Reviews

Beyond Apartheid: Human Resources for a New South Africa. James Currey Ltd., Islington, London, David Philip Publisher (Pty) Ltd., Claremont (South Africa), and Heinemann Educational Books Inc., Portsmouth (USA), 1991. x plus 132pp. including tables, notes and appendices. £7,95. Paperback.

Occasional Papers on the Irish in South Africa by Donald H. Akenson. Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, Grahamstown 1991.96pp.

The Organisation of African Unity: An Analysis of its Role by Gino J. Naldi. Mansell: London and New York, 1989. ix plus 228pp. including appendices. £40,00.

Place, Migration and Development in the Third World. An Alternative View by Lawrence A. Brown. Routledge, London and New York, 1991. xx plus 252pp. including figures, tables, appendices, notes, references and index. Hardback.

Urban and Regional Change in Southern Africa edited by David Drakakis‐Smith. Routledge (London), 1992. xviii plus 227 pp. including figures, tables, notes, bibliography and index.

The Making of the Colonial Order: White Supremacy and Black Resistance in the Eastern Cape, 1770–1865 by Clifton C. Crais. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg, 1992. 284pp. R60,00. Paperback.

Bounds of Possibility by B. Pityana, M. Ramphele, M. Mpumlwana and L Wilson. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. R35,50. Paperback.

All, Here, and Now: Black Politics in the 1980s by Tom Lodge, Bill Nasson, Steven Mufson, Khehla Shubane and Nokwanda Sithole. David Philip, Cape Town, 1991. x plus 414 pp. including figures, appendices, bibliography and index. R44,95. Paperback.

Spirit of Africa: The Healing Ministry of Archbishop Milingo of Zambia by Gerrie ter Haar. Hurst & Company, London, 1992. x plus 286 pp. including map illustrations, notes, bibliography and index. £9,95. Paperback.

Striking Back: A History of COSATU by Jeremy Baskin. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1991. xv plus 488pp. R32.95.

Economic Development That Lasts: Labour‐intensive Irrigation Projects in Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania by Bertin Martens. International Labour Office, Geneva, 1989. xvii plus 191pp. including maps, figures, tables, appendices and bibliography. Swiss francs 27,50. Paperback.

South African Review 6: From “Red Friday” to CODESA edited by Glenn Moss and Ingrid Obery. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1992. xxi plus 508pp. including figures, tables and notes. Paperback.

Black Youth in Crisis: Facing the Future edited for CASE by David Everatt and Elinor Sisulu. Ravan Press, Johannesburg, 1992. xii plus 89pp. including figures, tables and notes.     

Lone motherhood past and present: The life stories of Finnish lone mothers

The aim of this study is to examine how Finnish lone mothers of two age cohorts construct their lone motherhood and also to show how the meanings ascribed to social phenomena are socially and historically embedded. Finland presents an interesting case for studying the links between the social and the individual because the country has experienced rapid social shifts since World War II. It is shown how specific social contexts to some degree set the parameters for how social phenomena are understood and interpreted, as shown by the differences in how two cohorts of life-story writers construct lone motherhood.     

MEDIA,IDENTITY, AND STRUGGLE IN TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CHINA

The experience of international migration is generally found to turn migrants into culturally hybrid communities. Yet, migrant communities often hold on to their religious moorings even as they relocate. From the 1970s onwards, the emerging leadership of Hindu settlers in Denmark consciously tried to transfer with them what they saw to be key aspects of Hinduism as they migrated to Denmark. In 1985, Hindus organized a major conference to position the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) as the umbrella organization for Hinduism in Denmark. Later on they established a Temple of Indians called Bharatiya Mandir to provide a place of worship for local Hindus. The philosophy behind the temple conformed to the nondenominational Hindu nationalist vision of Hindus as a unified community. This article, which contrasts the aim of Hindu nationalism with the on-the-ground realities of Hindu mobilization in Denmark, reveals that two major factions spearheaded Hindu nationalist endeavors in Denmark from the 1980s until 2006. The two factions successfully launched several projects, and even collaborated in their execution, but the initiatives were beset with rivalries that hampered the communal unity they had set out to achieve. The authors analyze this factional rivalry as an expression of Indian political culture, arguing that tensions among Hindu activists in Denmark is an instance of the political factionalism prevalent in the Indian subcontinent. The unintended emergence of such factionalism represents the successful transfer of a core element of Indian political culture to a new locale through Hindu nationalist politics. The authors base their argument on field observations since the 1980s, recent interviews with key religious players, and more than two hundred pages of written materials that offer a rare entry point to the study of Hindu nationalism ex situ.     

Framing Post-conflict Societies: international pathologisation of Cambodia and the post-Yugoslav states

This article examines the pathologisation of post-conflict societies through a comparison of the framing of the Cambodian and post-Yugoslav states. The notion of failed states fixes culpability for war on the societies in question, rendering the domestic populations dysfunctional while casting international rescue interventions as functional. The article suggests that the discourse of pathologisation can be understood primarily not as a means of explaining state crisis so much as legitimising an indefinite international presence and deferring self-government.     

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA from the teeth of a cadaver maintained in formaldehyde

This was a case that brought great commotion to a university in the interior of Brazil since it was suspected that one of the human bodies used for teaching anatomy was a relative of one of the students. Analysis of fragments of hypervariable region 2 of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was performed using a miniprimer set (MPS), indicating that there had been a mistake in evaluation by the student, reinforcing the need to base the process of human identification in technical parameters.     

Guest workers or unauthorized immigrants? The case of forest workers in the United States

This study examines regional differences in the legal status of forest workers in the Pacific Northwest and Southeastern United States, using United States Department of Labor data and qualitative fieldwork in Alabama and Oregon. The authors find that there are significantly fewer H-2B guest workers on federal lands in Oregon than on privately owned forest plantations in Alabama, and the Southeast more generally. By contrast, numerous workers on federal lands in Oregon are undocumented. This difference may largely be explained by variations in the economies of scale in forest work in the Pacific Northwest (federal lands) and the Southeast (mainly private lands). The study also finds that there is no real difference in the working conditions of undocumented immigrants and guest workers—both groups face labor exploitation. Guest workers in the forest industry, many of whom have no previous work experience or access to social networks in the United States, face extreme isolation at worksites, are beholden to contractors, fear losing their jobs if they complain, and are generally unaware of their basic rights. By contrast, many undocumented forest workers in Oregon belong to established social networks through which they are recruited onto forest labor crews. However, unauthorized workers are also vulnerable to labor exploitation because they fear deportation and are obliged to their kin-employers. Policy recommendations to improve labor conditions and enforce existing labor laws for all forest workers include: better tracking of workers across states to monitor labor abuses, allocating more resources to state labor departments to facilitate worker outreach and worksite inspections, and better communication among land management officials and the Department of Labor.