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How transgressions of the body's surface--dirt and undress in many forms--take on cultural, political, and moral value.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Dirt, Undress, and Difference: An IntroductionAdeline Masquelier
1. The Naked and the Nude: Historically Multiple Meanings of Oto (Undress) in Southeastern NigeriaMisty L. Bastian
2. Breasts, (Un)Dress, and Modernist Desires in the Balinese-Tourist EncounterMargaret Wiener
3. Body Talk: Revelations of Self and Body in Contemporary Strip ClubsKatherine Frank
4. The Naked Spirit: Disrobing, Deviance, and Dissent in Bori PossessionAdeline Masquelier
5. Japanese Bodies and Western Ways of Seeing in the Late Nineteenth CenturySatsuki Kawano
6. Purity and Conquest in the Anglo-Egyptian SudanJanice Boddy
7. Did You Bathe This Morning? Baths and Morality in BotswanaDeborah Durham
8. The Politics of Dirt and Gender: Body Techniques in Bengali IndiaSarah Lamb
9. Corrupted Alterities: Body Politics in the Time of the Iranian DiasporaJanet Bauer
List of Contributors
Index

About the Author

Adeline Masquelier is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University and author of Prayer Has Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger.

Reviews

"A magnificent volume! It offers brand new perspectives on body politics and identity or subjectivity formation in the post-colonial world." --Dorothy Ko, Barnard College