Borneo. Images of a forest people: Punan Malinau — Identity, sociality, and encapsulation in Borneo . By Lars Kaskija. Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology No. 52, 2012. Pp. 270. Appendix, Bibliography.

Images of a forest people: Punan Malinau--Identity, sociality, and encapsulation in Borneo By LARS KASKIJA Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology No. 52, 2012. Pp. 270. Appendix, Bibliography. doi: 10.1017/S002246341300043X This interesting and well-written ethnography examines the well-known but variegated Punan of Borneo. It is also a contribution to forager studies, to the study of what Lars Kaskija calls 'encapsulation', to our understanding of identity politics generally and of Indonesian identity politics in particular. Punan have captured the imagination of conservationists around the world (a fact that occasions Punan some merriment, as Kaskija shows, e.g. in the wonderful photo on p. 30). For these reasons, and given the continuing Punan struggle for survival, Kaskija's ethnography is timely and important reading not only for anthropologists and Southeast Asianists, but also for political scientists, economists, conservationists and anyone interested in 'economic development'. An index would increase the book's already considerable value as a reference. The book, originally presented as a masters thesis, is an updated, reedited and rewritten compilation of Kaskija's earlier reportage. This method of composition results in some repetition; but the reiteration is not only salient but even adds to the impact of the facts. The book is one of the Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology series, which has also published excellent work by Ing-Britt Trankell on the peoples of mainland Southeast Asia. Here, readers should also consider the contributions of Finnish Southeast Asianists like Kenneth Sillander and Karen Heikkila. After an introductory chapter that includes a description of the conditions of his fieldwork in 1990-92, 1997 and 2000, Kaskija turns in chapter 2 to salient controversies in hunter-gatherer studies. The first is the question of whether hunter-gathering is/was a 'survival' of Paleolithic ecological adaptations or whether it always involves dependence on agriculturalists. A related question in Southeast Asia is whether foragers could survive on their own in the purported 'green desert' of tropical rainforest (e.g., Headland 1987). Kaskija's next topic is generic hunter-gatherer sociality, stereotypically based on sharing, egalitarianism, individual autonomy and 'immediate-return' economies. He would add opportunism and encapsulation (=enclavement) to the list. In the end, he questions the utility of the term. My own opinion is that the line between 'foragers' (a more accurate descriptive label for most rainforest hunter-gatherers) and 'swiddeners' is porous and transitory, especially in Borneo; the 'green desert' argument ignores the fact that most foragers 'tend' and even plant trees. As Ellen has shown, this porosity is especially marked in sago-producing areas like Borneo. In short, the difference between rainforest 'gathering' and agroforestry/swiddening is statistical and conditional, not qualitative. This human flexibility suggests also that the distinction, which Kaskija discusses, between 'primary' (='primordial') and 'secondary' foragers (the latter driven from agriculture by poverty or attracted to foraging by commercial opportunities) is academic to the point of metaphysicality. (In the following chapter Kaskija does recognise that the distinction between horticulture and foraging is, at best, blurred [pp. 75-6, 79]). Finally, 'immediate return' economies characterise impoverished people everywhere as part of a 'culture of poverty'. Conservative scholars often phrase this tendency as a psychological deficit ('inability to delay gratification') and use it politically to bludgeon the poor. Kaskija explicitly rejects this negative interpretation. After surveying the ethnographic literature on central Borneo, chapter 3 discusses how the upsurge of 'green' politics has fostered interest in 'unspoiled' and 'indigenous' foragers. …