SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL

VOLUME 42 • NUMBER 4 • DECEMBER 1988 605 THIRD AVENUE . NEW YORK, N.Y. 10158

Transnational and Comparative Research

FOR SOME TIME NOW, social scientists have empha­sized the need to address important issues that cut across basic assumptions concerning ways in which "national" and "international" studies are currently conceptualized and in which the nation-state is assigned a preeminent role as a unit of analysis.

This new emphasis is partly a result of the dramatic globalization of networks of all kinds that has taken place during the last decade. These global linkages range from international banking, trade and market networks, economic and military interdepen­dencies, labor and political migrations, international standards and regulations, intellectual and informa­tion exchanges, multilateral treaties, multinational corporations, and energy and technology flows, to religious missionary movements, advertising media, and the cosmopolitanization of a middle-class con­sumer culture.

It is also partly a result of ecological and climatological impacts of considerable magnitude. World consumption of fos il fuel has gone from one billion tons per year in the 1920s and 1930s to six billion tons today. Exponential growth characterize almost everything we see, implying an intensity and velocity of human interactions that increasingly force social cientists to work back and forth between area and international analysis in novel ways.

In order to assess the current state of social theory about the e new transnational phenomena and to establish linkages between problem-oriented ocial science research project -especially tho e concerned with domestic affair -and foreign area studies, the

• Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr. i pre ident of the Council. Thi article i adapted from his "Annual Report of the Pre ident" in the Council's 1987-8 Annual Repqrt.

by Fretkric E. Waheman, Jr.·

Council has held a series of meetings of scholars from a range of disciplines. J

I Meeting on InUmalional Interactions-Area Studus, January 15, 1988. Participants: Arjun Appadurai, Department of Anthropol­ogy, University of Penn ylvania; Jerry Hough. Department of Political Science, Duke University; Michel Oksenberg, Depart­ment of Political Science, Univer ity of Michigan; Gary Saxen­house. Department of Economics, University of Michigan; Richard Ullman. Department of Public and International Affairs. Woodrow Wilson School. Princeton University. Meeting on International Interactions-Area Studus, February 19-20, 1988. Participants: Benedict Ander on, Department of Government. Cornell University; Catherine Bateson. Cambridge. Ma achu­setts; Thomas J. Bier teker. School of International Relation. University of Southern California; Marshall Bouton. The A ia Society; McGeorge Bundy. Department of History. New York University; Bruce Cuming. Department of Political Science. Univer ity of Chicago; Francis Deng. Wilon Center. Smith 0-

nian In titution; Peter B. Evans. School of International Relation and Pacific Studies. Univer ity of California. an Diego; Peter Gourevitch. Department of Political Science,

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

85 Transnational and Comparative Research-Frtdrnc E. WaAeman. Jr.

90 Fortieth Anniversary of the Council's "The Pre­election Poll of 1948"-Dovid L. Sills

92 Conferen e on African Material Culture-Mary Jo Arnoldi. Christraud M. wary. and Kns Hardin

95 Current Activitie at the Council - Vietnamese delegation vi its the Council -Conference on International Productivity and

Competitiveness - The Bryce Wood Book Award

97 Tribute to a Di tingui hed Career-Robtrl K. Mtrlon 9 Council's Board Honors David L. ill 99 Recent Council Publication

102 A Selection of Council Books: 19 7-19 8

85

Contending categories of analysis

Time and again during these meeting, social scientists insisted that we cannot claim to under tand the contemporary world conceptually as long as we pre ume that all one needs to know are the internal dynamic of particular states and the international relations among them. In the arne breath, however, the e cholar repeatedly expre sed their di atisfac­tion with the explanatory weaknes of their own analytical models. Even the most po itive-minded formulator of ab tract chemes of international organization, for example, conceded that "neo­reali ts" in international relation cannot explain the dynamics of phenomena uch as in titutionalized cooperation.2 And while international relations cholars divided them elves into speciali ts in

systems-level theory and tho e who would di ag­gregate the state, international economic peciali ts tended to think of them elves as being either macromodeler or bu ine and trade experts.

Area studies cholar were also visibly divided, being strongly a ociated with either one of two distinct ubtradition. The fir t is as ociated with economics, politic , and international relations, and is often de cribed a the "regional" per pective. The econd tradition, more u ually as ociated with hu­

mani tic cholar hip, tre e history, language, and civilizational perspectives. Anthropology and ociol­ogy tend to mediate between the e two area tradition in mo t non-We tern contexts. Neverthe­Ie s, in many contemporary area tudies domain ,

Univer ity of California. an Diego; Peter Katzen tein. Depart­ment of Political Science. Cornell University; Nichola Lardy. University of Washington; Charle S. Maier. Department of Hi tory. Harvard University; William Quandt. Brooking In titu­tion; Condoleezza Rice. Department of Political Science. Stan­ford Univer ity; John Richard . Department of Hi tory. Duke Univer ity; Barbara tailing . Department of Political Science. Universit of Wiscon in; M ron Weiner. Department of Political Science. Ma achu eus In titute of Technology.

2 "Neoreali m" i a doctrine of tate intere t and power. Reali t theorie • which are con idered by individual working within the securit tudie field to be the mo t par imoniou and powerful theorie for explaining and predicting international behavior and outcome . a ume that tate et goal and then harne the capabilitie of their ietie -military force. economi power. technological and natural resource . and geopolitical po ition­to attain the e goal . While the "neoreali t " acknowledge that change in the international y tern pIa an important role in contextualizing tate behavior. the nonethele hold that tate and tate power. in ombination with largely "immutable" factors u h a geograph and the elf-intere ted nature of human

behavior. lead to cIa he of national intere t and conflict and thu pIa a pivotal role in international and tran national relation .

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de pite the common focu on a particular nation or region of the world, there is a continuing conflict between tho e who are primarily intere ted in international trade and foreign policy and tho e who are primarily intere ted in culture. The former criticize the latter for their cholastic fu sine and idiographic particulari m while the latter fault the former for lacking linguistic, cultural, and historical ensitivity.

There is of cour e a certain fit between area tudie peciali ts, concerned with international trade

and foreign policy, and international relations cholar who have been, for some time, interested in

disaggregating the tate. The latter are eager consumers of country- pecific knowledge becau e the logic of their enterprise requires the under tand­ing of domestic-specific foreign policy tudie. But while there i already much interaction between the e two group, there has been very little dialogue in the past between area tudie cholar who pecialize in cultural re earch and international

relations experts intere ted in systems-level theory, the nature of the international sy tern, and the applications of realist paradigms. Even though sy tematic comparativists are heavily dependent upon the people, ideas, and cholar hip being generated in and by the area tudies tradition (with their particularly clo e links to counterpart cholar over eas), it i ometimes difficult to find common ground-as might occur, for in tance, when a rational choice theori t looks at village deci ion­making processes. In this particular dyad, the argument ha to do with the connection between two different kind of knowledge with, for example, culture-focused people arguing that there is no way to conduct an effective deci ion-making study with­out knowledge of the cultural etting.

Conceptual contention and confusion

The analytical categorie for all of the e ap­proache are suspect, and there i a kind of con ensus not to agree on fundamentals. In the disciplines, many ocial cientists have agreed to di agree about some of the core concept of their field: power for political cienti ts, capital for economi t, tatu for ociologi ts, and culture for anthropologist. Paradigm are fuzzy, and although the mo t po itivi ticall inclined among u might expre a certain tough-minded impatience with uch irre olve, many of our mo t thoughtful ocial cienti ts expre con iderable unea e about the

intellectual categorie with which they work.

VOL fE 42, fBER 4

Rational choice theory, for example, is under­mined by the problem of norms and the role of historically determined preference. Some social scientists stre s culture, and know that norms are important, but there are no clear rule for connect­ing this awareness with effective model . Political economists, on the other hand, have a very clear way of etting up analyses of economic actors and the international contexts of their action. But they do not have appropriate categories for many emergent properties of contemporary society such as world­wide entertainment habits, which have an over­whelming effect on mass perceptions and consequent patterns of conflict and control. The American movie industry has come to dominate European theaters, but Japanese films have had no comparable impact. Why? The most frequent answer seems to be that the Japane e are culturally different. But this explanation, which employs cultural analysis in a residual fashion, is only a bogus answer, providing yet another instance in which we lack appropriate analytical categories.

The truth is, of course, that most of us tend to answer questions like the ones raised above with the conventional respon e that "the world is getting more and more complex." But this way of thinking about the world lacks clarity and often fails to help us under tand it, especially since the labels which we attach to its complexity have changed so dramatically in the last decade. One East Asian historian remarked that when he was in graduate school he was taught that capitalism did not develop in China and Korea because of Confucian values that militated against entrepreneurial rationality. The arne special­ists now argue that it is aggressive Confucianism that accounts for the economic transformation of these countries. And what once were viewed as revolution­ary states, China and North Korea, are now seen as essentially conservative regimes, with the radical states being the "newly industrializing countries" (NICs) that are adopting capitalism with all of the great waves of change that Joseph A. Schum peter once ob erved.

