Hard Bargaining in Sumatra: Western Travelers and Toba Bataks in the Marketplace of Souvenirs (Southeast Asia) (Hardcover)

by Andrew Causey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Hard Bargaining in Sumatra is an artfully written and penetrating examination of interactions between Western travelers and Toba Batak wood carvers in the souvenir marketplaces of Samosir Island, North Sumatra. Toba Batak carvings, ranging from simple human figures of wood to elaborately engraved water buffalo horns, are described in tourist guidebooks and by Toba Batak vendors alike as "traditional" and "antique," despite many recent changes and inventions in form. This pathbreaking work investigates how notions of place and self are constructed by the travelers and the Bataks in the context of ethnic tourism. The author proposes that these interactions be understood in light of Louis Marin's concept of utopics, suggesting that tourist venues such as hotels and marketplaces are neutral spaces where both locals and visitors can act out behaviors that would ordinarily be constrained by their respective cultures.

The transformation of Toba Batak woodcarving is one result of such marketplace interactions. The Western tourist's desire for traditional art has encouraged Batak carvers to continue to make objects based on forms developed by their animist predecessors, the majority of whom converted to Christianity at the turn of the century. Toba Batak carving style, however, is far from static; artisans create innovative pieces that they frame within the same historically legitimizing narratives used for "traditional" objects. Tourists, seeking proof of their travels in representative icons of place, purchase both innovative and traditional forms, largely unaware of the difference.

Rich in ethnographic description and employing a lively narrative style, Hard Bargaining in Sumatra is essential reading for students and scholars with interests in anthropology, cultural studies, globalization and tourism research, art history, and identity studies.

About the Author
Andrew Causey is professor of anthropology at Columbia College Chicago.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press; illustrated edition edition (August 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824826264
• ISBN-13: 978-0824826260
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,105,507 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll never get this good a vacation by yourself, May 25, 2004

By	A.Carole (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hard Bargaining in Sumatra: Western Travelers and Toba Bataks in the Marketplace of Souvenirs (Southeast Asia) (Paperback)

Like most working stiffs, I save up for a big vacation to some far away land and when it finally happens I get shuffled around from one tourist spot to the next. The culture presents itself for purchase and I buy.

"Hard Bargaining in Sumatra" isn't just a book by an affable scholar. It immediately took me into the home of a very different family, sat me on a 'fancy mat' and amused me with a narrative by the author to his Toba Batak friends. He told a story for their entertainment that might easily have described my own hapless first experience in an exotic culture. The family's reaction and the unfolding details of their work in the woodcarving-for-tourists trade was a pleasure to read.

I was continuously surprised at how clearly Causey expressed complicated, seldom-analyzed notions of place and identity. The relationship between tourist and vacation spot is alive and dynamic in a way I'd never imagined. The author's struggle to learn the skills of the woodcarver gave extra dimension to my understanding of this traditional craft. The friendship between the student/researcher and the teacher/subject made the dynamics of the familial roles and societal obligations disarmingly vivid and personal. The book enriched my understanding of a distant culture to a degree I could never have achieved by hopping a plane and wandering their marketplaces. When I saw a Toba Batak carving at an art museum a few weeks later, I had a wealth of feelings and observations that would never have occurred to me before. For me, reading this book was like the best kind of vacation. I learned a lot, felt a connection to the people and culture, and enjoyed the process.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Reader-Friendly Scholarship, October 9, 2003

By	Lawrence E. Wilson (Mayfield, East Sussex, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hard Bargaining in Sumatra: Western Travelers and Toba Bataks in the Marketplace of Souvenirs (Southeast Asia) (Paperback)

This book is a true rarity--a work of serious scholarship, written in a user-friendly, personal, poetic, eminently-readable style. You'd almost be fooled into thinking you were reading a romantic travel narrative, one of those popular memoirs à la "Under the Tuscan Sun" where a naive American goes off and has a life-transforming experience while in a foreign land. But as Dr. Causey relates his tales of the months spent with the Toba Batak in their remote, beautiful homeland in northern Sumatra, learning something about their culture, something about woodcarving, and a LOT about shopping, he also unfolds a series of subtle, complex observations about aesthetics, about colonialism and acquisition, and about the role of tourists / collectors in a market economy and their effect as both destroyers and saviors of traditional culture. Absolutely fascinating stuff, and certainly not just for students of anthropology--this is a book that should be read by art historians as well as by economists, as well as by anyone who simply enjoys a well-written tale of a beautiful place that they've never been...

I particularly admire "Hard Bargaining" for the lack of any tang of cultural superiority on Dr. Causey's part--he never assumes that he knows more than the people he's observing, or that since he has a Ph.D., his observations must be considered correct. He went there; he lived, he learned, he shopped; and he thought about it, hard, and critically, comparing the Toba Batak culture to our own, and letting the reader make the judgement calls, not the anthropologist. Very well done!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful surprise and interesting book about Sumatra, October 27, 2003

By	Horst Kuder (Anaheim, California United States) - See all my reviews

A first rate work and a wonderful read. This book was delightful to read. Right from the beginning of the book, I was drawn in. It's clear this is a scholarly work, well researched and carefully detailed. As a reader of more casual literature, I was agreeably surprised at the superior writing style of the author. I thoroughly enjoyed the experiences and anecdotes throughout the whole book. Anyone who enjoys reading about other cultures and other places would definitely enjoy reading this book. I stayed up to 1:00 am one night reading it. I look forward with real anticipation to future works from this author.