Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection / Edition 1

by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Overview

What the struggle over the Indonesian rainforests can teach us about the social frictions that shape the world around us

Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light while one stick alone is just a stick. It is the friction that produces movement, action, and effect. Anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing challenges the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a clash of cultures, developing friction as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world.

Tsing focuses on the rainforests of Indonesia, where in the 1980s and 1990s capitalist interests increasingly reshaped the landscape not so much through corporate design as through awkward chains of legal and illegal entrepreneurs that wrested the land from previous claimants, creating resources for distant markets. In response, environmental movements arose to defend the rainforests and the communities of people who live in them. Not confined to a village, province, or nation, the social drama of the Indonesian rainforests includes local and national environmentalists, international science, North American investors, advocates for Brazilian rubber tappers, United Nations funding agencies, mountaineers, village elders, and urban students--all drawn into unpredictable, messy misunderstandings, but misunderstandings that sometimes work out.

Providing an invaluable portfolio of methods for the study of global interconnections, Friction shows how cultural differences are in the grip of worldly encounter and reveals how much is overlooked in contemporary theories of the global.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691120652
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/28/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	916,447
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her books include The Mushroom at the End of the World and In the Realm of the Diamond Queen (both Princeton).

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

PART I: Prosperity

"Better you had brought me a bomb, so I could blow this place up" 21

Chapter 1: Frontiers of Capitalism 27

"They communicate only in sign language" 51

Chapter 2: The Economy of Appearances 55

PART II: Knowledge

"Let a new Asia and a new Africa be born" 81

Chapter 3: Natural Universals and the Global Scale 88

"Dark rays" 113

Chapter 4: Nature Loving 121

"This earth, this island Borneo" 155

Chapter 5: A History of Weediness 171

PART III: Freedom

"A hair in the flour" 205

Chapter 6: Movements 213

"Facilities and incentives" 239

Chapter 7: The Forest of Collaborations 245

Coda 269

Notes 273

References 297

Index 313

What People are Saying About This

Goenawan Mohamad

Friction is not only an engrossing display of ethnographic reports on the destruction of Kalimantan forests and local attempts to resist it. The book also proposes a highly original perspective of the global thrust of capital. Anna Tsing is at best when she describes the way capital produces an expanding 'frontier culture': a dense and murky story of fragments and fluidity, of hurdles and clashes that disrupt the neo-liberal theater of clarity. For an Indonesian reader, her work is a gift; it hints at the feasibility of hope—or at least the mingling of despair and hope. For a thinking activist, it suggests a fresh theory of action. Introducing the notion of 'engaged universals,' it brings home the role of 'utopian critiques.'
— Goenawan Mohamad, author of "Conversations with Difference"

Celia Lowe

Recently, many have written about a 'clash' of civilizations, ideas, knowledges, and cultural formations. Tsing's brilliant innovation in this book is to talk in terms of 'collaboration' rather than conflict. One of the many enjoyable aspects of Friction is its continuation of the story Tsing introduced in her previous book, of the original and creative program of scholarship she is famously known for. This will be a much-discussed contribution to the anthropology of cosmopolitanism and transnational interconnection.
— Celia Lowe, University of Washington

From the Publisher

"Friction is not only an engrossing display of ethnographic reports on the destruction of Kalimantan forests and local attempts to resist it. The book also proposes a highly original perspective of the global thrust of capital. Anna Tsing is at best when she describes the way capital produces an expanding 'frontier culture': a dense and murky story of fragments and fluidity, of hurdles and clashes that disrupt the neo-liberal theater of clarity. For an Indonesian reader, her work is a gift; it hints at the feasibility of hope—or at least the mingling of despair and hope. For a thinking activist, it suggests a fresh theory of action. Introducing the notion of 'engaged universals,' it brings home the role of 'utopian critiques.'"—Goenawan Mohamad, author of Conversations with Difference

"Friction is a wonderful, moving, absolutely beautiful book. One of the most important books in anthropology to appear in the past decade, it defines a field rather than simply fitting into one. This is the first sustained ethnography by a major anthropologist of Indonesia to address the post-Soeharto period. For those of us now attempting to come to terms with a strange political landscape of instability, Tsing offers both illuminating insight and useful tools. Ethnographically rigorous, brilliantly perceptive, and passionately engaged, this is the kind of writing we would all like to be able to produce."—Mary Steedly, Harvard University, author of Hanging without a Rope