One important reason why categories are labile is that the world itself is undergoing a rapid "deloca1i­zation," and historians have begun to speak of a "retrocolonization" of the West. Clear categories seem to have accompanied imperial world structures. Periods such as the late 19th century or the 1950s and 1960s, in which we have had clear conceptuali­zations of what the social sciences ought to be doing, have been periods in which the world itself appeared to be much clearer, at least in terms of architechtonic

DECEMBER 1988

world structures. As these structures 10 e their clarity, so do the categories of social science lose their limpidity and rigor. We are in a period today, both conceptually and structurally, that is characterized by imprecision and amorphousness.

The new problem orientation

One powerful response to this conceptual cloudi­ness is a substantive, problem-oriented approach to international and area studies. As one political scientist succinctly pointed out in our meetings, when you attack a real problem, especially one that speaks to anomalies in existing paradigms, you find yourself learning what you have to know. And at the same time that you find yourself bedeviled by theories that do not work, you also see their irrelevance to the task at hand and are forced to improvise new modes of analysis. This is particularly the case when dealing with problems that have to do with policy.

Although some of the most outstanding work in the social science is now institutional, retrospective, and comparative in focus, our research strategies in international and area studies are ordered in such a way as to permit important problem-oriented issues to slip through our analytical nets. Such issues as the global emergence of an underclass, the spread of English and the access to power associated with speaking English, and differences among nations in how they use the same technologies, do not accord with ordinary discipline- or area-oriented committee agendas. Yet, although there is no neat theoretical framework for transnational research, certain com­mon qualities are readily apparent. One common quality is, paradoxically, comparative coherence.

Transnational approaches

The study of regional systems-norms, institu­tions, processes-provides a middle level of analysis where certain variables can more easily be held constant and which might provide better honed tools for global analysis. A good example is the question of industrial development and religious values, the so-called "Neo-Confucian issue." This is a transna­tional issue that lends itself to regional analysis across East Asia. Another example, more specifically histor­ical, would be a comparative study of the impact of Japanese colonial rule on regional institutions in Southeast Asia.

Another characteristic has to do with international regimes, both in economic and cultural terms. The concept of "deterritorialization" applies not only to

lTEMS/87

obvious examples like transnational corporation and money markets, but al 0 to ethnic group, ectarian allegiance , and political movement , which increa -ingly operate in way that tran cend pecific territo­rial boundarie and identitie. Deterritorialization ha affected the loyalties of group involved in complex dia poras, their manipulation of currencies and other form of wealth and inve tment, and the strategie of state. The 100 ening of the bonds between people, wealth, and territorie in turn has altered the ba is of many ignificant global interac­tion ,while imultaneously calling into que tion the traditional definition of the tate.

The structural reach of the state ha al 0 been called into que tion by the increasingly international character of major threats to the environment, the growing interdependence of regional and global security y tern , and the weakening of the power that many tates have relative to the ocieties they theoretically govern. All of the e development challenge the traditional role of state a provider of welfare for their citizens or elites and as mediator of tran national interaction and flow .

At the micro or ub tate level, there i the growing number and influence of political, developmental, and environmental "nongovernmental organiza­tion " (NGO ), a well as a variety of ethnic and religious communi tie . At the macro level where are uch formal in titutions a the United Nations, the

World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and international regime uch a the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade and the International Declara­tion of Human Rights, not to peak of multinational corporation and clande tine arm and narcotic network . There are al 0 more generalized global­wide proce e or y tern of international inve tment and labor markets, media, con umerization, and intellectual exchange. It appear to be the ca e that the presence, potency, and persi tence of the e relatively new and certainly more numerou ub tate and upra tate actor and proce e account for much of the complaint that we have 10 t our ability to conceptualize, model, and y tematically under tand events in the world today.

Meanwhile, although many tate are increasingly concerned with regulating orne a peets of the traffic between their citizen and other politie , they have radically privatized and liberalized certain other tran national interaction. India' policie toward the United State, for example, encompa an often bewildering array of "po e ," ranging from con ider­able suspicion on arms and ecurity to relative openne s on computer and indu trial policy. Thi

88\ ITEMS

functional diver ification of the po ture of states toward each other i a further incentive to di ag­gregate the state and not ee it as a policy-making monolith.

At the arne time, attelltion must be paid to cultural factor not in the state phere that impinge upon the international ector. In intensifying the inve tigation of the relation hip between politics and culture as an organizer of the traffic between tate, it is crucial to remember that "culture" i itself no longer the ort of thing anthropologi ts once took it to be: homogeneou , local, well-bounded, and in clear one-to-one corre pondence with di tinct ocial units. Culture now leak aero national boundarie , and this tran national flow is intimately tied not only to the many dia pora that characterize national populations, but al 0 to the incredible force of media (movie, magazine ,ca ettes, videotape , computer, and the like) which clo e the cultural di tance (and accelerate the traffic) between over ea populations and their home ocietie. (See page 100 for a review of Public Culture, a new Council- pon ored journal devoted to tran national cultural tudie.)

We therefore need to inve tigate carefully the relation hip between tho e interaction which are the result of the "official" policies of tates and elite , and tho e which emerge a the result of informal and nonofficial networks, movements, and exchanges between national population. For example, the Taiwan reunification i ue i badly mi under tood if we do not com prehend the effect of the "brain drain" from Taiwan to the United State and the ensuing change in identity (including a new Sino­American biculturalism) of the i land' elite.

Other example of thi ort of interaction include: • The transnational implications of labor flow.

Whether we are talking about Indians and Paki tani in the Middle Ea t, Filipino in the United State, Hispanics in the United State, Chine e in Malay ia, or Turks in Sweden, the nexus between immigration, the cultural reproduction of deterritorialized group­ing , the security implication of all the variety of Gastarbeiter concentration , and other fi cal implica­tions of tran national labor force need to be explored. A ingle framework needs to be developed in which the fi cal, organizational, cultural, and political implication of tran national labor flows (whether of garbage collector or of computer technicians) can be analyzed and under tood.

• Po twar global religious fundammtalism. Although we are habituated to eeing Islamic fundamentalism as a complex transnational force, we have hardly investigated tran national Catholici m, Buddhi m, or

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4

Hindui m with the arne care. A controlled com par­i on of the e variou tran national religiou form would draw in more traditional area tudie cholar, ince one of the big i ue here i the difference

between contemporary global religious form and their earlier tran local equivalents.

• ero s-regional and ero -country ectoral analy is of capital development. The Committee on State and Social Structures has already developed an exten ive re earch design that examine the way in which the global evolution of elected indu trial ector inter-ects with the attempt of "newly industrializing

countrie " to transform the po ition of their own manufacturing indu trie within the international divi ion of labor. A network of cholars from both Third World and advanced indu trial countrie ha been involved in the formulation of thi project, and the comparative a pect of the re earch de ign are quite well developed. The Council hope to link thi effort together with everal of the area committee ' re earch plan to contextualize the individual ectoral analy e on the one hand, and to trengthen the tran national a pects of the areal dimension on the other.

• The paradox of Americanization. Why is it that in 0

many parts of the non-We tern world, tate policie and certain a pects of popular entiment are 0

profoundly anti-American, while other elite behav­ior and popular entiments (e pecially in the area of lei ure and life tyle) are 0 deeply influenced by American model? I thi divorce between the American government and American culture a function of orne quirk of American elf-pre entation abroad, i it a feature of the political culture of the developing world, or is it both?

• Media studies. Although there ha been a certain amount of re earch on tran national media and their effects, and on the con trover ie a ociated with "the new international information order," there i a paucity of work done on the relation hip between producer and consumer of media image epa rated by cultural geography. The general matter of the reception of image produced in one cultural milieu

DECEMBER 1988

by audience in a wholly different cultural milieu ha barely been explored. For example, we know next to nothing about the cultural etting in which audience in ocietie a diver e a Morocco, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Egypt con ume commercial films produced in Bombay, which are in turn complicated tran forma­tion of Hollywo d and European model. ince idea about foreigner, about consumption, about crime, and about urban life are often tran nationally formed through televi ion and cinema, the reception of the e eemingly alien image i not irrelevant to international relation , including peace and ecurity tudie . The methodologie for pur uing the e link

are at pre ent extremely rudimentary. • The globalization of English and Arabic. Engli h ha

become the international language of cience, com­merce, and tran portation, while Arabic i now taught in numerou non-Arabic peaking countrie . What are the implication of the e development for new form of hegemony, the media, tratification, and tran national elite formation?

• The r(!Vival of "national character" studie , and their relationship to the tudy of "political culture." Though widely eparated in pace, Europe and Ea t A ia are experiencing a revival of cultural nationali m. In Germany and France, a new form of hi tori i m i being debated, while in Japan and China intellectual elite are increa ingly focu ing their primary atten­tion upon the "que tion of Japane ene ," and the i ue of Sinitic cultural identity vi -a-vi moderniza­tion. Speciali ts in the intellectual hi tor of each of the e countrie are well aware of the dimen ion of the debate in any particular ca e, but there ha 0 far been no effort to bring together the individual phenomena in a con ciou ly comparative wa ; and certainly no one ha thought to ask whether the imultaneity of the e nationally particulari tic intel­

lectual movements underlie a more univer al global quality.

