(what is fixed and closed: what i s changeable and open) of social class represented by the idioms of kinship and locality, and what Schneider (1968, 1979) claims is the fundamental opposition (what is given in nature what is changeable by culture) underlying American concepts of kinship, locali- ty, nationality, and religion. Are these minor variations of the same cultural system? And, hence, are English notions of kinship, social class, and locality structured by an opposition between nature and culture just as American notions of kinship are idioms of social class? The second unresolved issue, which i s more of a problem than a promise for future discussion, concerns the relation between the contemporary notion of ”real Elmdon” and what Elmdon was in the past. Strathern‘s attempt to bring her analysis of the idea of “real Elmdon” to bear on issues of localism and employer-employee relations half a century ago bogs down when the imaged past of Elmdoners slips into her speculation as to what the “old order” was really like. This momentary lapse in what is otherwise a firm commitment to viewing notions of the past as constructions of the present raises more questions about both past and present than it answers.

These unanswered questions and unresolved issues in Kinship at the Core speak more of the brilliance of Strathern’s provocation than of the incompleteness of her analysis. Her book should inspire students of anthropology at more depart- ments than Cambridge to figure out what is going on in our own backyards-that is, in kinship at the core.

Ambiguous Ethnicity: Interracial Families in London. SUSAN BENSON. New York: Cam. bridge University Press, 1981. ix + 172 pp., maps, diagrams, tables, appendixes, references, index. $29.50 (cloth), $9.95 (paper).

DOUGLAS MlDCETT University of lowa

In Ambiguous Ethnicity we are presented with Susan Benson‘s investigation of interracial mar- riage and family relationships in London The first 50 pages of the book describe the British social context within which interracial unions take place. This treatment, particularly the por- trait of the multiracial social map of the Brixton area of London, constitutes the best concise statement of a British urban interracial con- figuration available. The remainder of the book i s a comprehensive examination of various aspects of 20 cases of interracial unions studied in the Brixton area Dr. Benson looks at factors relating to choice, reactions of kin and friends, domestic life, social relationships outside the conjugal unit. social networks involving the couples, and the ethnicjracial definitions and attitudes of the children of these unions. In addition, she appends an unusually candid account of the emergence of

her research design and the difficulties she en- countered in undertaking the work. One of the decided weaknesses of the study, the restricted size of the sample of couples, i s thus accounted for Despite her candor and thoroughness, certain limitations remain, particularly for generalizing her findings to any larger aggregates.

The examination of cases, presented in a num- ber of tables and diagrams, is exhaustive, almost to the point of overkill. It i s useful to have avail- able much of the data upon which observations of general similarity and diversity are based, but I found myself flipping back and forth, trying to keep pseudonyms straight, often to little useful purpose. The network approach, presented in chapter 9, is an interesting exploration of the utility of structural typologies of networks and their correlates with other social activities. A rather striking finding concerns an apparent rela- tionship between preferences expressed by par- ents regarding their children’s ethnic (read “racial”) identities and the types of networks in which parents participated (see Table 10 2, p. 138).

Despite the general thoroughness of the study, a few areas are notably left unexamined. The whole subject of sexual attitudes and relation- ships is almost untouched, despite its importance for any study of conjugality and ethnic diversity. If we understand “ethnic” as relating to matters of ascriptive assignment where this is marked by cultural referents, issues of attitudes and behavior in sexual relationships within and out- side conjugal unions ought to be explored Simi- larly, decpite the focus on ethnicity. cultural understandings and misunderstandings receive cursory treatment for the most part

A final point concerns an observation of Dr. Benson‘s about the numerical importance of these unions and some of the social characteris- tics of these interracial couples. A t the outset she notes that interracial unions had not become as statistically significant in the early 1970s as some observers had predicted after the large-scale West Indian migration of the 1950s. She also notes that many of the individuals in her study had been more or less estranged from families and were, prior to contracting their present unions, operating outside the networks of friends and neighbors within which most marriages take place. Thus, many of these individuals, whites and nonwhites alike, are typical of neither British nor immigrant societies. While these observa- tions may be generally applicable to unions in- volving first-generation immigrants (all of those in this study), I suggest that they may not extend to the second generation. For West Indians, at least, the phenomenon of interracial unions among the generation born or raised from childhood in England is of increasing importance. Moreover, it does not appear that most of these more recently contracted unions involve people who are socially marginal or isolated, as in Dr. Benson’s cases. From this I conclude that the con- tinuing study of British interracial relations to ex- amine such unions must seek to discover how

reviews 801

these unions are transformed through time, from generation to generation, and what this indicates about change in a multiracial society.

