958 american ethnologist in this chapter is Kerttula's account of her own participation in the sea mammal hunt, an activ- ity from which women are usually excluded. Finally, in chapters, Kerttula begins to develop a theory of identity and otherness that focuses on the symbolic valences of three key socially produced spaces: tundra, sea, and village. Kerttula has produced a straightforward, highly descriptive ethnography. In this very de- scriptiveness she falls short of her own stated goal to be "not just an observer but an analyzer as well" (p. 4). If ethnography is to transcend the disciplinary walls of anthropology, not to mention the ivory walls of academia, then an- thropologists must not only offer descriptions, they must also advance compelling arguments while vigorously building theory. Kerttula pro- vides all the ingredients for building a convinc- ing argument about the nature of collective identity under conditions of racially charged economic domination, but they remain scat- tered incoherently among her chapters. A key problem is her failure to state a thesis at the out- set. The clearest articulation of something like a thesis comes in the final paragraph of the final full chapter when Kerttula states that she sees ethnic conflicts not as expressions of ancient ri- valries but as attempts by Yup'iks, Chukchis, and Newcomers to understand one another in a time of change. A similar structural problem is found within each of the chapters, which lack concluding summaries that draw out those elements of Kerttula's descriptive discus- sions that might support a thesis. She comes closest to a conclusion in chapter 4 when argu- ing that the informal economy provided Yup'ik and Chukchi the space in which to reproduce their own cultures. Kerttula could have strengthened her ethnography through a more consistent reiteration of such themes in each chapter. 1 have a few minor technical critiques. Data collected by Kerttula would have been more powerful if presented in tabular form (for ex- ample, marriage data in chapter 2, and eco- nomic and labor data in chapter 4). The index could have been improved with the inclusion of proper names as well as key phrases used re- peatedly by Kerttula, such as "cultural appro- priateness" (which Kerttula could have better defined). In spite of all criticism, Antler on the Sea is an excellent introduction to the ethnography ot the Russian Far East. Kerttula's writing style is fluid, her attitude is respectful, and she has captured a pivotal moment in the history of a remarkable region. Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Repro- duction in House Societies. Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie,eds. Philadelphia: Uni- versity of Philadelphia Press, 2000. 280 pp., maps, figures, notes, references, index. STEPHEN HUGH-JONES Cambridge University Anthropologists have grown increasingly dissatisfied with established analytic catego- ries that artificially circumscribe institutional fields and squeeze live ethnography into con- straining typologies suffused with the presup- positions of the analyst's own culture. To miti- gate against this, anthropologists have recast their studies in terms of synthetic phenomena that give priority to indigenous concepts, high- light processes, and straddle the frontiers of tra- ditional disciplinary domains. Symptomatic of this trend, Beyond Kinship is the third anthol- ogy devoted to Claude Levi-Strauss's notion of the house to appear in just over a decade (join- ing volumes edited by Charles MacDonald, ed., De La Hutte Au Palaia: Societes 'a Maisons' en Asie du Sud-Est Insulaire, Editions du CNRS, 1987, and Janet Carsten and Stephen Hugh-Jones, eds. About the House: Levi-Strauss and Beyond, Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1995). Its title alludes to the "crisis in kinship studies" (p. 55) and suggests Levi- Strauss's notion of the house as a way forward. Once the bread-and-butter of undergraduate courses and an arena for professional displays of analytic prowess, kinship has withered un- der sustained critique—notably in the writings of David Schneider, as the contributor Sand- strom and Rosemary Joyce both note. Joyce goes on to draw attention to a suggestive con- vergence between Levi-Strauss's notion and Schneider's reanalysis of the Yap tabinau, which "clearly falls into the category of a house" (p. 192). There is a certain irony in all this. Levi- Strauss's original idea, lx>rrowed trom histori- cal accounts of European noble houses, might seem to have been intended less to get beyond kinship than to resolve some problems inher- ent in previous typological approaches that distinguished between incompatible principles such as descent and alliance, consanguinity and affinity, or exogamy and endogamy. In-