The Memory of Trade. Modernity's Entanglements on an Eastern Indonesian Island.
Durham, North Carolina. Duke University Press. 2000. Stock ID #179011 "The Memory of Trade is an ethnographic study of the people of Aru, an archipelago in eastern Indonesia. Central to Patricia Spyer's study is the fraught identification of Aruese people with two imaginary elsewheres - the 'Aru' and the 'Malay' - and the fissured construction of community that has ensued from centuries of active international trade and more recent encroachments of modernity. When referring to this item please quote stockid 179011.
Maps, black and white photographic illustrations, xxii + 354pp, notes, bibliography, index, a very good paperback copy.
Drawing on more than two years of archival and ethnographic research, Spyer examines the dynamics of contact with the Dutch and Europeans, Suharto's postcolonial regime, and with the competing religions of Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism in the context of the recent conversion of pagan Aruese. While arguing that Aru identity and community are defined largely in terms of absence, longing, memory, and desire, she also incorporates present-day realities - such as the ecological destruction wrought by the Aru trade in such luxury goods as pearls and shark fins-without overlooking the mystique and ritual surrounding these activities." (Publisher's description).
Price: $33.00 AU