The need to link new analytical categorie to area tudie will undoubtedly be reinforced b collective

global concern during the la t dozen year of thi century. 0

ITEM 189

Fortieth Anniversary of the Council's "The Pre-election Polls of 1948"

THE ELECTION VICTORY of President Harry S Truman in November 1948 startled the entire nation. As Paul Duke, the narrator of a 1988 television documentary, "The Great Upset of '48," reminded us, "The pollsters, the press and the politicians were dead wrong.") Governor Thomas E. Dewey had not won by a landslide after all.

The pollsters and their practices were of course criticized, and many social scientists who carried out surveys thought that something must be done. The governing council of the major professional associa­tion of survey researchers-the American Associa­tion for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)-con­ferred by telephone, and learned that eight days after the election, on November 10, 1948, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) had appointed a Committee on Analysis of Pre-election Polls and Forecasts, chaired by S. S. Wilks, Princeton Univer­sity.2 The AAPOR council unanimously commended the appointment of the SSRC committee; it pledged support to the inquiry; and it urged other organiza­tions to cooperate. The major polling organiza­tions-Crossley, Gallup, Roper, the University of Michigan Survey Research Center, and others­promptly agreed to cooperate fully: they opened their files and made their staffs available to the committee for interrogation and discussion. On November 11, the SSRC held an informal conference at which-under the chairmanship of Samuel A. Stouffer, Harvard University, chairman of the Council's Committee on Measurement of Opinion, Attitudes and Consumer Wants-it obtained the advice and guidance of a group of social scientists

• The author, a sociologist, i an executive associate at the Council.

I Quoted in Walter Goodman, "How Truman Staged an Up et in '48," The New York Times, November 3, 1988, page C30.

2 The other members of the committee were Frederick F. Stephan, Princeton University, executive secretary; James Phin­ney Baxter 3rd, William College; Philip M. Hauser, University of Chicago; Carl I. Hovland, Yale University; V. O. Key, Jr., The Johns Hopkins University; Isador Lubin, New York City; Frank Stanton, Columbia Broadcasting System; and Samuel A. Stouffer, Harvard University.

90\ ITEMS

The 1988 presidential election recalls a historic Council report and raises

new challenges for social research by David L. Sills*

from various fields concerned with opinion polling and attitude measurement.

The new committee held its first formal meeting on November 13. Financial support was obtained from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and from the Rockefeller Foundation, and the committee was able to recruit a technical staff. This staff included Frederick Mosteller, Harvard University (chief of staff); Herbert H. Hyman, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago; Philip J. McCarthy, Cornell University; Eli S. Marks, U. S. Bureau of the Census; and David B. Truman, Williams College.

The committee's report

The committee's all-star staff completed its task with astonishing speed: six weeks after the first meeting of the committee, on December 27, 1948, the report was issued.!!

The 1948 presidential election was a landmark event in the history of public opinion research, and the Council's report was a landmark publication.4

The past 40 years have brought many changes in polling methodology, ranging from sample designs to interviewing methods to the statistical analysis of undecided voters and nonvoters. But no comprehen­sive review of the methodology of pre-election polling has been made prior to the recent publication

5 Frederick Mosteller, Herbert H. Hyman, Philip J. McCarthy, Eli S. Marks, and David B. Truman, The Pre-election Polls of 1948: &port to the Committee on Analysis of Pre-election Polls and Forecasts. Bulletin 60. New York: Social Science Research Council, 1949. Prepared with the collaboration of Leonard W. Doob, Duncan MacRae, Jr., Frederick F. Stephan, Samuel A. Stouffer, and S. S. Wilks.

4 The Council's report was of course only the first of a series of scholarly analyses of thi event. For a characteristically astute report on public reactions to the polling debacle, see Robert K. Merton and Paul K. Hatt, "Election PoUing Forecasts and Public Images of Social Science." Public Opinion Q}ulrlerly, 13:185-222, 1949.

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4

•

of Irving Crespi's Pre-Election Polling.!> Crespi-a long-time as ociate of Gallup and a leading opinion re earcher-takes the Council book as a tarting point to which he returns everal times; in fact, as an epigraph for his "Introduction," he quotes S. S. Wilk 'opening paragraph in chapter 1 of the Council report:

The failure of the public opinion poll to predict correctly the outcome of the 1948 pre idential election created wide confu ion and mi giving about the reliability of the poll . Reaction of the public to the poll ranged from charge of outright fraud to expre ion of per onal ympathy for the pollers. Reaction of experts ranged from condemnation for carele ne , unintentional bias, errors of judgment, and u e of outmoded technique , to a determination to make u e of thi experience to enlarge our knowledge of political behavior and to improve urvey methodology. After an initial period of hock and embarra ment, the main reaction of pollers who

foreca t national and tate election wa to initiate objective tudie de igned to find out what went wrong (page I).

Interest 40 years later

Although the presidential election of 1988 vali­dated the forecasts of mo t of the pre-election polls, cholarly intere t in and concern for polling won't be

dimini hed by their succe . Why is this so? There are five major reasons for continuing

cholarly intere t in pre-election polling. First, the act of voting provides a reasonably good validation of expression of voter intention , and the relationship between intended and actual behavior lies at the heart of the scientific justification of attitude re­search.

Second, the data from pre-election polls become part of such data banks as the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut and the Inter-University Con ortium for Political and Social Research, head-

5 Irving ere pi. Pre-Ekction Polling: Sources of Accuracy and Error. New York: Ru sell Sage Foundation, 1988.

DECEMBER }988

quartered at the Univer ity of Michigan. The e data ets contain a wealth of material not analyzed during

the election campaign which can be u ed in empirical tudies of voting and election dynamic.

Third, there is a lingering concern over the rna sive failure of the polls in 1948 and many misfiring ince then-a concern that the reputation of survey re earch might suffer again.

Fourth, there is more rea on for concern today than there wa in 1948 over a number of public policy issue urrounding the poll. Is there a "bandwagon" effect of the polls that influence voters? Do the announced results of "exit poll " alter people's voting behavior? More generally, are the polls part of a broader proce s of the media becoming not just reporter of campaign events but creator of them as well? Doe polling contribute to or threaten American democracy?

Fifth, are pre-election poll now "too good," too u eful for "spin merchants" and creator of "sound bites" in controlling campaigns and winning elec­tions, at all level , by the careful shaping of candidate images?6

In 1948, the pre-election polls failed dramatically, and the Council launched what was in effect a commission of inquiry. In 1988, the poll were a shining succe s-both in forecasting the election and in elucidating the social bases of electoral succe sand failure. Is there now an analogous need for a comprehensive, critical assessment of the place of political polling in a democratic society? 0

6 I would like to thank Albert E. Gollin of the New paper Adverti ing Bureau for hi a i tance in the preparation of thi article. Two of hi publication have al 0 been very helpful: hi introductory article, "Exploring the Liaison Between Polling and the Pre ," in the Winter 1980 i ue of Public opinion Quarterly, a pecial i ue on "Poll and the New Media," which he al 0

edited; and "Polling and the New Media," Public opinion Quarterly, 52(4, upplement): 86-94, Winter 1987.

ITEMS/9}

African Material Culture A conference report

by Mary Jo Arnoldi, Christraud M. Geary, and Kris Hardin·

A CONFERENCE ON THE STATE OF AFRICAN MATERIAL

culture studie was held on May 19-27, 1988 at the Rockefeller Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy. The conference was cosponsored by the Joint Committee on African Studies of the Council and the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Directorate of International Activitie of the Smith­sonian Institution. It was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Smith onian Institution.

Articulation of goals

Preparations for the conference began in 1985 when African, European, and American cholars in material culture studies were surveyed to determine the most pre sing is ues in the field. A planning meeting was held in August of 1986 to consider the survey responses and discuss how we could best address the i sues. Concerns included: under tand­ing the concept of "material culture" as a culture­bound category; developing a model for integrating material culture studie with modes of inquiry in African studies such as political economy, develop­ment studie , social hi tory, and studies of symbol formation; developing guideline and methods for collection and documentation that allow for compa­rability of data and analysis across different disci­plines and national traditions; overcoming the fragmentation of material culture studies along disciplinary lines; and understanding the conse­quences of focusing either on the formal qualities of objects or the conceptual frameworks in which objects are produced or used. Participants concluded that discussing these issues in an interdisciplinary and international conference would lead to a clearer sense of purpose for research, museum, and collec­tion activities, and enable practitioners to explore new approaches to material culture research. Our goals were to develop richer accounts of the totality of African material experience; to create more assertive definitions of what can be done in the field

• Mary Jo Arnoldi, an art historian at the Smithsonian In titution, and Kris Hardin, an anthropologi t at the University of Pennsylvania, were the conference organizers. Chri traud M. Geary, an anthropologist at Bo ton University, is a member of the Joint Committee on African Studies and the organizer of the conference workshop on resources and documentation.

