While studies of migration, transnational flows of culture, and the like show attention within anthropology to forms of movement as objects of analysis, Kirby (anthropology, Oxford Brooks U.) finds other elements of mobility and flux worthy of anthropological study to be relatively neglected, particularly because of a problematic construction of the notion of "space/place." In response, he presents nine essays that "as a whole comprise a concerted and coherent attempt to interrogate (largely `Western') occupations and manipulations of space against the backdrop of how people actually move through, exist in, conceive of, and represent these spaces in their everyday lives in varied social contexts." Topics addressed include spatiality, power, and state making in the organization of territory in colonial South Asia; Israeli soldier narratives of space in the Palestinian Occupied Territories; space and social exclusion in contemporary Japan; modern Tibetan visions of world peace; changing notions of space and geographical identity in Vanuatu, Oceania; organizing a Japanese multinational corporation in France; and constructing space in the contemporary Finnish economy. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
