"Linger's book is a rare and exceptionally worthwhile treatment of the role played by violence in the lives of ordinary Brazilians. . . . Engagingly written, handsomely printed, with excellent photographs . . . and richly illustrated with several dozen interview statements that attain a life of their own, the book provides an indispensable analysis of the unwritten rules of Brazilian social intercourse. . . . A model study of use not only to specialists on Brazil."--Choice
"A fascinating and original study of violence in Brazilian popular culture. . . . It is difficult to do justice in a review of this length to the richness of Linger's book--the high quality of his writing, the way he illuminates Brazilian history and historiography, the 'thickness' of his ethnographic descriptions, and the intelligence of his theoretical discussions."--Bulletin of Latin American Research

Anthropology Through a Double Lens Public and Personal Worlds in Human Theory Daniel Touro Linger How can we hold both public and personal worlds in the eye of a unified theory of meaning? What ethnographic and theoretical possibilities do we create in the balance? "Anthropology Through a Double Lens" offers a theoretical framework encompassing both of these domains--a "double lens." Daniel Touro Linger argues that the literary turn in anthropology, which treats culture as text, has been a wrong turn. Cultural analysis of the interpretive or discursive variety, which focuses on public symbols, has difficulty seeing--much less dealing convincingly with--actual persons. While emphasizing the importance of social environments, Linger insists on equal sensitivity to the experiential immediacies of human lives. He develops a sustained critique of interpretive and discursive trends in contemporary anthropology, which have too strongly emphasized social determinism and public symbols while too readily dismissing psychological and biographical realities. "Anthropology Through a Double Lens" demonstrates the power of an alternative dual perspective through a blend of critical essays and ethnographic studies drawn from the author's field research in Sao Luis, a northeastern Brazilian state capital, and Toyota City, a Japanese factory town. To span the gap between the public and the personal, Linger provides a set of analytical tools that include the ideas of an arena of meaning, systems of systems, bridging theory, singular lives, and reflective consciousness. The tools open theoretical and ethnographic horizons for exploring the process of meaning-making, the force of symbolism and rhetoric, the politics of representation, and the propagation and formation of identities. Linger uses these tools to focus on key issues in current theoretical and philosophical debates across a host of disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, history, and the other human sciences.. Daniel Touro Linger is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of "No One Home: Brazilian Selves Remade in Japan" and "Dangerous Encounters: Meanings of Violence in a Brazilian City" 2005 248 pages 6 x 9 9 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-3857-0 Cloth $59.95s 39.00 ISBN 978-0-8122-0369-1 Ebook $59.95s 39.00 World Rights Anthropology Short copy: "Anthropology Through a Double Lens" calls for a renewed human theory that takes public and personal worlds seriously.

The movement of Brazilians of Japanese descent to Japan is one of the most intriguing transnational migrations of recent years. In 1990, seeking a supply of ethnically acceptable unskilled workers, Japan permitted overseas Japanese, along with their spouses and children, to enter the country as long-term residents. The prospect of high salaries eventually drew about 200,000 "nikkeis," as Brazilians of Japanese descent often call themselves, to Japan, making them Japan's third-largest minority group.
"No One Home" is an ethnographic study, based on fieldwork and extensive personal interviews, of nikkeis living in Toyota City. The migrants' dual identities coexist uneasily. The book focuses on how Brazilian factory workers and their children work through the problems arising from their ambiguous status. In Toyota City and environs, Brazilian men and women do hard, dirty, and dangerous physical labor in automobile-parts plants that supply Toyota Motors and other large automobile manufacturers. Japanese schools confront their children with an array of cultural, linguistic, educational, and personal obstacles. In the immediacies of the shop floor, classroom, and their leisure activities, nikkeis remake in Japan selves they had forged as citizens of Brazil, a process that is dynamic, varied, and unpredictable.
The book complements the recent literature on transnationalism in several important respects. While recognizing the influence of global economics and media, it emphasizes how transnationalism is "lived." It highlights people's experiences rather than the conditions of those experiences, and examines their senses of self rather than identity constructs. Instead of treating neighbors and interviewees as members of social categories, the author explores personal realms--the rich, complex, idiosyncratic selves nikkeis continually refashion during their sojourn in Japan. Overall, he underlines the significance of consciousness, experience, and biography for comprehensive studies of transnationalism and identity.

This book examines violence in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, looking at two conceptually linked forms of perilous face-to-fact encounters: Carnival, a bacchanalian festival, and briga, a potentially lethal street confrontation.

The movement of Brazilians of Japanese descent to Japan is one of the most intriguing transnational migrations of recent years. In 1990, seeking a supply of ethnically acceptable unskilled workers, Japan permitted overseas Japanese, along with their spouses and children, to enter the country as long-term residents. The prospect of high salaries eventually drew about 200,000 "nikkeis," as Brazilians of Japanese descent often call themselves, to Japan, making them Japan's third-largest minority group.
"No One Home" is an ethnographic study, based on fieldwork and extensive personal interviews, of nikkeis living in Toyota City. The migrants' dual identities coexist uneasily. The book focuses on how Brazilian factory workers and their children work through the problems arising from their ambiguous status. In Toyota City and environs, Brazilian men and women do hard, dirty, and dangerous physical labor in automobile-parts plants that supply Toyota Motors and other large automobile manufacturers. Japanese schools confront their children with an array of cultural, linguistic, educational, and personal obstacles. In the immediacies of the shop floor, classroom, and their leisure activities, nikkeis remake in Japan selves they had forged as citizens of Brazil, a process that is dynamic, varied, and unpredictable.
The book complements the recent literature on transnationalism in several important respects. While recognizing the influence of global economics and media, it emphasizes how transnationalism is "lived." It highlights people's experiences rather than the conditions of those experiences, and examines their senses of self rather than identity constructs. Instead of treating neighbors and interviewees as members of social categories, the author explores personal realms--the rich, complex, idiosyncratic selves nikkeis continually refashion during their sojourn in Japan. Overall, he underlines the significance of consciousness, experience, and biography for comprehensive studies of transnationalism and identity.