paradigm for the events in question; for many the
Calloway is revis-
events were experienced as "total war."
In her introduction to the edited collection, Kim-
berly M. Blaeser reports that the title, Buried Roots
and Indestructible Seeds, is taken from a passage in
Louise Erdrich's novel Love Medicine, in which
dandelion roots "come to symbolize the American
Indians" (p. 3). The essays were initiated in a series
of conferences sponsored by the Wisconsin Hu-
manities Committee in 1990-1991. They are meant
to "give us some sense of just where that dandelion
power, that survival power, of Indian people comes
from" (p. 4).
Joseph Bruchac III argues that "in the Native
view" as represented in oral tradition, the logic is
circular rather than straight, and that Native Ameri-
can stories are "the wisest and most useful body of
knowledge to be found on this continent" (p. 18).
George L. Cornell makes a case for the Native
American as environmentalist, critically reviewing
recent work to the contrary. Kimberly M. Blaeser
considers the "mysterious persistence of trickster lit-
erature, the survival of traditional trickster stories,
and the ongoing incorporation of Trickster into con-
temporary tribal literature" (p. 49).
Gerald Vizenor claims that "tribal cultures have
been largely unimagined by the social sciences" (p.
67). "Tricksters," says Vizenor, "have become an-
thropologists if only long enough to overturn their
theories and turn them into cold shit" (p. 70). As a
response, Vizenor writes a trickster tale of his own,
reimagining tribal cultures through a print-based In-
dian Christopher Columbus.
Frederick E. Hoxie explores the historical bases
for treaties as contemporary symbols of indigenous
sovereignty. He observes that treaties were origi-
nally a way for imperial powers to extend claims of
sovereignty—as opposed to other such claims—to
areas lhat were securely held by Native peoples.
"They were a badge of sovereignty for Europeans,"
and ironically now serve as "an instrument wielded
by weak and outnumbered Native Americans" (p.
103).
Thomas Vennum Jr. discusses the factors that pre-
vent "access" to such natural materials as redwood,
willow, wild game, and wild rice, all of which are
necessary for the production of traditional culture.
James W. Oberly surveys the history and impact of
the Winter Dam project completed in 1923 on the
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa.
Denise Sweet writes of the experience of "sociali-
zation" under the Sisters at Our Lady of Lourdes at
White Earth (the latter having been baptized as "the
Blackbird Women" by the protagonist's "Aunt
Gen"). Wondering at the severe impositions of the
Sisters, Sweet finds some ways of evading their
careful gaze: "Here's [a word song) I say instead of
Our Father. You can use it, but if you say it oulloud
and catch heck, I'll deny I ever heard of such a
thing: Cow fodder, warts and seven//tallow plugs
your brain' // they king isdumb, // they rope is rung,
// an earthworm's in your navel" (p. 157).
Due primarily to the fact that it has "found a new
world in written languages" (p. 68). Vizenor specu-
lates, the trickster figure has became part of a "shift
in realities." In fact, both of these books raise ques-
tions about the present "world" and how it relates
to the realm of written languages.
ing a canon that addresses the Indian role in the
American revolution only in terms of their "partici-
pation as allies or enemies of contending parties"
(front matter). Such revision seems to be perceived
by participants as integral to a new conception of
American community. Buried Roots brings into be-
ing a set of print-based Native voices, some more
trickster-like than others. This too is perceived as in-
tegral to new conceptions of community. Both
books can be read by anthropologists for what they
say about the past; also, following Vizenor's obser-
vation, they might be studied for what they contrib-
ute to emergent Native American realities.
Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity In Ameri-
can Culture from the Days of Polio to the Age
of AIDS. EMILY MARTIN. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1994. xlv + 320 pp., illustrations, notes,
references, index.
ALAN STOCKDALE
Stanford University
In Flexible Bodies Emily Martin recounts an ex-
perience in an immunology course during her field-
work when elements from two different contexts
made contact and "imploded" into each other. As
the professor described the "flexible but specific"
nature of antibodies, Martin suddenly made a con-
nection to "flexible specialization" in the realm of
economics (pp. 92-93). Flexible Bodies traces
across diverse domains what Martin sees as an
emerging worldview, "a worldview that encom-
passes notions about how persons, bodies, and or-
ganizations are put together and how they function
in health and illness" (p. 43), based around the no-
tion of flexibility.
The argument draws on more than 200 informal
interviews that Martin and her research assistants
conducted with abroad cross section of the popula-
tion of Baltimore. Martin also actively participated
in a number of key settings: she worked as a techni-
cian in an immunology research laboratory, was a
volunteer in an AIDS service organization, became
a member of ACT UP, and joined a corporate train-
ing program. Her argument also makes use of nu-
merous quotations and visual images drawn from
popular texts.
Flexible Bodies begins with an account of hy-
giene in the 1940s and 1950s in order to provide a
historical context in which to comprehend sub-
sequent shifts in our thinking. Drawing on popular
health manuals and periodicals, Martin shows how
earlier thinking about health emphasized the pro-
tection of body surfaces from external threats by the
practice of good habits. A castle fortified against at-
tack was the key metaphor. Later, with knowledge
of antibodies, attention turned to the working of an
internal system that actively resisted infection. The
immune system came to be seen as a complex sys-
tem that responded to the body's changing environ-
ment. This shift parallels (Martin makes no claims
regarding priority or causation) the flexible speciali-
zation that is claimed to be necessary to survive in
reviews 945
the new global economy, a change that is felt
acutely in a city like Baltimore.
