Kochakova, Natalia B. (ed.). 2002. Ethnologica africana. In memory of Dmitri Alexeyevich Olderogge (in Russian, with English summaries). Moscow: Muravei. 384 pp. No price given. ISBN: 5 89737 129 6.

This article uses ethnographic material from the Fuyuge of highland Papua and other Melanesian peoples critically to examine the attribution of modernity to Melanesia. Of related concern to this critical focus is that of periodisation, and the periodisation of modernity in Melanesia. Each ethnographic instance that is drawn upon is situated further in the historical past. The Melanesian past is used in this manner in order to address two questions: is it possible to periodise modernity in the Melanesia context; and, if so, when was modernity in Melanesia? The answers to both these considerations suggest that modernity cannot be likened to mass consumption or the individual, theoretical assumptions prevalent in current depictions of modernity in Melanesia. Rather, modernity is a temporal predicament connected to formations of political (state) power and its agendas of local intervention.

The extent to which religious rituals foster a reflexive stance is influenced by transmissive frequency. Highly repetitive rituals may be reproduced on the basis of largely implicit procedural knowledge, somewhat constraining spontaneous exegetical reflection (and related experiences of religious doubt and skepticism). Rare, climactic rituals are reproduced via explicit procedural schemas, fostering a rich but gradual process of exegetical reflection. This article presents a detailed model of these dynamics, drawing on a combination of ethnographic and experimental findings.

The new forms of entrepreneurship that constitute the Mauritian economic landscape – modelled very often by ethnic traits – where the plantation activities are mixed with business, cannot be understood independent of the long history of the island. The double French and English colonial system has conditioned the emergence of the liberal society of today. The communal system that was born out of the independence movements has transformed the centrality of the State in a periphery coordinating and managing ethnic relations. New relations are engaged between the civil society and the State in order to harmonize the political cultural links with the contemporary external relations.

The article explores the analytical implications of dissolving the self/other dichotomy that historically has shaped anthropology's relation to its objects of study. It suggests that in order to study these implications we must explore the ethnographic field as an arena for intersubjective interaction in which the ethnographer and his or her informants struggle to impose social roles and cultural categories on the other. The article which draws on field data from the Peruvian Andes argues that an inquiry into the native registration, catalogisation, and indexation of the ethnographer allows for an examination not only of how the people under study classify non-natives but also how they conceptualise themselves. It also proposes that anthropological insight is produced in the shifting positions as insider/outsider and the blurred boundaries between what is defined as included/excluded.

This paper explores an overlooked dimension of religious transformation in so-called 'traditional' African religious practice - embodied scepticism. Manjaco youths mimic local religious traditions in playful ways. And they are quick to criticise the ritual practices and underlying beliefs of their elders. These sceptical youths have been at the vanguard of revolutionising village-level religious practice - pushing the community at large to modify or outlaw certain religious customs and to do away with certain village spirit shrines. Such youthful scepticism has often been explained in the literature as a symptom of 'modernisation' - as youth become more cosmopolitan, as they are exposed, as it were, to alternate ways of explaining the world, they lose faith in old ways and beliefs. I criticise this model by looking at the sometimes paradoxical ways that embodied ritual practice supports or undermines local religious beliefs.

This article aims to examine our positioning process as ethnographers in the field. Drawing on my fieldwork in Israel among non-Jewish undocumented migrants who initially were extremely reluctant to cooperate with my research, I highlight the power of informants to largely dictate the conditions for an engagement with an anthropologist, and define the parameters of proximity. This power of informants, or more generally of the ‘field’, brings to the fore the existing tension between our strategic design of methods and their tactical implementation during fieldwork. By applying Bourdieu's conceptualisation of a ‘field’, I seek to emphasize both the relational configuration and habitus of actors, as generative elements that shape our interactions and position in the field. I particularly focus on our ingrained dispositions that can sometimes significantly direct our tactical management of crucial situations in the field, and shape our sense of ethics. Echoing Marcus (1995) and following Bourdieu's insights, I finally suggest that we should try to exercise self-reflexivity as an element of method before and throughout our fieldwork, rather than use it retrospectively to account for our distinctive involvement and the ways it might have impacted our informants and collected data.