Gender and Generations Apart: labor tenants and customary law in segregation-era South Africa, 1920s to 1940s (review)

Abstract

problem, Walley argues, is that tourism developers are not only attracted to Mafia because of its ‘pristine’ environment, but also because labour is cheap. Wages in the tourism sector in developing countries can hardly ever replace income from other livelihood strategies. Interesting though this book is, a few critical remarks can be made. Each chapter starts with a theoretical introduction, and these sections disrupt the flow of the book somewhat; nor are they all up to date. Walley has a slight tendency to caricature her opponents in the debates she engages in. For instance, her rendition of globalization theories ignores the fact that many scholars before her have concluded that globalization is not new. The same applies to the presentation of the different views on the islands’ history and the concept of development. All earlier cautions about the need to acknowledge the heterogeneous character of ‘the state’ and international environmental/development organizations seem forgotten, and a coherent, simplistic view of development is ascribed to them. While the views of residents about tourism and the islands’ history are presented in quite personalized accounts, these are confronted with the views of anonymous, abstracted tourists. Not all ‘stakeholders’ are equally represented in the book. The voices we hear are mainly those of residents and the technical adviser. I can imagine that the Park Warden was less accessible, but Walley did have ample opportunities for discussions with the tourism developers, given that she was hosted by them. It would have been interesting to have some more detailed, less generalized, information about their views as well. Lastly, some of the comparisons of ‘Western’ and ‘local’ ideas of development are quite shallow – fewer versus more children, for example – though the contrast in religious ideas about the end of time is interesting. A lot has been written about anti-modernist discourses, not only in tourism, but also in conservation where there is a tendency to privilege ‘primitive’ indigenous peoples; references to this extensive literature are largely missing. Nevertheless, I recommend Walley’s book to anyone interested in community-based natural resource management, scholars and practitioners alike, as well as to anyone interested in the Swahili coast.