[gil, v. 2004] review lines in the water (anthropological quarterly)

7/28/2019 [Gil, V. 2004] Review Lines in the Water (Anthropological Quarterly)

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BOOK REVIEW

Vladimir Gil

Yale University

Benjamin S. Orlove. Lines in the Water: Nature and Culture at Lake Titicaca.

Berkeley: University of California Press.

Benjamin Orlove has a long list of publications in anthropology and Andean

studies, dating back to the seventies. He also has shown great versatility, in-

cluding experiments in non-academic narratives, such as his fathers biograph-

ical memoirs, In My fathers Study. In his most recent book, Lines in the Water, the

memoir tone and the novelistic narrative make the volume unusually accessibleand will interest readers beyond the Andean anthropological arena.

This book emerged out of a revision of his old field notes, as he intended to

synthesize his intellectual evolution over twenty years of work in the high Andean

plateau. The volume weaves two texts in one. The first is reflected in the titles

metaphor, the theme of lines as paths. Lines trace the pathways of the shore pop-

ulations along Lake Titicaca and in history. These symbols also mark the direc-

tions Orlove walked as a researcher, professor, and writer. Along these interwovenlines Orlove analyzes the changes and continuities in the relationship between

the settlers and their environment in the shape of environmental living histo-

ry memories. Orlove wants to listen to the requests people made as they gave

their farewells. Dont forget me, they repeated. While the author seeks to sit-

uate these recollections in the present, we are invited to accompany him through

his retrospective of the interaction between the lake and its people.


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Since this book also synthesizes Orloves professional paths in the high Andean

plateau, it illustrates how ethnographic writing has evolved in the last decades

as well. Orloves evolution as an ethnographer and writer shows the impact of

some crucial and recent disciplinary debates on environmental anthropology.

Orlove recognizes that his initial works were more oriented towards a neo-

Marxist position focusing on class rather than ethnicity. More recently, he has

tried to develop a synthesis of these two foci. This tendency is well exemplified

in his preference for using the term villager instead of peasant or indian,

when referring to the local fishermen. Orlove argues that the indian category

implies cultural distinctions, sometimes exoticism, while peasant refers to na-

tional economic relations of inequality. The category indian has re-emerged in

anthropology due to a renovated interest in ethnic identities. The author prefers

the term villager because it points to space, the local dimension of interaction,

closer to the way fishermen refer to themselves using place-based labels more

than expressions related to class or ethnicity. Another feature that Orlove tries to

incorporate is a more historical perspective, closer to what is nowadays known

as historical ecology and environmental history. Over the last decades, ethnol-

ogists have explored ethnographic literary style with experimental writings thatwere still considered as falling within the boundaries of the discipline. The

books tone of fieldwork memoirs, plenty of metaphors and even imaginary

trips (like the visit to the museum in Chapter 5) have benefited from this new

freedom for anthropologists to experiment as writers.

In Orloves account, Lake Titicaca is a space of sustenance and memory, a sto-

ry of changes and permanencies. The 21st century finds the lakeshore villagers

in almost the same situation as they were in the previous one, marked by a mar-ginal position with respect to the Peruvian state, fighting everyday for sustainable

subsistence. This is a common script in the history of the Andes, where com-

munities remote to the state apparatus services complain of being forgotten.

Simultaneously, this border position has protected these villages from the eco-

nomic swings of urban life, like inflation in the prices of manufactured products.

Living at the edge of the state sometimes allowed freedom from governmental

regulations in taxes and their resource management, balancing the excess ofpopulation with constant emigration to cities.

The book does not follow a rigid chronological scheme. Instead, it suggests a

winding path towards the high Andean plateau, a journey that reflects on old da-

ta and different personal experiences. This path guides the reader into an analy-

sis of the human impact on the natural environment. Orloves travels to the

lakeshores occurred over two decades, between 1972 to 1995. His main fieldwork


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entailed two trips in 1979 and 1981, of about a year each. Both times the author

was accompanied by a natural resource economist.

In the first chapter, Not Forgetting, Orlove reflects on his condition as a re-

searcher, outsider, and American, and analyzes the politics of memory in his

field research. The author strikingly recalls how the locals showed their vulnera-

bility by asking not to be forgotten by him. These politics are reflected and re-

produced at the social level. For instance, there is a recurrent theme in songs

referring to a pueblo olvidadoor forgotten town, which treats a fusion of re-

gional, class, racial and ethnic identities at the margin, as inferior, and thus, for-

gettable. In the second section, Mountains, Orlove introduces the reader to the

landscape and the evolution of the general geographic characteristics of the

Titicaca lakeshores. The author is very conscious of the politics of namingpeo-

ple and objectsas well as its significance to framing ideas, concepts, and values.

In the third chapter, Names, this approach is developed through the examina-

tion of different examples.