92\ITEMS

of material culture; to explore ways in which re earch on material culture is relevant to other fields in African studies; and to foster increased awareness of the political aspects of material culture re earch and mu eum exhibition or interpretation.

With these goals in mind, we drafted a proposal for a conference that was sub equently funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The conference wa multi­di ciplinary and international, with African, Euro­pean, and American scholar from the fields of anthropology, archeology, art history, economic history, history, and museology. Regional interests of participants spanned sub-Saharan Africa.

During the initial part of the conference, case studie were used as a backdrop for discu sions of how scholars from various fields and regions are actually studying material culture in Africa, what as umptions and orientations are shared, and what que tions are being asked or neglected. We were al 0

interested in exploring how research questions relate to current trends in various fields, the potential of material culture studies for extending the concerns of particular fields, and whether or not the methods being u ed are adequate for the questions po ed.

Central concerns

Discussions centered around three main topics. First, recognition that technology and production are social processes and so must be examined at least partially through local concepts of production, creation, social relations, and other ontological concerns. For example, several of the papers focused on links between theories of human creativity or procreation and technological processes. This line of research raised interesting methodological questions about the nature of explanation and evidence. For example, in places where iron furnaces are perceived as female, what kind of evidence would allow researchers to conclude that iron production is ~quated with the production of children? These papers also demonstrated that understanding pro­duction in a larger context than the production of a particular object leads to fuller accounts of any particular technique. In the example of iron smelting and procreation, the shape of links among various forms of production can be used to further our

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4

•

understanding of the nature of production. in particular places, the nature of male~female relatlo?­ships, and the role played by techmcal proces e m the construction or maintenance of conceptual frameworks.

The paper on technology and producti~n al.o made it clear that topic such a the relatlonshlp between the organization of production and ocial organization in general, the role of ~ndividual ~hoice in decision making (for example m the chOice ~f materials and techniques), the political and ae thetlc motivations for production choice , the intended and unintended con equence of choices, and the recon­ciliation of social and individual identity (or ta is and innovation) in production are currently important in material culture re earch. Promising areas for future research include the role of bodily experience, habit and imagination in production, and the relationship between change in production practices and culture change in general.

The econd main topic of concern was the interface between objects and identity-the idea that objects not only confer identity but al 0 have the potential to construct it in way that are not yet fully understood. Focusing on how objects produce identity unites studies of aesthetic and value w~th research in the fields of politics, identity, and chOice in new and important ways. Considering objects and their potential for constructin~ identity also rai~es further questions about the mtended and unll~­tended consequences of action, whether one IS considering the choice made in constructing an altar for an ancestor, or the decision to use furniture based on a European model instead of more "traditional" styles. .

A third topic to emerge in the conference IS the importance of understanding the life histories of objects. By examining life histories or how ~erce~­tions or meanings of objects change over tl~e, It becomes clear that objects have the capacity to participate in people's resistance to situ~tion~ and in their attempts to define or redefine sltu~tlons. In either historical or contemporary terms, objects have a multiplicity of meanings within the context where they are produced. The same multiplicity applies at each level of remove from that context. Understand­ing at any particular level, then, implies ~isunder­standing on other levels. For example, our. VIew of an object encased in glass in an art n:us~um IS probably very different from the producer s View of the same object. Understanding in particular ~ays or at particular levels is tied directly to the mterests of those involved, whether one belongs to the group

DECEMBER 1988

being de cribed, or the one doing the de cribing. This perspective applies when investigating material objects and when considering such concepts as production, aesthetics, and even the term "material culture" itself.

Objects are not static

Discussions also made it clear that at each level of view objects have the power to engender or lead to other objects, ideas, and meanings in both deliberate and unintentional ways. While this is a proce s that has always happened within Africa (indeed every­where), it is clear that exten ion of the proce s to a global scale has con equence tha~ ~ave yet t~. be ~ullr. under tood in terms of defimtlons of Afnca, "African," and "Africans." For example, one of the mo t intere ting discussions of the conference had to do with whether or not goods modeled on European objects but produced in Africa by African crafts~en were really "African." African and Euro-Amencan answers to this question were very different. Explor­ing this is ue further will provide insigh~ int.o consumption and consumerism and the tenSIOns, If any, between mass culture an~ "traditional': material culture. The choices made m consumption, how these change over time, and the relationship ~tween production, consumption and the expression or realization of needs are also fruitful avenues for future research. Related to these concerns i the study of objects produced within the articulation of global and local economies but ~longing to neithe~.

If it is possible to design a smgle programmatic statement that crystallizes the case studies and discussions surrounding the first part of the confer­ence it would be the following:

If technology and production are social pro­cesses-and it is apparent that persons and/or groups are created at least partially through things-then the potential exists for people not only to be controlled by objects but also to resist and redefine their situations through the objects around them. The specifics of production, identity, and control in particular situations, and the potential for objects to participate in these processes seems to.be one of t?e directions that scholarship on Afncan matenal culture is taking.

Workshop on resources and documentation

The second part of the conference was devoted to resources and documentation in material culture

ITEMS/93

studies. These topics were related to the case studies in the first part of the conference a well as to the larger systems in which documentation and museum activities are set. Here again the topics of production, identity and control were apparent, but in slightly different forms. Participants discussed re earch agendas and focused on the biases and assumptions inherent in various methods of documenting mate­rial culture. The e di cus ions emphasized the need for making collections which are methodologically informed and part of a well-defined research agenda rather than the result of simple gathering activities.

The museum setting was analyzed as a phenome­non of European cultural history which has yet to shape an agenda for itself or find a real audience within an African etting. Underfunded and under­staffed, mo t African mu eums face difficulties in the present and have uncertain futures. Collaborative projects between Euro-American and African institu­tions were seen as one form of addressing current needs, but African scholars pointed out that imbal­ances in re ources and, ultimately, power in collabo­rative projects has an effect on the kinds of problems investigated, the methods used, and the attribution of results. Collaboration is important and u eful, but only if done in a way that corrects these imbalances.

A final e sion con idered the one-sided nature of African material culture studies, namely that re­sources and information are predominantly in the hands of Euro-American scholars and institutions. The current tendency to computerize information was discu ed as one example of methods which aggravate this situation. Discussions made it clear that control of this ort not only has an influence on re earch but also leads to the actual shaping of

paradigms for re earch. One of the strategies proposed to ease the information gap is the establishment of a newsletter which would provide a means to exchange information and idea between Euro-American and African scholars working on material culture.

Publications

Conference organizers are preparing a volume of proceedings which includes abstracts of the papers and summaries of the discu sions. This will appear in early 1989 and will be widely distributed to cholars and institutions in Africa, Europe, and America. Two conference volumes will be published at a later date. One will include selected case studies and overviews of discussions from the first part of the conference. This volume will also include a serie of commentaries that will provide an overview of current directions in African material culture studies, consider issues of methodology in the case studies, and suggest areas for future re earch. The second volume will be a handbook on methodology and documentation that discusses practical issues of documentation and considers the implications of past and present methodologies for the representation of other cultures and the construction of identity in institutions such as museums. The volumes will appear as a set in order to emphasize the connections between theory and practice that became so evident at the conference. A bibliography of non-English and non-French publications on African material culture has already been compiled and will be included in the handbook. 0

African Material Cultun! Conference and Workshop Participants: Chike Aniakor, University of Nsukka; James Anquandah, University of Ghana; Mary Jo Arnoldi, Smithsonian In titution; Ezio Bassani, International University of An (Florence); Paula Ben-Amos, Indiana University; Henry Drewal, University of California, Santa Barbara; Ekpo Eyo. University of Maryland; Gillian Feeley-Harnik. The Johns Hopkin University; Chri traud M. Geary. Bo ton University; Manha A. Gephan. Social Science Research Council; Elaine Gurian, Smithsonian Institution; Kri Hardin. University of Penn ylvania; Margaret Jean Hay. Bo ton University; Eugenia Herben. Mount Holyoke CoUege; Bogumil Jew iewicki. Laval University; Adam Jones. Wolfgang Goethe University (Frankfun); Ivan Karp. Smithsonian In titution; Kanimba Misago. National Museum In titUle (Kin hasa); Aneesa Kassam. National Museum of Kenya; Kazadi Ntole. Center for Theoretical and Applied Lingui tics (Kin hasa); Steven Lavine. RockefeUer Foundation; A.B.C. OchoUa-Ayayo. University of Nairobi; Osaga Odak. University of Nairobi; Labelle Prus in. City College. City Unive ity of New York; J. A. Rakotoarisoa. Museum of An and Archeology (Antananarivo); Philip Ravenhill. National Museum of African An (Washington. D.C.); Michael Rowland. University College (London); Michael Spock. Field Museum of Natural Hi tory (Chicago); Janet Stanley. National Museum of African An (Washington. D.C.); Susan Vogel. Center for African An (New York); Susan Warga. University of Pennsylvania; Jean-Pierre Warnier. University of Paris V.