"Recently, many have written about a 'clash' of civilizations, ideas, knowledges, and cultural formations. Tsing's brilliant innovation in this book is to talk in terms of 'collaboration' rather than conflict. One of the many enjoyable aspects of Friction is its continuation of the story Tsing introduced in her previous book, of the original and creative program of scholarship she is famously known for. This will be a much-discussed contribution to the anthropology of cosmopolitanism and transnational interconnection."—Celia Lowe, University of Washington

Mary Steedly

Friction is a wonderful, moving, absolutely beautiful book. One of the most important books in anthropology to appear in the past decade, it defines a field rather than simply fitting into one. This is the first sustained ethnography by a major anthropologist of Indonesia to address the post-Soeharto period. For those of us now attempting to come to terms with a strange political landscape of instability, Tsing offers both illuminating insight and useful tools. Ethnographically rigorous, brilliantly perceptive, and passionately engaged, this is the kind of writing we would all like to be able to produce.
— Mary Steedly, Harvard University, author of "Hanging without a Rope"

Recipe

"Friction is not only an engrossing display of ethnographic reports on the destruction of Kalimantan forests and local attempts to resist it. The book also proposes a highly original perspective of the global thrust of capital. Anna Tsing is at best when she describes the way capital produces an expanding 'frontier culture': a dense and murky story of fragments and fluidity, of hurdles and clashes that disrupt the neo-liberal theater of clarity. For an Indonesian reader, her work is a gift; it hints at the feasibility of hope—or at least the mingling of despair and hope. For a thinking activist, it suggests a fresh theory of action. Introducing the notion of 'engaged universals,' it brings home the role of 'utopian critiques.'"—Goenawan Mohamad, author of Conversations with Difference

"Friction is a wonderful, moving, absolutely beautiful book. One of the most important books in anthropology to appear in the past decade, it defines a field rather than simply fitting into one. This is the first sustained ethnography by a major anthropologist of Indonesia to address the post-Soeharto period. For those of us now attempting to come to terms with a strange political landscape of instability, Tsing offers both illuminating insight and useful tools. Ethnographically rigorous, brilliantly perceptive, and passionately engaged, this is the kind of writing we would all like to be able to produce."—Mary Steedly, Harvard University, author of Hanging without a Rope

"Recently, many have written about a 'clash' of civilizations, ideas, knowledges, and cultural formations. Tsing's brilliant innovation in this book is to talk in terms of'collaboration' rather than conflict. One of the many enjoyable aspects of Friction is its continuation of the story Tsing introduced in her previous book, of the original and creative program of scholarship she is famously known for. This will be a much-discussed contribution to the anthropology of cosmopolitanism and transnational interconnection."—Celia Lowe, University of Washington

Editorial Reviews

"Co-Winner of the Senior Book Prize, American Ethnological Society"

From the Publisher

By providing generous anecdotes and personal reflections amid more complex, insightful political commentary and social theory, [Tsing] achieves a writing style that is both pleasurable and informative.

Environment & Planning - Laura L B Graham

Friction is an original, nuanced, and elegant work of ethnography and a significant contribution to the areas of globalization; environment and natural resource wars; the politics of indigenous peoples, NGOs, and development; and the sociology of expert versus local knowledge.

American Journal of Sociology - Michael Goldman

By providing generous anecdotes and personal reflections amid more complex, insightful political commentary and social theory, [Tsing] achieves a writing style that is both pleasurable and informative.

Environment & Planning - Laura L.B. Graham

By providing generous anecdotes and personal reflections amid more complex, insightful political commentary and social theory, [Tsing] achieves a writing style that is both pleasurable and informative.
— Laura L B Graham

Environment & Planning

Friction is an original, nuanced, and elegant work of ethnography and a significant contribution to the areas of globalization; environment and natural resource wars; the politics of indigenous peoples, NGOs, and development; and the sociology of expert versus local knowledge.
— Michael Goldman

American Journal of Sociology