Work may be the most interesting part of the book for many anthropolo-

gists. Orlove reflects on his main fieldwork and the surveys he conducted in or-

der to understand the factors that influence the number of fish caught in LakeTiticaca. Particularly intriguing is the revision of the diarios campesinos or

peasant diaries. These accounts were collected by a development project in the

late 1970s and early 1980s from Bolivian villages on the shores of Lake Titicaca

and in lower valleys. By revisiting this data the author scrutinizes the cultural pat-

terns to explain livelihood practices. Orlove is surprised by the lack of personal

reflections in the diaries, and he compares them with the famous diary of Anne

Frank. The fishermen portray a simplistic descriptive picture of their routine. Thiscultural difference would suggest a sort of contentment or wisdomat least to

the extent of the lack of complaintson their routines. The social assumptions

present in the way villagers represent the concept of work are also fascinating.

The researcher looked for the word work and found that villagers focused

their attention on aspects of economic life quite different from the economists

emphasis on profitability. For the lakeshore settlers, work involved effort, usually

physical strength, and sometimes manual skill or mental concentration.Surprisingly, the diaries exclude some actions that would be considered as work

in a Western framework. For instance, the routine care for domesticated animals

was not counted as work. Also excluded were cooking and childcare, usually

done by women, and the repairing of tools, a mens activity.

Another unexpected research outcome was related to the fact that the vil-

lagers did not speak of fishing in terms of income. The usual questionfrom an


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economic point of viewwould be why villagers do not sound like economic ra-

tional agents, why they do not mention monetary terms, profits or net returns.

In this case, the fishermen preferred to conceptualize their work within their non-

accounting reciprocity systems. Additionally, the villagers concepts of work con-

trasted with bioeconomic models, especially with regard to time concepts. In

bioeconomic models, time is a homogeneous resource, a number of hours al-

located to produce the maximum profit. For the villagers, however, time comes

in diverse forms that complement each other in order to compose a whole,

such as a day or a season. Thus, the lakeshore villagers avoid idleness rather than

inefficiency. This would also explain why fishermen continue to farm their fields,

even though farming generates less income for them than fishing.

The fifth and sixth chapters, Fish and Reeds respectively, present an en-

vironmental history of fisheries in Lake Titicaca, especially since the 1930s.

These sections acknowledge how different actors and factors altered the com-

position and availability of resources in the lake. Orlove documents the ways in

which the introduction of new species, such as trout, diminished native fish

species and altered the lake ecosystem. He also describes the local use of reeds

(totora) for building rafts or feeding their cattle. These activities are examined inthe context of the conflicts with villagers that arose when the lakeshores were un-

der consideration by the Peruvian state to be converted to a national natural re-

serve. The government argued in favor of regulating the access of fisheries in

order to preserve sustainability. But state regulatory mechanisms were in conflict

with customary laws, which reserved access to fishing areas to lakeshore vil-

lagers. Finally, Orlove debates whether the government discussion of potential

private projects will put lake sustainability at risk. Two prospective cases arementioned: a mining company looking for cheap water by diverting water from

rivers, and a proposal for petroleum drilling.

The last section, Paths, serves as an epilogue, in which Orlove tries to bring

together the different episodes and aspects in the book: the paths of the lake and

the fisheries, the individuals, and the political contexts that affected the area, in-

cluding times of violence through Shining Path. The author attempts to unify

these disparate elements by focusing on the dilemmas and conflicts of state de-velopment plans.

This work masterfully exemplifies one of the tasks social anthropologists do

best: combating ethnocentrism. By revealing the intricate internal coherence of

alternate or marginal logics and behaviors that might appear as irrational

from the outside, the ethnologist not only contributes to better frame inductive

behavior models, but also makes an empirical argument to support the idea that


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different behaviors should be studied in their local context before sanctioning

them as primitive or inferior. An especially effective example is the ethnographic

critique of scientific models, such as the bioeconomic fishery case mentioned

above. Furthermore, the significance of this book goes far beyond Andean an-

thropology. This publication is valuable for those interested in international pol-

icy. These professionals would benefit from Orloves demonstration of the

importance of constant dialogue at the local level in development projects. As

Orloves book illustrates, realizing the importance of different fundamental cul-

tural assumptions, such as the local perception and management of time, could

be crucial for the local long-term viability of a project or policy.

Orlove certainly did not forget. With this book he has constructed an unfor-

gettable memoir about the appreciation of the Titicaca livelihood for readers

from anthropology and beyond.

REFERENCES

Gil, Vladimir. 1995. La adaptacin al riesgo agro-climtico en tres comunidades altiplnicas.

Thesis to obtain the Licenciatura degree in Social Sciences with emphasis in Anthropology.

Lima: Catholic University of Peru.

Orlove, Benjamin. 1977.Alpacas, sheep and men: the wool export economy and regional soci-

ety in southern Peru. New York: Academic Press.

________. 1986. An examination of barter and cash sale in Lake Titicaca. Current Anthropology

27 (2): 85-106.

________. 1995. In my fathers study. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Orlove, Benjamin and Stephen Brush. 1996. Anthropology and the conservation of biodi-

versity.Annual Review of Anthropology25:329-352

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