94\ ITEMs VOLUME 42. NUMBER 4

Current Activities at the Council Vietnamese delegation visits the Council

A delegation of enior academic administrators from Vietnam was hosted by the Council's Indochina Stu die Program in September 1988. The four­person delegation, headed by Dr. Pham Nhu Cuong, chairman of the Vietnam Committee for the Social Sciences (VCSS), Hanoi, also included Dr. Le Van Sang, director of international cooperation of the VCSS, Dr. Bui Thien Du, director of international cooperation of the Ministry of Higher Education in Hanoi, and Dr. Pham Van Bay, vice president of the Federation of Scientific and Technical As ociations, Ho Chi Minh City.

At the Council, a week of productive discussions about possibilities for scholarly exchange culminated in the signing of agreements to seek to promote a variety of forms of cholarly cooperation, including research awards and exchanges of visiting scholars, delegations, and publications. There is also great interest in joindy planned workshops on a broad range of topics of regional and comparative interest. Demography, ecology, ethnic minority languages, ancient writing systems, the comparative develop­ment of deltas, women and the domestic economy, the high bronze age of Southeast Asia, and, most prominendy, new concepts of socialism and socialist reforms, were among many ideas discus ed for future projects.

While in New York, the delegation was also invited to meetings at the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and with other interested individu­als and organizations in the area. During their three weeks in the United States, the group visited Georgetown University, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Washington, and the William Joiner Center at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Between numerous working meetings with scholars, administrators, and members of the Viet­namese community, small tastes of American life, such as football games and dinners in private homes, were enjoyed by the Vietnamese. The entire trip, organized by the Indochina Studies Program, was made possible by a generous grant from the Christopher Reynolds Foundation.

DECEMBER 1988

Conference on international productivity and competitiveness

The Committee on Economic Stability and Growth sponsored a conference on productivity and com pet­itivenes at the Palo Alto Holiday Inn, Palo Alto, California, from October 28-30, 1988. The confer­ence was organized by a committee consi ting of Bert G. Hickman, Stanford University, the chairman of the committee; Lawrence R. Klein, Univer ity of Pennsylvania, and William D. Nordhaus, Yale Uni­ver ity, both members of the committee; Hidekazu Eguchi, Hitotsuba hi University; and Herbert Giersch, Univer ity of Kiel. The conference was supported by grants to the Council from the Ford and Alfred P. Sloan foundations.

The following papers were pre ented:

F. Gerard Adam and Jere R. Behrman. University of Penn ylvania "Productivity and Competitivene in Developing Countrie " Discu ant: Peter A. Petri. Brandei Univer ity

Irma Adelman and Sherman Robinson. Universit of California. Berkeley "Exchange Rate and U.S. Competilivene in a General

Equilibrium Model" Discu ant: T. N. Srinivasan. Yale UniversilY

Michael Bo kin and Lawrence J. Lau. Stanford University "International and Intertemporal Comparison of Productive

Efficiencie : An Application of the Meta-Production Func­tion Approach"

Discu ant: Peter Pauly. University of Penn ylvania

William H. Branson and Richard Marston. Princeton University and University of Penn ylvania "Price-Markup and Output Behavior in U.S. and Japanese

Manufacturing: The EffeclS of Exchange Rate Misalign­ment"

Discu sant: Orazio Attana io. Stanford Univer ity

Xikang Chen. Chinese Academy of Science "The EffeclS of Chinese Economic Reform on Agricultural

and Indu trial Productivity" Discu ant: Lawrence J. Lau. Stanford Univer ity

Klaus Conrad. University of Mannheim "Intertemporal Change in Productivity Gap in the Manufac­

turing Sector in Five OECD Countries. 1965-1986" Discu ant: Margaret Slade. University of Briti h Columbia

John F. Helliwell. University of Briti h Columbia "Productivity and Growth in a Multinational Context" Discussant: Robert M. Coen. Northwestern University

ITEMS/95

Peter Hooper. Federal Re erve Board "Macroeconomic Policie. Competitivene • and the U ..

External Adju tment" Discu ant: Ronald McKinnon. Stanford Univer ity

Moto hige Ito and Kazuharu Kiyono. Tokyo and Gaku huin Universitie "Evaluation of Japane e Indu trial Policie : Di u ant: Daniel L. Okimoto. Stanford University

Dale W. Jorgenson and Masahiro Kuroda. Harvard and Keio Universitie "International Competitivene of the Japanese Economy:

U.S.-Japan Indu try-Level Productivity Comparisons" Di u ant: Paul David. tan ford Universit

Lawrence R. Klein. University of Penn ylvania "Indu trial tructure of the World Economy in Tran ition" Di u ant: ~ illiam ordhau. Yale University

Gernot Klepper and Frank D. Wei • Kiel In titute of World Economi "Protection and International Competitivene " Di u ant: Harry Huizinga. Stanford University

Ralph Landau. Li towel. Inc. "Technology. Capital Formation. and U . . Competitivene " Di u ant: Robert Ei nero Northwe tern University

Arthur Neef. U.S. Bureau of Labor tati ti "An International Comparison of Manufacturing Productivity

and Unit Labor Co t Trend" Discu ant: J. R. Norsworthy. Ren elaer Polytechnic In titute

Gur Ofer. Hebrew University and Brooking In titution "Comparative Productivity Growth. Indu trial Structure and

y tern a Determinants of Trend Pattern and Competitive­ne of the Centrally Planned Economie "

Di u ant: John Litwack. Stanford University

Mitsuo Saito. Kobe Univer ity "An International Compari on of the Multi-Sectoral Produc­

tion Structure" Discu ant: Pierre Lafferre. University of Montreal and

Ma sachusetts In titute of Technology

Toshiko Tange. Kanto Gakuin University "United States-Japan Trade Friction and Competitivene " Discu ant: Hidekazu Eguchi. Hitotsubashi University

96\ ITEMS

David L. Sills served as staff. Mr. Hickman is currently editing the papers for publication as a volume.

The Bryce Wood Book Award The Latin American Studies Association (LASA)

has just established the annual Bryce Wood Book Award for an outstanding book on Latin America. To be eligible, a book must be in English and have been published in the United States during the 18-month period prior to each LASA International Congre . It i anticipated that the first award will be pre ented at the September 1989 International Congre ,to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The award i named in honor of an American political scientist, Bryce Wood, who joined the taff of the Council in 1950 and erved continuou ly until he became an executive as ociate emeritu in 1973. He erved as staff to the Joint Committee on Latin American Studie for 14 year , from 1959 until 1973. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1986.

Prior to joining the Council staff, Bryce Wood received a Ph.D. at Columbia and taught at both Columbia and Swarthmore. He was the author of two major books on Latin America: The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy (1961) and a equel publi hed a generation later, The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy (1985).

Nominations for the first award may be made by ending a copy of the nominated book to each

member of the awards committee prior to February 1, 1989. The members of the committee are John D. Wirth, Department of History, Stanford University; Francine Masiello, Department of Spanish and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley; and Karen L. Remmer, Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico.

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4

Tribute to a Distinguished Career

AITER SERVING ON THE STAFF of the Council for 15 years, and reaching the age of retirement, David L. Sills will become an executive as ociate emeritus on January 1, 1989. His immediate project i to complete a new volume of the International Encyclope­dia of the Social Sciences, "Social Science Quotations." I am coeditor of this projected volume, and I am delighted to accept Pre ident Wakeman' invitation to pay this tribute to David.

So comprehensive, con equential, and various are David's many contribution to ociological practice that they have been recognized far beyond his own di cipline-in all the social ciences and in national and international domains of ocial policy and practice as well.

Upon graduating from Dartmouth College in 1942, David erved four years in the Army-most of thi time in the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment. After the war, he received an M.A. in ociology at Yale, worked for nearly four year as a civilian ociologist in the Occupation of Japan (where he and

Yole met and married), and came to Columbia as a graduate student in 1951, the occasion for our coming to know one another.

Like many other graduate students in sociology at Columbia, David worked at the Bureau of Applied Social Research. Eventually he became director of re earch at the Bureau, responsible for overseeing some of the notable research during the 1950s and early 1960s in various spheres, ranging from mass communications to medicine and health care gener­ally, to education and bureaucracies engaged in public service. His dissertation, which was published in 1957 as The Volunteers, helped redirect the massive health re earch and patient care program of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, better known as ''The March of Dimes.") Rooting his analysis in the fact that the goal of the Foundation was a finite one, which would soon be realized because of the Salk polio vaccine, he postulated and examined possible futures for the organization-the

• The author, a sociologi t, i University professor emeritu at Columbia University.

I David L. Sill . The Volunteers: Means and Ends in a Natitmal OrganizatUm. New York: The Free Pres, 1957.

