Urbanities,
Vol. 3
·
No 1
·
May 2013
© 2013
Urbanities
112
since it occurs along with the
neighborhood association members’ and
residents’ interest in their neighborhood’s
common good. Therefore, aside from the
undeniable forms of personal egoism,
there’s more. This way the author avoids
an Orientalist view that would reinforce
the conception of a virtuous
West
and a
vitiated
Rest
.
Finally, one last important aspect
examined in depth by the author and
corroborated by the empirical data is well
worth mentioning; namely, a critique of
the so-called civil society studies. Because
of their far too rigid and dichotomous
conceptualizations, these studies tend to
exclude the state and state-sponsored
neighborhood and district organizations
analyzed by Reid from that cluster of
voluntary
and
non-governmental
organizations, which, from an overly
Western stance, are deemed as the essence
of civil society. In fact, as the author
cogently substantiates, many citizens are
proud to serve the nation through the
organizations analyzed in this study. The
comparative analysis of neighborhood and
district organizations in East and Southeast
Asia indicates that, despite the state’s at
times rather intrusive presence, their
members boost the sense of responsibility
and trust as well as actual participation.
As these brief comments point up,
this is a stimulating book with several
innovative and original argumentations
from both a theoretical and an empirical
point of view. The author perceptively and
cogently reviews some key concepts (such
as civil society, for example) that are under
debate not only in political science, but
also in political anthropology. In terms of
empirical research, instead, the author has
chosen an approach that is very familiar to
anthropologists; i.e., field research. In my
opinion, the experience of immersing
himself in two urban realities in East Asia
is precisely what enabled him to reconsider
in a legitimately critical manner those
theoretical conceptions of Western origin
that prove to be deceptive and misleading
because of their eurocentrism.
Christian Giordano
University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Matthews, Gordon, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro
and Carlos Alba Vega (eds) (2012)
Globalization from Below: The World’s
Other Economy
.
London and New York: Routledge.
This important book offers a state-of-the-
art
account
of
what
Brazilian
anthropologist Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, who
contributes a magisterial closing analytical
review of its findings, terms the ‘non-
hegemonic world system’. It offers an
essential complementary perspective to
