Written with uncommon grace and clarity; this extremely engaging ethnography analyzes female agency; gendered violence; and transactional sex in contemporary Papua New Guinea. Focusing on Huli “passenger women;†(women who accept money for sex) Wayward Women explores the socio-economic factors that push women into the practice of transactional sex; and asks how these transactions might be an expression of resistance; or even revenge. Challenging conventional understandings of “prostitution†and “sex work;†Holly Wardlow contextualizes the actions and intentions of passenger women in a rich analysis of kinship; bridewealth; marriage; and exchange; revealing the ways in which these robust social institutions are transformed by an encompassing capitalist economy. Many passenger women assert that they have been treated “olsem maket†(like market goods) by their husbands and natal kin; and they respond by fleeing home and defiantly appropriating their sexuality for their own purposes. Experiences of rape; violence; and the failure of kin to redress such wrongs figure prominently in their own stories about becoming “wayward.†Drawing on village court cases; hospital records; and women’s own raw; caustic ; and darkly funny narratives; Wayward Women provides a riveting portrait of the way modernity engages with gender to produce new and contested subjectivities.
#13300544 in Books 2003-06-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 1.40 x 6.40 x 9.26l; 1.73 #File Name: 0520230000500 pages
Review
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful. How Enlightenment thinking came to dominate AmericaBy D. R. SmedraThe days of the "Moral Majority" (evangelical Protestant ethos) as a major social-political force in America seem to have come and gone. Today; there is widespread concern over America's slide into radical secularism and the political rise of socialism/communism on the Left; libertarianism on the Right; and the struggle of these two broad movements for power and control. Given the Judeo-Christian roots of Western civilization and particularly America; how did this radical change/collapse/revolution come about?Two main theories of social-political dynamics are locked in debate at the academic level: 1) modernization (older/established view); and 2) revolution (newer/challenger view). This book (project) is a compilation of ten; separate-but-related essays which argue in favor of the later (#2); "...that the historical secularization of the institutions of American public life was not a natural; inevitable; and abstract by-product of modernization; rather it was the outcome of a struggle between contending groups with conflicting interests seeking to control social knowledge and institutions."I find that adherents to modernization theory (#1) are often at a loss at identifying casual "direct links between the [secular] Enlightenment thinkers and those who live in this modernized world." This book provides substantial evidence of those "direct links" and the book's thesis is overall superior in explanatory power of both sociological events and history. If you're curious as to why NATURALISM as a worldview (in all its facets: monism; materialism; physicalism; scientism; Darwinian evolution; antisupernaturalism; atheism/agnosticism; and secular humanism) has become the reigning philosophical viewpoint in America; reading this book is well worth your time!0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Four StarsBy StephenInteresting take on the argument of religion being the adversary of secularism.6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Complicating the old storyBy CustomerThis is an important sociological work that complicates the standard account of secularization as a natural or inevitable process. It brings into relief the importance of power and agency by focusing on the role of elites across several distinct fields: science; politics; psychology; sociology; law; education; medicine; and journalism. Each of these case studies provide convincing historical evidence for the active (though not necessarily conspiratorial) role of elites in bringing about a cultural shift that many of us today assume to have been inexorable. It thus bosters Randall Collins' argument that secularization is a "process of conflict" and not simply a zeitgeist.Readers should note that the level of analysis in the conceptualization of secularization isn't belief or religiosity; but religious authority (following Dobbeleare and Chaves). It is in this sense that their constructionist account of the consequences of elite action can justifiably make claims about secularization as an intentional outcome; analogous to toppling a regime. It also sheds light on the role of agency and conflict in the process of institutionalization (in the sense of how social structures acquire a taken-for-granted status). But certainly a bigger story on unintended consequences needs to be examined--particularly on the consequences of professionalization in general (including in religious institutions). Among the essays I found most interesting were Garroutte's and Evans' studies on the historical transitions in American science and medicine respectively; which are relevant to contemporary science-vs-religion debates.