DECEMBER 1988

Notes on the retirement of David L Sills from the Council staff

by Robert K. Merton*

David and Yole Sills

best known and mo t effective voluntary health association of its time-and showed that ocial processes within the organization would create new goals, which he predicted would be ucce sful. It would be too much to say that this research brought about the change that has proved to be effective, for we know that such organizational change is hardly apt to be solely the result of the direct application of sociological prognosis. But we can say that seldom has an organizational analysis provided the basis for a major prediction in such a clear fashion as to draw attention to the needed and probable formation of a new overarching goal.

In 1962, after a year spent in India on a United Nations assignment, David accepted the charge and the responsibility of transforming a chaotic and foundering effort to create a new encyclopedia of the social sciences. In his capacity as editor, he brought to fruition this basic compendium of social science knowledge.2 That it was a sociologist who directed

2 David L. Sills, editor. InteTn4lional Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 18 volumes. New York: Macmillan and Free Pres , 1968 (volumes 1-17); 1979 (Biographical Supplement, volume 18).

lTEMs/97

this comprehensive work of scholarship surely elevated the professional standing of the field as a whole.

After completing the Encyclopedia, David was successively a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, associate director and then director of the Demographic Division of the Population Council, and a senior fellow at the Russell Sage Foundation. In 1973, he became an executive associate at the Council.

David has recently focused his research attention upon domestic nuclear energy, once again selecting a field of enormous potential consequence. His publi­cations and consultative work on the risks and impacts of nuclear energy and, in particular, his work on the implications of the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, conduce to yet another form of knowledge, insight, and wisdom being brought to bear on a basic problem in today's society.s

At the Council, David has been a pivotal figure in facilitating the research of others; as the Council's editor, he has worked both to improve the Council's publications and to teach others to express their ideas more clearly. He has staffed an indefinitely large number of committees-including brief stints as staff of the committees on Africa, China, Japan, and the Near and Middle East. Under his guidance, the Committee on Law and Social Science (1974-84) produced a massive assessment of the field, Law and Social Science.4 Most recently, he has been staff to the Committee for Research on the 1980 Census (1981-88), which has produced a series of landmark Census monographs (11 published so far). And throughout his time at the Council, he has served as staff both to the Board of Directors and to the Committee on Problems and Policy. During David's

5 See, for example, David L. Sills, C. P. Wolf, and Vivien B. Shelanski, editors, Accident at Thrtt Milt Islllnd: Tht Humo.n Dimensions. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982; and Thomas H. Mo s and David L. Sill ,editors, Tht Thrtt Milt Islllnd Nucltar Accident: uJSons and Implications. Annals, New York Academy of Sciences, 365, 24 April 1981.

4 Leon Lipson and Stanton Wheeler, editors. Law and Social Scitnct. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1985.

98\ ITEMS

-------------------------- ---

tenure, there have been four presidents of the Council; it can be understood, then, how important his role must have been in making for the continuity, stability, and growth of the organization.

In his career, David Sills has worked for the federal government, a university, the United Na­tions, a publishing company, a foundation, and a scholarly organization dedicated to the advancement of social science research. As colleague and friend, I bear witness that he is indeed a social scientist for all sectors and seasons. 0

Council's Board Honors

David L. Sills

The following resolution, honoring David L. Sills on the occasion of his retirement from the Council, was unanimously passed by the Board of Directors on December 2, 1988. The resolu­tion was signed by Francis X. Sutton, chair; Gardner Lindzey, chair of the Executive Com­mittee; and Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr., president of the Council.

DA VID L. SILLS served a Executive A sociate of the Council from September 1973 until hi retirement in December 1988. To that position he brought his training and research experience as a sociologi t, hi kill in editing the Inttrnational Encycloptdia of the Social Sciences and other works, his extraordinary worldwide networks among ocial scienti ts, and his reputation as a man of high tandards, broad culture, and humane understanding. Throughout his career he has devoted himself faithfully to the development of the social sciences.

THE COUNCIL has benefited constantly from hi contribution as editor of Council publication, taff to many Council committees including the Board of Directors itself, and helm man on i ue of the Council's con titution and tradition . Hi vi ion of the Council' future, his comprehension of its hi tory, his understanding of the world in which the Council works, as well as his nautical and poetic talents, have made him a trusted advisor to four Council pre idents and an astute critic of the work of his colleagues on the Council taff. He cannot be replaced.

FOR ALL THESE REASONS, the Board of Directors extends to David L. Sill this expre ion of its gratitude, friendship, and respect.

VOLUME 42. NUMBER 4

Recent Council Publications Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modem China, edited by James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski. Studies on China 8. Papers from a 1985 conference sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. xv + 334 pages. Cloth, $40.00.

How is it possible for diverse and widely divergent ritual practices, found in different localities and among different social groups, to coexist with the notion of a unified Chinese culture? The editors conclude that an underlying structure is evident in Chinese funeral ritual. While this ritual is central to Chinese identity, the particular rites associated with the grave demonstrate clear ethnic, status, and gender boundaries. The existence of standardized rituals based on the codification of earlier customs, recorded by literate elites, in combination with actual practice, has permitted local groups practicing a wide variety of burial customs to identify their own practices as "Chinese." . ..

In this volume, anthropolOgISts and hlstonans examine the role of death rituals in the unification of Chinese culture. The tension between the two disciplinary perspectives emphasizes the compl~xity of the subject while illuminating it. The editors express the hope that the materi~ls :nd techniq~es used in the book for the "unpacking of death ntes and beliefs may prove of value in an examination of other domains of Chinese culture.

The essays are based on papers presented at a conference on Chinese death ritual held in Oracle, Arizona on January 2-7, 1985, sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies, with sUPI;'c:>rt from the National Endowment for the Humamtles and the Ford Foundation.

Contents include:

Myron L. Cohen, Columbia Univer ity, "Souls and Salvation: Conflicting Themes in Chinese Popular Religion"

Elizabeth L. Johnson, University of Briti h Columbia, "Grieving for the Dead, Grieving for the Living: Funeral Laments of Hakka Women"

Emily Martin, The Johns Hopkins University, "Gender and Ideological Difference in Representation of Life and Death"

Susan Naquin, University of Penn ylvania, "Funeral in North China: Uniformity and Variation"

Evelyn S. Raw ki, University of Pittsburgh, "A J:Iistorian's Approach to Chinese Death Ritual" and "The Impenal Way of Death"

Stuart E. Thompson, University of London, "Death, Food, and Fertility"

DECEMBER 1988

Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr., Social Science Re earch Council, "Mao' Remain"

Jame L. Watson, University of Pittsburgh, "Funeral Speciali~ts in Cantonese Society: Pollution, Performance, and SocIal Hierarchy" and "The Structure of Chinese Funerary Rite"

Rubie S. Watson, University of Pittsburgh, "Remembering the Dead: Grave and Politics in Southeastern China"

Martin K. Whyte, University of Michigan, "Death in the People's Republic of China';

Migration and Residential Mobility in the United States, by Larry Long. A publication in the series "The Population of the United States in the 1980s." Sponsored by the Committee for Research on the 1980 Census. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988. xviii + 397 pages. Cloth, $42.50.

Americans have a reputation for moving often and far away from home, for being committed to careers or lifestyles, not places. Now, with curtailed fertility rates, residential mobility plays an even more important role in the growth, decline, and composi­tion of local populations-and by extension, helps shape local and national economic trends, social service requirements, and political constituencies.

In Migration and Residential Mobility in the United States, Larry Long integrates diverse census and survey data and draws on the research perspectives of many academic disciplines to offer a uniquely comprehensive view of internal migration patterns since the 1930s. Emphasizing large-scale changes and continuities, Long describes an American population that lives up to its reputation for high mobility, but he also reports a surprising recent decline in interstate migration and an unexpected fluctuation in the migration balance toward non metropolitan areas. He provides unprecedented insight into reasons for moving and explores return and repeat migration, regional balance, changing migration flows of blacks and whites, and the policy implica­tions of movement by low-income populations.

How often, how far, and why people move are important considerations in characterizing the life­styles of individuals and the nature of social institutions. This volume illuminates the extent and direction, as well as the causes and consequences, of population turnover within the United States.

Larry Long is a demographer at the Center for Demographic Studies of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

lTEMs/99

Mujeres latinoamericanas: Diez ensayos y una historia colectiva [Latin American Women: Ten Essays and a Collective History]. Publication re ulting from conferences held in Mexico City in September 1983 and in Lima in July 1985, sponsored by the Joint Committee on Latin American Studies and the Ford Foundation. Lima: Flora Tristan, Centro de la Mujer Peruana, 1988. 309 page. Paper.

This articles in this volume are ba ed on pre enta­tions made at two conference which explored the per i tence of gender inequality in Latin America, despite the vast ocioeconomic and political changes which have taken place in the region over the past decade. The fir t conference, held in Mexico City in September 1983, brought together women from Latin America, Europe, and the United States to analyze thi is ue from a femini t perspective. It was devoted to the political and ideological mechani ms which perpetuate the ubordination of women as well a ocial inequality. The econd conference, held in Lima in July 1985, moved beyond an analy i of the variou form of women' ubordination to focus on way of overcoming it. Participants included academic , femini t activi ts, and female leader of popular movements in Peru.

