Book review : Unequal lives : gender, race and class in the Western Pacific

Abstract

Unequal lives is an edited volume that speaks to two key themes. First, it is about exploring the different dimensions of inequality in the Western Pacific and how parallax definitions of fairness, deprivation and wealth are shaped by different bodies, identities, relations and places. Second, it is about the character of anthropology as a discipline historically, in this current moment, and what it wants to be in the future. Fittingly for a volume that grew from a festschrift honouring the work of Martha MacIntyre, interwoven are reflections about what it means to centre the belief in anthropology as a tool for social justice that underpins much of Macintyre’s scholarship. Her curiosity and pragmatism, as well as the respect, humour and generosity of her approach to communities as member or visitor, are celebrated and reflected throughout. [excerpt]