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Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society. By WEBB KEANE. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. xxix, 297 pp. $50.00 (cloth); $20.00 (paper).
Among Southeast Asianists, East Sumba has enjoyed a certain degree of anthropological fame as a realm of asymmetric alliance, poetic oration, and spectacular ikat textiles. While Webb Keane's book Signs of Recognition addresses these classic themes, it goes well beyond the familiar terrain and offers an innovative and integrative new perspective on East Sumba. Weaving together attentive ethnography and rich theoretical observations, Keane uses the case of the East Sumban Anakalangese to illustrate the artifice of the classic academic divide between the verbal and material spheres.
Webb Keane deftly illustrates the linkages between oration and objects of exchange by centering his analysis on representational...