Karin Norman

Equality and exclusion: ‘Racism’ in a Swedish town

Research on racism is prolific but ethnographic studies of what could be termed racism in everyday local social life are much less common. The article examines local Swedish classifications of difference and belonging in relation to meaning of racism and considers how ideologies of equality relate to forms of exclusion and racist expressions. The aim is to discuss the articulation of distinctions of exclusion and inclusion in everyday contexts through the presence of the refugee Other. The material is based on fieldwork conducted during the first half of the 1990s in a small town in central Sweden. The establishment of a refugee reception center in the town had concrete and symbolic repercussions on the local residents, making peoples sense of belonging and processes of exclusion more openly conflictual.

The Ironic Body: Obscene Joking Among Swedish Working-Class Women

This article describes the usage of every day forms of obscene joking among primarily working-class women in a small town in Sweden. The author considers obscenity as symbolically related to the sometimes painful, sometimes absurd experiences of sexuality and bodily functions, andas an expression for and a means of coping with the incongruities of social life. Through the form of humor, obscenity becomes a subtle and complex means of cultural and social critique. This also creates a sense of community among the women who engage in the obscene joking.

Book review: Rajko Mursic and Borut Brumen, eds, 1999. Cultural Processes and Transformations in Transition of the Central and Eastern European Post-Communist Countries. Ljubljani: Univerza v Ljubljani. pp. 156. ISBN (pb) 961 6200 95 x. Price: 1.000 SIT (£3)

Violence’, discusses issues of culture, human rights, and change, while the first, Tracey and Crawford’s ‘Wife Abuse: Does it Have an Evolutionary Origin?’, illuminates little, cites a plethora of male primates who beat, and females who are beaten (or beat it), and insists that though wife-beating was evolutionarily beneficial to males, it must now be societally censured. Two points detract from the frame. Brown, Lyons and Campbell (all advocates for refuges) note at several points that ‘isolation is a major predictive factor in determining risk for spousal abuse’ (p. viii) in the US and Europe. That may be so both there and in some sites discussed. But, in the chapters on India by Miller, Indo-Fijians by Lateef and Taiwan by Gallin, it is precisely the extended family, specifically the mother-in-law, which contributes to if not causes the beating. So what is isolation? The editors assume thin-walled houses and open living prevent isolation. They may, but equally they may not. The mere fact of beating being known and even visible does not mean it is seen, for what may be classed as private can remain ‘unseen’. The autonomy of the woman’s person, emphasized by both Lambek and McKee, seems a fruitful direction for crosscultural comparison not noted by the editors, although they do note the importance of a woman’s ability to leave and seek sanctuary. A second quibble is the unregulated intrusion of the US into the book. Some ignore it completely in their chapters, while others, such as Kearns (p. 160), carefully clarify the US frame and compare it with theirs. Others – the worst offender being Scallion (new to this edition) – use a vague ideal ‘American standard’, presumably of nice non-beaters, with which to beat actual (Abelam) practitioners. Yet McKee has shown that while Ecuadorean beaters accept the propriety of their action, male non-beaters there reject it utterly. Either the content of both frames must be defined or only one discussed. Certain chapters would make good reading for students, teachers and social workers, especially in multi-ethnic situations, if only to challenge lingering romanticism. Particularly valuable for this purpose – in that they are clearly thought through and written – are the contributions by Lambek on Mayotte, McKee on Ecuador, Kearns on Belize, Mitchell, McDowell and Counts on Papua New Guinea. This is not a book on theory, but, as a modest start to a theoretically challenging issue, it has a place on academic bookshelves. Elizabeth Koepping University of Edinburgh, Scotland [email: elizak@t-online.de]