The volume con i ts of three ection. The fir t addre e the way in which women perceive and understand their ubordination a a function of gender, class, and ethnicity. The econd ection pre ent empirical analy es of women's movements in Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. In both ection, the discus ion elicited by the paper are included. The volume's final ection contain the personal te ti­mony of women active in popular struggles in Peru.

Public Culture: Bulletin of the Project for Transna­tional Studies, edited by Carol Breckenridge and Arjun Appadurai. Volume 1. Fall 1988, 94 pages. Published by the Public Culture Project at the Univer ity of Penn ylvania with upport from the Joint Committee on South Asia.

While the contemporary world i characterized by an increa ing richne s and variety of cultural flows, the concept of culture appears to be in crisis in the academy. A forum is needed to engage these two problem simultaneou ly in a world characterized by increa ing number of people, goods, and images circulating far from their point of origin; and by

100\ ITEM

deepening tensions between commodification and cultural homogenization, on the one hand, and the multiplication of culturally heterogeneous forms, on the other. As nation-states construct "imagined worlds" in dialogue with other nation- tates and between their own elites and mas es, we also ee the deterritorialization of fiscal and labor resource, ethnic group, religious movements, and political formations, that consciously transcend specific na­tional boundarie and identities.

To engage these features of the contemporary world, it is neces ary to renegotiate the terms of the dialogue about cultures, a it has been parochially conceived by anthropologi ts, historian , and literary critics. There is a need to report on such co mopoli­tan cultural forms as cinema, sport, video, museums, and tourism. There is a need to reflect on cultural tran formation that draw citie, ocietie, and state into transnational relation hips and global political economies. There is also a need to explore the cultural implications of such proces e a migration, the internationalization of fiction and poetry, and the con truction of alternative modernitie . Finally, it is nece sary to ituate these form , flow , and proce e in their historical and political contexts.

Public Culture attempts to place the e diver e co mopolitan cultural form under a single di cur ive rubric. It will interpret the public culture of particular ocietie , of South A ia and beyond, on the one hand, and the tran national cultural flows they depend on and timulate, on the other. It al 0

encourage reports on counter-cosmopolitanisms, where the tate apparatu appears oppo ed to non-official cultural flow across national bound­arie . Public Culture welcomes essays and excerpts from ongoing cholarly work, as well as news clipping and reader ' corre pondence. The editor intend to "mix ob ervers and theoreticians, vignettes and opinions, debates and controversies from as great a multiplicity of voices and places a [they] can."

Contents of the first i ue include the following article:

Arjun Appadurai and Carol A. Breckenridge, Univer ity of Penn ylvania, "Why Public Culture?"

Igor Kopytoff, Univer ity of Penn ylvania, "Public Culture: A Durkheimian Genealogy"

Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley, "Note on Brasilia"

Marilyn Ivy, Cornell University, "Tradition and Difference in the Japanese Mas Media"

teven Feld, University of Texas, "Note on World Beat" ancy Fraser, Northwe tern University, "Talking About eed"

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4

Sub criptions are 10 (one year) and 19 (two year) for individuals; 20 (one year) and 38 (two year) for in titutions. To order or obtain informa­tion, contact Public Culture, The Univer ity Mu eum, Box 99, University of Penn ylvania, 33rd & Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324.

Recently Published Soviet Prose: A Critical Re­sponse, gue t editors Nancy Condee and Vladimir Padunov. Special i ue of Soviet Studies in Literature, Volume 24, Number 3. Summer 1988, 103 page. Published in cooperation with the Joint Committee on Soviet Studies.

The fir t in a erie of pecial i ues reflecting recent developments in Soviet literature and cul­ture, this volume contain tran lations of Soviet surveys of literary trend during 1986 (Natal'ia Ivanova, "Trial by Truth," publi hed as "Ispytanie pravdoi" in the journal Zruzmia; and Igor' Zolotu kii, "A Progre Report," al 0 published in Zruzmia as "Otchet 0 puti"), a particularly triking year in the expan ion of cultural expre ion made po sible by Mikhail Gorbachev' gla no t policie. Sub equent i sue will include a Soviet survey of the development of literature during 1987, a well a tran lation of critical e ay on recent pro e fiction, contemporary poetry, and new Soviet cinema. The project will al 0

include compendia of article on contemporary Soviet ociology of literature and religious theme in Soviet literature and ociety. The e collections are intended to bring recent developments in Soviet critici m to the attention of an English-language audience.

Copie of the journal are available from M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 80 Busine Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504.

DECEMBER 1988

Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe since World War II, by Jo eph Roth child. A publication of the Joint Committee on Ea tern Europe, with pecial funding from the Ford Foundation. New York: Oxford Univer ity Pre , 1989. xii + 257 page. Cloth, 24.95.

A equel to the author's East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars, thi volume offers a urvey of the wide pread political malai e of the countrie of Ea t Central Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Czecho lovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugo lavia. Since the death of Stalin, the uppo edly monolithic character of the e Communi t tate ha been ubjected to seriou challenge; this study examine

the e challenges and their con equence . Roth child provide an in ightful di cu ion of the

olidarity movement in Poland, an analy i of Titoi m in Yugo iavia, and a thorough review of

oviet policy toward the area under all leader ince World War II. In addition, he examine the acute or pending cri e in countrie uch a Poland and Romania, and a es es the problem that Gorbachev face in managing the increa ingly re tive Soviet bloc nation . The author e chew giving an analy i of Ea t Germany's political hi tory comparable to hi extended probing of the other Communi t countrie , ince Ea t German dome tic and foreign politic are

overwhelmingly a function of the "que tion of a divided Germany," a topic outside the domain of thi tudy. or doe he di cu the three Baltic republic

of E tonia, Latvia, and Lithuania becau e their brief interwar period of formal independence did not urvive World War II. Jo eph Roth child is a profe or of political cience

and an a ociate of the In titute on Ea t Central Europe at Columbia Univer ity. He i a member of the editorial board of Political cience Quarterly and the author of everal books on East Central Europe.

ITEMSIlOI

A Selection of Council Books: 1987-1988 The African Bourgeoisie: Capitalist Development in Nigeria, Kenya, and the Ivory Coast, edited by Paul M. Lubeck. Paper from a 1980 conference in Dakar, Senegal, ponsored by the Joint Committee on African Studies, the Council for Economic and Social Re earch in Africa, and the Environment and National Development in Africa Program. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publi hers, 1987. Cloth, $30.00.

American Families and Households, by James A. Sweet and Larry L. Bumpa . A publication in the serie "The Population of the United State in the 1980 ." Sponsored by the Committee for Re earch on the 1980 Cen u. New York: Ru sell Sage Foundation, 1988. xxxii + 416 page. Cloth, $39.95.

American Neighborhoods and Residential Differentiation, by Michael J . White. A publication in the serie "The Population of the United State in the 1980 ." Sponsored by the Committee for Re earch on the 1980 Censu . New York: Ru sell Sage Foundation, 1988. xx + 327 pages. Cloth, $37.50.

Changing Boundaries of the Political: Essays on the Evolving Balance Between the State and Society, Public and Private in Europe, edited by Charle S. Maier. Publication spon ored by the Joint Committee on We tern Europe. New York: Cambridge Univer ity Pre , 1987. ix + 417 page. Cloth, $49.50; paper, $14.95.

Child Abuse and Neglect: Biosocial Dimensions, edited by Richard J. Gelles and Jane B. Lanca ter. Based upon a 1984 conference sponsored by the Committee on Biosocial Perspec­tive on Parent Behavior and Off p.ring Development. Haw­thorne, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1987. Cloth, $42.95; paper, $21.95.

Citizens and Groups in Contemporary China, edited by Victor C. Falkenheim. Michigan Monograph in Chine e Studies, Volume 56. Contains papers presented at a workshop held at the University of Michigan in 1977 ponsored by the two predeces­sor committee of the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studie , Univer ity of Michigan, 1987. ix + 320 page. Cloth, $20.00; paper, $10.00.

The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America, by Reynolds Farley and Walter R. Allen. A publication in the serie , "The Population of the United State in the 1980 ." Spon ored by the Committee for Research on the 1980 Censu . New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1987. xxiv + 493 pages. Cloth, $37.50.

Conceptualizing the Household: Issues for Theory and Policy in Africa, edited by Jane I. Guyer and Pauline E. Peters. A publication of the Joint Committee on African Studies. Special issue of Development and Change, 18(2), April 1987. Available from Sage Publications Ltd., 28 Banner St., London ECI 80E, United Kingdom. Paper, £6.50 plus 70p po tage for individual orders, £13.00 plus 70p po tage for institutional orders.

Democ:ntizing japan: The Allied Occupation, edited by Robert E. Ward and Sakamoto Yo hikazu. Papers from a conference

I02\ITEMS

ponsored by the Joint Committee on Japanese Studie . Honolulu: Univer ity of Hawaii Pres , 1987. xv + 456 pages. Cloth, $29.95.

