The Memory of Trade – Modernity`s Entanglements on an Eastern Indonesian Island

"The Memory of Trade is one of the most compelling works--ethnographic or otherwise--that I have read in Indonesian studies."--John Pemberton, author of On the Subject of "Java" "With profound insight, empathy, and theoretical sophistication, Patricia Spyer traces out the complex intertwinings among identity, global commerce, local ritual, and national politics. This book is a masterful demonstration of how much of modernity's paradoxes, romance, and uncanny displacements best come into sight when viewed from the perspective of the supposed margins."--Webb Keane, author of Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society > "Patricia Spyer's monograph emerges dreamlike from an extended and thoughtful sojourn among the Aruese of Emun on Barakai island in eastern Indonesia, a community of pearl divers and collectors of marine products long involved in far-flung international seaborne trade... The book provides a richly textured and well-crafted narrative of the experiences, memories and imaginings of the Aruese confronted by what others might prefer to call globalisation, modernisation or uneven development, but which Spyer refers to as "modernity's entanglements". What is especially admirable about this study is the way in which the author imaginatively and skillfully weaves the themes of market exchange, colonial incorporation of marginal communities, European commentary on both the native and natural environment, local rituals and changing dress sense, recent religious conversion and nationalist politics into a story which is at once comprehensible and illuminating and yet full of uncertainties and open-ended futures."--Asian Affairs, February 2001

"With profound insight, empathy, and theoretical sophistication, Patricia Spyer traces out the complex intertwinings among identity, global commerce, local ritual, and national politics. This book is a masterful demonstration of how much of modernity's paradoxes, romance, and uncanny displacements best come into sight when viewed from the perspective of the supposed margins."--Webb Keane, author of "Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society"

List of Illustrations viii
Preface ix
A Note on Language, Translation and Orthography xxiii
1 Introduction: Runaway Topographies 1
2 The Legless Paradise 41
3 The Great Ship 66
4 Mothers of Pearl 107
5 Prow and Stern 161
6 The Cassowary's Play 198
7 The Women's Share 254
8 Epilogue: Sweet Memories from Aru 288
Notes 293
Works Cited 329