Ethnic Identity: Strategies of Diversity. ANYA PETERSON ROYCE. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. viii + 247 pp., references cited, index. $27.50 (cloth), $8.95 (paper).

1 E E DRUMMOND McCi l l Universitv

This i s a poorly written and poorly organized book on a subject that demands great clarity and coherence In her acknowledgments, the author thanks students who participated in her course on ethnic identity and who were thus "part of the process that produced this book." I am sure her thanks are sincere, for the entire book reads like a set of lecture notes that has been expanded, codified, and reduced to tedium. I t s singular fail- ing is its reluctance to pursue a particular thread of argument or a particular case study to a point where other arguments or case studies could be set in place within some sort of comparative theoretical framework.

Besides i t s introduction, the book is divided in- to eight chapters comprising four parts. Part 1 deals with definitional issues surrounding the complex and much-discussed topic of ethnicity. Part 2 takes up political aspects of ethnic identity as these are worked out in contexts of colonial- ism and nationalism. Part 3 considers the rela- tionships among symbols, stereotypes, and styles of ethnic belonging, and how these are put into play through tactics of choosing membership in particular groups. Part 4 looks briefly at the place of ethnicity in the modern world and at theories that purport to account for the "new ethnicity "

With this outline, a modicum of continuity might well have been achieved had i t not been for the author's insistence on carving up every subject into a tangle of headings and sub- headings. The result i s a catalog rather than an analysis. Chapter 1, which deals with defini- tional issue5. typifies this shortcoming The reader is asked to consider the "nature of definitions" for three pages; then shunted to the subheaded topic "objective definitions" for a page; then given two paragraphs on "boundaries vs. cultural features" before being asked to reflect on "sub- jective definitions" for a page and a half. Nor do "oblective" and "sublective" definitions exhaust the subject, for there follow "composite" defini- tions (almost a page of discussion) and "contem- porary" definitions (not quite four pages). The reader who toughs it out to the end of this typological exercise i s rewarded with the follow- ing "conclusions" (appropriately subheaded):

In light of the preceding discussion, we are led to the conclusion that any definition of ethnic group or ethnic identity must be com- posed of both subjective and objective com-

ponents and must also support the notion that ethnic groups are eminently mutable, pro- viding yet another reference group with which individuals can vary their social strategies (p 33).

The chapter is not a propitious beginning; ethnic identity already seems much of a muchness.

I f precision and rigor are lacking in theoretical sections, so too i s descriptive adequacy in ethnographic sections. In comparing histories of migrant groups in different countries, the author sandwiches the following paragraph between others on Canada, Latin America, and Chinese in the United States:

Another area that proved attractive to Englishmen whose desire to live of f the land had been frustrated by lack of opportunity at home was the British colony of Kenya. Lower- class Englishmen quickly saw the advantages of the cool highlands and settled down to growing coffee. They did so well that their an- tagonism toward British attempts t o parcel out land to Africans and to induce East Indians to settle in Kenya is not surprising (p. 120)

A topic left so devoid of internal development and unconnected to other topics in the prose con- glomerate should simply be omitted.

For all its deficiencies, however, Ethnic Identity i s not just another uninspired academic exercise; i t s author has something new and interesting to say, but she persists in burying her contribution beneath the catalog entries of revised course notes Her contribution is the concept of ethnic identity as style rather than symbol, strategy, or tradition (the usual interpretations of ethnic phenomena). In the longest coherent passage in the book (pp. 168-183). Royce analyzes her eth- nographic material on Zapotec ethnicity and concludes that the Zapotec possess a sense of ethnic belonging which is both compelling and a basis of political action but i s not readily iden- tifiable as a separate set of cultural symbols or trxiitions.

Two styles exist side by side in Juchitan- Zapotec and Mexican These contrasting ways of life are not simply collections of symbols m d values chosen at random, nor does Zapotec style represent a conservative traditionalism. Both styles are coherent complexes of symbols and values that have developed over a long period of time. Neither are the two styles mutually exclusive. The Zapotec experience no feelings of cultural inconsistency when they adopt elements of Mexican national culture. More or less "pure" displays of style are ordered and manipulated in terms of sets of different kinds of social relations and situa- tions. This i s probably true of most active local styles confronted by the national style (pp.

In this and subsequent paragraphs the author captures what I believe to be most elusive about the whole notion of ethnicity: the simultaneous importance and inconsistency of ethnic ascrip-

176-1 77).

802 american ethnologist