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Nirmal Puwar , Berg, Oxford, 2004, 224p,
ISBN 1-8597-3659-9
, £15.99 (Pbk);
ISBN 1-8597-3654-8
, £47.00 (Hbk)
I am standing in the administrators' office in the philosophy department. The department has one female and two male administrative assistants. Even though one of the male assistants is looking directly and attentively at a student making an enquiry, this student wants to engage my attention, though I am clearly otherwise occupied. This student expects and wants me to be the administrator. I am a female professor in an administrative space, standing alongside a male administrator in an administrative space. Yet the student sees only one of these two bodies as being the 'appropriate' one to help, to 'serve', and to attend to his needs. Entering a lift, a 'black' parliamentarian is mistaken for cleaning or catering staff by one of his ('white') colleagues: 'only Members [of Parliament] can go in the lift' his helpful colleague volunteers (p. 42). What underlies these cases of mistaken identity? What do these occurrences tell us about bodies and spaces and belonging, and about the notion of 'bodies out of place'?
This beautifully written and evocative book succeeds in articulating a clear and convincing account of what grounds these common and - at least for those being 'mis-identified' -...