and contradictions of gender relationships and roles. Writing as a reflexive act contributed to a clarification of those aspects of female lives which they valued, facilitated an expression of their emotional response to their experience of activism and enabled them to articulate a moral-political position within which they worked with ambiguity and contradiction. This article suggests that cultural texts of this type in themselves can only be properly understood in the context of structural and historical relations of power and that the context and conditions of production of writing are particularly pertinent to this process.     

Annual Report and Accounts for the Year 1983

ENZYKLOPÄDIE DES MÄRCHENS. Edited by KURT RANKE. Volume 5. Issues 1-3. Berlin (Walter de Gruyter) 1985/86. cols 1-864. Issue 1: ISBN 3 11 010590X. Price: DM 73.00. Issues 2/3 ISBN 3 11 010591 8. Price: DM 152.- Reviewed by Sandy Hobbs.

OEDIPUS: A FOLKLORE CASEBOOK. Edited by LOWELL EDMUNDS and ALAN DUNDES. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York and London. 1983. xv 266 pages. ISBN 0.8240.9242.2 Reviewed by Sandy Hobbs.

OEDIPUS: THE ANCIENT LEGEND AND ITS LATER ANALOGUES. By LOWELL EDMUNDS. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore and London, 1985. xxii, 242 pages. List of Analogues. Bibliographies. Index of Sources. Index of Names and Subjects. ISBN 0.8018.2490.7 Reviewed by Sandy Hobbs.

COUNTRY VOICES: LIFE &; LORE DM FARM &; VILLAGE. By CHARLES KIGHTLY. London: Thames &; Hudson, 1984. £8.95. pp. 239; Illus.,; Glossary; Index. Reviewed by Georgina Boyes.

DER ALTERSVERS DES WECHSELBALGES UND DIE ÜBRIGEN ALTERSVERSE. (FF Communications No. 235). By ROBERT WILDHABER. Academia Scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki, 1985, Paperback, pp. 116 Reviewed by Jon Erickson.

THE HONEY TREE SONG: POEMS AND CHANTS OF SARAWAK DAYAKS—by CAROL RUBENSTEIN. Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 1985. ISBN 0-8214-0413-X. Reviewed by Jan Knappert.

BELLE GUNNESS: THE LADY BLUEBEARD by JANET L. LANGLOIS. University of Indiana Press, 1985, xi, 174pp, hardback. No price. Reviewed by Brian McConnell.

THE BANSHEE: THE IRISH SUPERNATURAL DEATH MESSENGER by PATRICIA LYSAGHT. Dublin, The Glendale Press, 1986, 433 pp., maps and bibliography, ISBN 0-907606-29-6. Reviewed by Gillian Bennett.

MABON AND THE MYSTERIES OF BRITAIN. By CAITLIN MATTHEWS. Arkana, London and New York, 1986. £5.95. pp. 205. Index. Bibliography. Illustrated. ISBN 1-85063-052-6 Reviewed by Juliette Wood.

GERMAN VOLKSKUNDE: A Decade of Theoretical Confrontation, Debate and Reorientation (1967–1977) (Folklore Studies in Translation), edited and translated by JAMES R. DOW and HANNJOST LIXFELD. Indiana University Press. Bloomington, Indiana, 1986. 343 pp. $35.00 Cloth. 0-253-32577-3 Reviewed by Craig Fees.

LOUDER THAN WORDS: AN INTRODUCTION TO NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION. By Marjorie Fink Vargas. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press. $19.95. pp. 182 Illus. ISBN 0-8138-1113-9 Reviewed by P. G. Daniels.

EVOLUTION IN TEXTILE DESIGN FROM THE HIGHLANDS OF GUATAMALA. By MARGOT BLUM SCHEVILL. University of Washington Press, P.O. Box 50096, U.S.A., $12.95, direct from Publisher. 84 pp, 87 illustrations, maps, appendices, glossary notes and bibliography. ISBN 0-963127-01-5, LC 86-2858 Reviewed by Wanda Stanley.

KATALOG ZUR VOLKSERZÄHLUNG, HANS-JÖRG UTHER. K. G. Saur, München, New York, London, Oxford, Paris 1987. 2 vols. pp. 1135 £165.00 Reviewed by RMJ.

THE EVIDENCE FOR PHANTOM HITCH-HIKERS. By MICHAEL GOSS. THE AQUARIAN PRESS, WELLINGBOROUGH, 1984. PP 160, 13 ILUST. ISBN 0-85030-376-1. £2.95 Reviewed by Angelika Schmetzke.

A LYCANTHROPY READER: WEREWOLVES IN WESTERN CULTURE, by CHARLOTTE F. OTTEN. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York. 1986. Cloth $32.50. Paper $14.95, Pp. 360. Index. Selected bibliography. ISBN 0 8156 2383 6 and 0 8156 2384 4 (pbk). Reviewed by Caroline Oates.

SAGA, LEGEND, TALE, NOVELLA, FABLE: NARRATIVE FORMS IN OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE. Edited by GEORGE W. COATS. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 35. Department of Biblical Studies, the University of Sheffield. 1985. £15.95; pbk £6.50. pp. 157. Indeces of Biblical passages and of authors quoted. ISBN 0-905774-84-1 and 0-905774-85-x Pbk. Reviewed by W. F. H. Nicolaisen.     

Spears,style, and time among Maa-speaking pastoralists

Stylistic change in Maasai spears is examined in light of their use as symbolic instruments. Importation, selection, use, and abandonment of formal traits in spears are analyzed for pastoralists of Samburu District, Kenya. The ever-changing form of spears helps males to move through a sequence of age grades, where graduation to each new grade changes one's status and social networks. Ethnoarchaeological significance of the Maasai example lies in how and why material styles both aid and reflect interaction between males of varying social status and how change in material styles helps to reinforce relatively stable social roles. Archaeologically, these Maasai socioeconomic processes may serve as analogs for Paleolithic and Mesolithic social structures that exhibited aspects of both egalitarianism and ranking.