Synopses & Reviews
Review
"There is no comparable book that explicitly takes up these three topics--space, text, and gender--in the context of a specific 'case study,' and that is both theoretically sophisticated and grounded in ethnographic observations. The Moore work is surely a cornerstone to an entirely new interdisciplinary enterprise." --Margaret W. Conkey, University of California at Berkeley
"In this second edition of Space, Text and Gender, Henrietta Moore set out to exceed traditional textual expression by addressing subtle aspects of human embodiment and positioning. The result is a provocative interpretation of gendered practices in the everyday lives of the Endo of East Africa. It is also a bold, blunt, and rigorous theoretical work that clarifies 'human agency and the production and interpretation of spatial texts.' Studies of space and spatiality have proliferated recently, informed by postmodern, poststructural and feminist perspectives, but few have so deftly situated knowledge within the gendered and symbolic quotidian realm. Through her own discursive agency and that of her subjects, Moore weaves bodies of women, men, and ideas in a rich dialectic of theory and practice. She draws upon a wealth of geographical, anthropological, feminist, and post-colonial perspectives to reposition the notion of space--one of the most important concepts in social theory today--upon the 'sloping world' of human knowledge." --Audrey Kobayashi, Institute of Women's Studies, Queen's University, Canada
Synopsis
This groundbreaking anthropological study strikingly illustrates how we can use different interpretations of place to learn more about a society, and demonstrates the value of a feminist approach to the analysis of changing systems of representation. Henrietta Moore focuses on the relationship between the organization of household space and gender relations, showing how that relation shifts due to changing social and economic conditions, including such factors as wage labor and education. This updated edition contains a new foreword and afterword in which Moore relates her work to more recent developments around gender, resistance, difference, and spatiality.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-229) and index.
About the Author
Henrietta L. Moore, Ph.D., teaches at the London School of Economics. She is the author of
Feminism and Anthropology and
A Passion for Difference.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition
I. The Background and Setting of the Study
1. Introduction
2. The Marakwet
3. Sibou Village
4. Space, Time, and Gender
II. Cultural Texts and Social Change
5. Of Texts and Other Matters
6. Ash and Animal Dung: The Organization of Domestic Space Among the Endo
7. Interpreting Space
8. Wages and Westernization: The Changing Spaces of the Endo
III. Interpretation and Representation
9. Invisible Women
10. Text, Ideology, and Power
Afterword
Appendix 1: Kinship Terminology
Appendix 2: Burial