Directory of Europeanist Anthropologists in North America, compiled by Su an Carol Rogers, David D. Gilmore, and Melissa Clegg. A publication supported by the Joint Committee on We tern Europe. Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological A sociation, 1987. vi + 106 pages. Paper, $6.00.

Dollars and Dreams: The Changing American Income Distribu­tion, by Frank Levy. A publication in the series "The Population of the United State in the 1980s." Sponsored by the Committee for Research on the 1980 Censu . New York: Ru ell Sage Foundation, 1987. ix + 259 pages. Cloth, $27.50.

Eastern Europe and Communist Rule, by J. F. Brown. A publication of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Pre s, 1988. xii + 562 pages. Cloth, $48.50; paper, $15.95.

Family Change and the Life Course in japan, by Susan Orpett Long. A publication of the Joint Committee on Japane e Studies. Cornell University East A ia Papers, 44. xvi + 117 pages. Paper, $5.00. Ithaca, New York: China-Japan Program, Cornell Univer ity, 1987.

Forecasting in the Social and Natural Sciences, edited by Kenneth C. Land and Stephen H. Schneider. Papers from a conference held at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, June 10-13, 1984. Spon ored by the Committee on Social Indicators (1972-85). Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publi hing Co., 1987. 381 page . Cloth, $78.00 (Sold and distributed in the United States and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publi hers, 101 Philip Drive, Assinipi Park, Norwell, Massachusetts 02061. Selected papers also publi hed in Climatic Change, Volume 11 , No. 1-2, 1987).

From Many Stnnds: Ethnic and Racial Groups in Contempo­rary America, by Stanley Lieberson and Mary C. Waters. A publication in the serie "The Population of the United State in the 1980s." Sponsored by the Committee for Research on the 1980 Cen us. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988. xx + 294 pages. Cloth, $29.95.

Guide to Historical Map Resources for Greater New York, by Jeffrey Kroessler. Sponsored by the Committee on New York City. Monograph Number 2 of the Map and Geography Roundtable of the American Library A ociation. Chicago: Speculum Orbis Pre ,1988. Paper, $11.95.

Health, Dlneu, and Medical Care in japan: Cultural and Social Dimensions, edited by Edward Norbeck and Margaret Lock. Publication resulting from a workshop supported by the Joint Committee on Japanese Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. xiii + 202. Cloth, $21.00.

The Hispanic Population of the United States, by Frank D. Bean and Marta Tienda. A publication in the series "The

VOLUME 42, NUMBER 4

Population of the United tate in the 19 0 ." pon ored by the Committee for Re earch on the 1980 Cen u. ew York: Ru ell age Foundation, 19 8. xxiv + 457 page . Cloth, $42.50.

Housing America in the 1980s, by John . Adam . A publication in the rie "The Population of the United tate in the 19 0 ." ponsored by the Committee for Research on the 19 0 Cen u . ew York: Ru ell Sage Foundation, 198 . xviii + 32 page. loth, $65.00.

The Imperial Monetary System of Mughallndia, edited b John F. Richard . Paper from a conference held in 19 I in Re earch Triangle Park, North Carolina, pon ored by the Joint om mit­tee on South A ia. Delhi: Oxford niversity Pre , 19 7. viii + 3 2 pages. loth , Rs. 210.

Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse, edited b William R. Roff. Publication re ulting from a conference pon ored by the joint committee on outh A ia and Southea t A ia. Berkele , California: University of California Pre , 19 7. 295 page . Cloth, 34.00. AI 0, for ale outside the United State : London and S dney: room Helm, 19 7. 295 page. £25.00.

Law and the State in Traditional East Asia: Six Studies on the Sources of East Asian Law, edited b Brian E. McKnight. Paper from a conference held at Harvard niver it in ugu t 197 , pon ored by a predece or committee of the Joint Committee

on Chine e tudie . Honolulu: Universit of Hawaii Pre, 19 7. ix + 182 page . Paper, 20.00.

La participaci6n indfgena en los mercados surandinos: Estrategias y reproducci6n social, Siglos XVI a XX [Indigenou Participation in outhern Andean Markets: trategie and ial Reproduction, 16th to 20th enturie], compiled by Olivia Harri , Brooke Lar on, and Enrique Tandeter. Publication re ulting from a conference held in ucre, Bolivia, on Jul 28-30, 19 3, ponsored by the Joint Committee on Latin American tudie. La Paz, Bolivia: Edi ione CERES, 19 7. 76 page .

DE EMS R 19

Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China, edited by Da id M. Lampton. tudie on China 7. Papers ba ed on a workshop held at Ohio tate Univer ity in June 19 3, pon ored b the Joint Committee on Chine e tudie. Berkele , California: Univer it of California Pre , 19 7. xii + 439 page . loth, 45.00.

The Politics of Race, Clas and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, edited by hula Mark and tanley Trapido. Paper from a 19 2 conference held in New York, pon ored b the Joint Committee on African tudie . London

and ew York: Longman, 1987. xiii + 462 page . Paper, 21.95.

Regional and Metropolitan Growth and Decline in the United States, by' illiam H. Frey and Alden peare,Jr. A publi ation in the erie "The Population of th United tate in the 19 0 ."

pon red b the ommittee for Re earch on the 19 0 en u . ew York: Ru ell age Foundation, 19 . xxxii + 564 page.

Cloth, 70.00.

Religion and Ritual in Korean Society, edited b Laurel Kendall and rimn Dix. Publication re ulting from a onference pon ored b the Joint ommittee on Korean tudie . Korea

Re earch Monograph, o. 12. Berkele , California: niver it of California, In titute of Ea t A ian tudie, 19 7. viii + 223 pp. Paper, 15.00.

Resi tance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries, edited b teve J . tern. Paper from a conference held in Madi on, Wi on in , on April 26-2 , 19 4. pon red jointly b the Joint Committee on Latin American tudie and the niver ity of Wi con in. Madi on, Wi on in: Univer it of Wi con in Pre , 19 7. xvii + 446 page. loth, 45.00. Paper, 15.00.

State, Oil, and Agriculture in Nigeria, edited b Mi hael J. Watt. Paper. from a work hop on agri ultural change in igeria pon ored b . the Joint ommittee on African tudie and the

In titute of International tudie, Universit of alifornia, Berkele . Berkele : In. titute of International tudie . niversit of California, 19 7.327 page . Paper. 16.95.

ITEM 1103

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL 605 THIRD AVENUE. NEW YORK. N.Y. 10158

TM CouncJ was Incorporaud In tJu SUJU of IlIi1Wis. lHcnnbn- 27. 1924. for tJu purpose of advancing rtsearch in tJu social scinacts. Nongowrn'NflliJi and interdISCIplinary In nature. tlat Council appoints clnllmUtm of schokm which set. to achiew tJu Council's purpose through tJu gmeralion of 1ItUI ideas and tJu training of scholars. TIlt actlVllits of tJu Counol are uppornd primtJril] by grants frlnll privatt found4hons and govmllllmJ agmcits.

DIrectors. I 3- 9: CUUDE AX!. University of Port Harcourt; UZAN E D. BERGER. Massachusetts In titute of Technology; RICKAJU) A. BUI(. Universit of California. Lo Angeles; Au S. BUNDER, Princeton University; ROBERT M. CoEN, Northwestern University; RAts DAKRE 00 .... St. Antony'S College (Oxford); ROBERT DARNTON, Princeton University; KAI T . ERIKSON. Yale University; GARDNER LINDZEY, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; B£vI Lo GSTRETK, Dcbcvoise Ie Plimpton; EMILY MARTIN, The Johns Hopkins University; Co OOLUZZA RiC!. tanford

niversity; WILUAM H. SEWEU., JR., Univer ity of Michigan; BURTO H. SI GER. Yale University; FRA CI X. SUTTO , Dobbs Ferry, New York; FREDERIC E. WAUMA ,JR., Social Science Research CouDcil; ROBERT B. lAJONC, niversity of Michigan.

Officer and taff: FREDERIC E. WAKEMAN. JR., PrtSident; RICKARD C. ROCKWELL, DAVID L. SILLS, DAVID L. SZANTON. £xtcutiw AssociaU; RONALD J. PELECK, Controller; GLORIA KIRCKKEIMER, Editor; DoRIE INOCCKI. Amstant to tJu President; Y ASWIN! ERGA • MARTHA A. GEPHART. TOM LoDG!, RI HARD H. Mo ,RACHEL OvRYN RIVERA. ROBERT W. PEARSO • SILVIA RAw. BUIR A. RUBLE. STUA TA AKA. TOBY AuCt: VOLKMA .

The Social Science Re arch Council upports the program of the Commi ion on Preservation and Acce and i represented on the National Advisory Council on Preservation. The paper used in thi publication meets the minimum requirements of American National tandard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Zg9.43-1984. The infinity symbol placed in a circle indicates compliance with thi tandard.

104\ ITEM ISSN 0049-0903

All WIUS of Itmu are available in Microform. niversit ~icrofilm International

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VOLUME 42. Nu fBER 4