Martin is at her best when she is teasing out the
diverse metaphors employed by different groups.
One of her principal arguments is that the me-
dia—and to some extent science—lag behind the
popular imagination when it comes to thinking
about the immune system. The media generally
portray the working of the immune system with a
simple military metaphor, and often describe the
system itself using gender and class metaphors. Less
hierarchical metaphors that emphasize interde-
pendence and adaptability are more often proffered
by alternative medical practitioners and ordinary
citizens. Most striking of all is Martin's description
of corporate training exercises in which participants
are made to "experience the metaphor" (p. 214) of
flexibility.
One of the most engaging aspects of Martin's ar-
gument is her Foucauldian approach to power. She
argues that the metaphor of flexibility is seductive
simply because it promises to provide a means of
resisting earlier forms of power, replacing rigid hier-
archies in favor of interdependence and innovation.
This insight explains the adoption of ideas about
flexible systems in a diverse variety of domains,
from feminism to Fortune 500 companies. At one
point, a former union organizer's skepticism is even
converted. Martin observes, however, that the no-
tion of flexibility exists as a "tense dichotomy" (p.
145) in many settings. It is not only the "freedom to
initiate action," but also an "organization's ability
to hire and fire workers at will" (p. 145). Martin sug-
gests that this notion hides a new social differentia-
tion based on the ability to adapt constantly to
change, and thereby suppresses other values we
might consider important.
In accord with the Foucauldian approach, there
is no subject, or "villain" (p. 16), behind the scenes.
Martin argues that we are all party to the production
of this new worldview. She allows little room for a
critical vantage point, and one is left with the sense
that there are no social spaces that will not be
folded into a flexible systems worldview. Maybe
this paints too systematic a picture of social reality.
Martin does not attempt a history of complex sys-
tems, and there is little discussion in the book of
how ideas about the immune system relate to cy-
bernetics and to the development of complex mili-
tary systems during and after World War II. Pre-
cisely how flexible specialization and ideas of the
body as a "regulatory-communications network"
(p. 61) relate to other major discourses centered on
computing and genetics needs to be addressed fur-
ther.
Martin's approach is in part a corrective to work
in science and technology studies that emphasizes
the pivotal role of laboratory science in social
change. One of the strengths of Flexible Bodies is its
location of science within a broader cultural milieu.
A limitation, however, is that Martin's broad ap-
proach lacks a sociology to connect the various
points on the cultural terrain she describes so well.
For this reason, she frequently has to disavow any
claims regarding causation and concludes with a
weak claim concerning the flow of cultural mean-
ings back into the laboratory. This difficulty is partly
946 american ethnologist
the result of what one can hope to accomplish prac-
tically in this type of research. Nevertheless, this is a
stimulating book, and one hopes that there will be
further fruitful interactions between science and
technology studies and the anthropology of science
and medicine.
Dancing with the Devil: Society and Cultural
Poetics in Mexican-American South Texas.
JOSE E. LIM6N. Madison: University of Wis-
consin Press, 1994. xii + 240 pp., photographs,
notes, glossary, references, index.
MIGUEL Dl'AZBARRICA
Swanhmore College
Imagine that one could write an ethnography that
treads through a history of social thought about race
relations in south Texas, pauses to consider the ne-
gotiation of one's own identity (around such images
as asphalt, housing projects, and pachucos (also
known as "Zoot Suiters")), and then explodes into
new understandings of the poetics and politics of
ethnography. Imagine that this work incorporates
postmodern theory, descriptions of corridos (bal-
lads), analysis of gender relations, and a history of
economic change in south Texas. Now picture a
reviewer attempting to describe this book while
stumbling over categories (the book is part history,
biography, ethnography, literary criticism, autobi-
ography, and so on) and traditional praises (bril-
liant, winner of the 1996 AES Senior Book Award,
and suitable for both graduate and undergraduate
courses). Then consider that the reviewer is in some
ways (perhaps viscerally) reacting to the emergent
postmodern mexicanismo contained in the book.
Indeed, this is the situation in which I find myself.
Lim6n draws from revised versions of previously
published essays to provide a multifaceted account
of the expressive culture of people of Mexican ori-
gin in south Texas. In the first part, Lim6n reviews
the literature by focusing on what his intellectual
precursors said and did as cultural practices—"as
expressive culture about expressive culture" (p. 12).
In his chapters on John Gregory Bourke, ). Frank
Dobie, Jovita Conzales, and Americo Paredes,
Limdnboth provides a historical overview of under-
standings of race relations in Texas and contextual-
izes each writer's work within a larger political and
economic context. Not only do we learn about the
various authors' strategies in a racial war of position
and their dealings with the devil, but we also come
to see Limon's own writing as part of, and respon-
sive to, a larger history of the politics and poetics of
ethnographic representation.
This project is best accomplished in the chapter
on Americo Paredes, the renowned folklorist, who,
with the publication of With His Pistol in His Hand:
A Border Ballad and Its Hero (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1958), offered a critique of intellectual
discourses about mexicanos and a refutation of ra-
cism through the actions of the masculine warrior
hero Cregorio Cortez. limon points out that Pare-
des's work is ultimately tragic because it recognizes
that the social relations that produced Cortez dur-
ing the early 1900s no longer exist. This world, in