Table Of ContentBORDER FETISHISMS:
Material Objects in
Unstable Spaces
Zones of Religion
Edited by Peter van der Veer
Also published in the series:
Appropriating Gender: Women's Activism and Politicized Religion in South Asia
Amrita Basu & Patricia Jeffrey
Conversion to Modernities
Peter van der Veer
BORDER FETISHISMS:
Material Objects in
Unstable Spaces
Edited by Patricia Spyer
ROUTLEDCE
New York and London
Published in 1998 by
Routledge
711 Third Avenue,
New York, NY 10017
Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park,
Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN
Transferred to Digital Printing 2011
Copyright © 1998 by Routledge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Border fetishisms : material objects in unstable spaces / by Patricia Spyer.
p. cm. — (Zones of religion)
"This book is the result of a conference on the topic 'Border
fetishisms' that was held in December 1995 at the Research Centre
Religion & Society at the University of Amsterdam"—
Acknowledgements.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-91856-1 (hardcover). — ISBN 0-415-91857-X (pbk.)
1. Fetishism—Congresses. 2. Acculturation—Congresses.
3. Colonies—Congresses. I. Spyer, Patricia, 1957- .
II. Series.
GN472.B65 1998
306.4—DC21 97-21461
CIP
Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.
Contents
Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Patricia Spyer
1. Calvin in the Tropics: Objects and Subjects
at the Religious Frontier 13
Webb Keane
2. From Brooms to Obeah and Back: Fetish Conversion
and Border Crossings in Nineteenth-Century Suriname 35
Susan Legene
3. Your Money, Our Money, the Government's Money:
Finance and Fetishism in Melanesia 60
Robert J. Foster
4. The Spirit of Matter: On Fetish, Rarity, Fact, and Fancy 91
Peter Pels
5. Stealing Happiness: Shoplifting in Early
Nineteenth-Century England 122
Adela Pinch
6. The Tooth of Time, or Taking a Look at the "Look"
of Clothing in Late Nineteenth-Century Aru 150
Patricia Spyer
7. Marx's Coat 183
Peter Stallybrass
vi Contents
8. Wearing Gold 208
Annelies Moors
9. Crossing the Face 224
Michael Taussig
Afterword: How to Grow Oranges in Norway 245
William Pietz
Contributors 253
Index 255
Illustrations
Figure 1. Two Surinamese obeahs 48
Figure 2. Design of P.N.G. two kina note 72
Figure 3. Designs of P.N.G. five, ten and twenty kina notes 73
Figure 4. Housewife—1960; Housewife—1970 76
Figure 5. Highlanders shopping in a self-service supermart 77
Figure 6. Cover of textbook Money 78
Figure 7. Pepsi Ad 79
Figure 8. Regent in Official Costume (1919) 155
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Acknowledgments
This book is the result of a conference with the title "Border Fetish-
isms" that was held in December 1995 at the Research Centre Reli
gion and Society at the University of Amsterdam. In addition to the
authors whose essays are collected here, Leora Auslander, Inge Boer,
Johannes Fabian, Peter Geschiere, Thomas Holt, Prahbu Mohapatra,
Shoma Munshi, Danilyn Rutherford, Marc Shell, and Bonno Thoden
van Velzen also took part in the "Border Fetishisms" conference.
Their contributions, comments, and ideas enriched the conference
and this book, and I would like to express my gratitude to them here.
The conference received financial support from the University of Am
sterdam, The Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, The Netherlands
Foundation for Scientific Research, and Crea Studium Generate, for
which I am very grateful. Special thanks are due to Peter van der Veer
for encouraging me to pursue this project and for seeing it through
its present stage as both a colleague and as editor of the Zones of Re
ligion series. I also express my appreciation to my other colleagues at
the Research Centre Religion and Society—Gerd Baumann, Birgit
Meyer, Peter Pels, and Peter van Rooden—for their help, humor, in
tellectual stimulation, and vital support at different stages along the
way. Inge Boer, Webb Keane, Prahbu Mohapatra, Annelies Moors,
and Adela Pinch all proved invaluable when it came to the practi
cal and intellectual tasks involved in organizing this book. Rafael
Sanchez's sound advice and enthusiasm never flagged from the first
moment the idea for a "Border Fetishisms" conference popped into
my head through the final details of putting together the present col
lection, and I thank him much for this. I also thank Ingrid van den
Broek for her truly good spirits and detailed attention during the con
ference and its organizational prelude, and for her dedicated work on
the manuscript thereafter. Finally, at Routledge I am grateful to Mau
reen MacGrogan, her assistant, Laska Jimsen, and Bill Germano for
their work on this project.
