Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces

Zones of Religion

by Patricia Spyer (Editor)

The essays in Border Fetishisms explore the cultural, commercial, political and erotic dimensions that distinguish fetish formations in fractured colonial and postcolonial spaces. Spanning such topics as Surinamese conversion to Christianity to shoplifting in Georgian England, to face the fetish, the contributors neither demagicalize the fetish nor normalize the commodity. Instead, they call for the inclusion of material things -- as fetishes or not -- within the experience of human sufferings and joy. Robert J. Foster, Webb Keane, Susan Leg6~ne, Annelies Moors, Peter Pels, William Pietz, Adela Pinch, Patricia Spyer, Peter Stallybrass, Michael Taussig.

Genres: Anthropology

272 pages, Hardcover

First published November 20, 1997

About the author

Prof. Patricia Spyer holds the chair of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Contemporary Indonesia at Leiden University and was Global Distinguished Visiting Professor (2009-2012) at New York University’s Center for Religion & Media and Department of Anthropology. From June – July 2014 she will be a Visiting Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University (ANU) during the theme year “Now Showing” dedicated to research on visual and digital culture. In November Patricia will visit the ANU again to give a keynote lecture at a conference on “Visual Cultures of Place-making in a Precarious Age.” Patricia Spyer is one of the coordinators of the research profile Asian Modernities and Traditions.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish there was a way to know in advance which selections in these anthologies would be useful. The introductions are marginally helpful in identifying them, but when I actually take the time to read all of the essays, I'm always pleasantly surprised by some that I would never have read based on introduction/title/subject alone. On the flip side, there are always a number of essays (particularly in these interdisciplinary collections) whose attention to their subject is either methodologically or theoretically so far removed from anything I'd ever do, that I may as well not have taken the time to read it in the first place. But, I digress. The selections in this volume that were worth reading were really quite lovely. Border Fetishisms is not only interested in interrogating the idea of commodity fetishisms, but is in particular hoping to look at how fetishises are constituted at borders of countries, disciplines, time periods, etc. Peter Stallybrass' essay on Marx's Coat (which I had encountered before) does a particularly nice job of calling attention to the differences between the actual commodities and objects in Marx's life and those that he wrote about, productively suggesting how each informed his relationship to the other in sometimes very pragmatic ways. Similarly, Adela Pinch's essay on shoplifting looks at how shopping might be understood as part of the subject's relationship to commodities, suggesting that fetishism might express itself in the act of purchase or (in her case) stealing. However, the essay that I found (unexpectedly) most incredible was Peter Pels' "The Spirit of Matter." He not only seeks to historicize the idea of the fetish itself, distinguishing it from rarity in a way that is both pragmatically and theoretically useful, but he does so in order to call attention to how object relations are constituted not by anything inherent to either objects or subjects, yet are deeply informed by aspects of both of them. I can't do the intricacies of his work justice in as many sentences as I'm prepared to write here, but it is well-worth reading not only for the contribution he makes, but also for a deeper understanding of his suggestion as to why fetishism and commodities have found themselves at the forefront of so much scholarship today.

[Jennifer J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty flippin awesome book. Makes Marx fun all over again. Also, William Pietz is an f-ing genius. How have I never heard of him before?