Selves in Time and Place is a collection of essays by Himalayan area anthropologists that attempts to integrate various perspectives on human agency, history, and experience into “a practice theory of the self” (p. 4). These essays contribute important insights into human selfhood based on the authors’ ethnographic field research and experiences. Many of the essays have been published previously (those by Mary Des Chene, Todd Lewis, Stan Mumford, Sherry Ortner, Steve Parish, Debra Skinner, and Dorothy Holland). Those essays are reconfigured with heretofore unpublished contributions into a coherent collection, enabling readers to rethink the older material in terms of history and agency from widely diverse niches of Nepal.

The editors divide the volume loosely into three thematic parts, focusing on experiences of selves, cultural identity, and political identity formation. In part 1, “Personal Trajectories," the contributions by Des Chene, Parish, Skinner and Holland, and Alfred Pach focus on the socioculturally mediated abilities of Nepali men and women to act in the face of various social and political constraints. These narratives tend to consider agency as a synonym for resistance, as the actors resist patriarchies (Des Chene, and Skinner and Holland) and state-sanctioned Hindu social hierarchy (Parish). Such narratives of oppositional agency contain rich ethnographic substance illustrating how women and low castes, as subalterns, assert their own political agendas and interests. For example, Parish’s essay on narrative subversions of caste hierarchy details how Newar occupational castes such as butchers emphasize a moral standard of human equality that ideally should triumph over Hindu caste codes of social hierarchy. Yet subalterns’ narratives of social hierarchies do not simply invert the powerfully entrenched realities of social caste but, instead, represent nuanced utopian alternatives. For example, subaltern groups may simultaneously contest “closed” hierarchies yet validate “open” systems of hierarchy in which low castes may have a chance of upward social mobility. Parish notes that some members of low castes remark bitterly that “power, wealth, and knowledge are held by some, and not by others” (p. 68). It would have been informative to read more about the pragmatics of these narratives as fragments of liberation ideologies, especially about how untouchables act out their frustrations through political demonstrations or other forms of political resistance.

In part 2, “Cultural Production of Identity,” contributions by Mark Liechty, Ernestine McHugh, Mumford, Premalata Ghimire, and Kathryn March revolve around notions of identity and its construction. Each essay in this set can be read alone, as they thematically intersect only loosely. Each, however, is wonderfully full of ethnographic details and contains interesting theoretical perspectives on identity. For example, Liechty argues that Kathmandu's middle classes must delve "ever deeper into consumer values" to maintain their social position in contemporary Nepalese society. In support of his argument, he collects numerous historical pieces of material evidence that indicate Nepalese fascination with things English and occidental, demonstrated by his ethnographic subjects’ interests in various consumer goods and ideas. Although at times the essay reads as too subjectively interpreted through his own lived experience as an American, overall Leichty brings together rich ethnographic details and insightful perspectives on the growing problems of consumerism in Kathmandu.

Perhaps the most distinctive contribution in part 2 comes from Premalata Ghimire. Ghimire writes about the Hod (alt., Hor, Santal, Santhal, Satar), an Austro-Asiatic-speaking post-foraging society of southern Nepal. The Hod have developed a creative way of maintaining their distinct ethnic identity as a group in the face of enormous pressure to assimilate into the underclasses of Nepalese society. Although marriage and descent normally are determined among the Hod on the basis of their patrilineal kinship system, when Hod women marry exogamously with Hindu caste men or when they give birth after involvement in illicit exogamous affairs, their children have the opportunity to be incorporated into the Hod ethnic group through matrilineal recognition of Hod ethnicity. Of all the essays in the collection, Ghirmire's is one of the most important because it uses detailed ethnographic information toward understanding the dynamics of identity preservation among people who face daily challenges to their human rights and cultural autonomy.

In part 3, “Politicized Selves,” Ortner, Elizabeth Enslin, and Lewis round out the volume with essays devoted to the political dimensions of agency and selfhood. Lewis's essay is interesting, for example, for its historiographic rendering of a young children's book, called Jhi Macaa ("Our Child"), written by the Newar author Chittadhar Hridaya. In his essay, Lewis portrays Newars as having experienced submission to the Hindu hegemonic state through prohibitions of Newar cultural expressions, including laws against use of the Newar language, banning of Newar religious associations, and restrictions on gift exchange in marriage ceremonies. Lewis describes how the writing and publishing of Hridaya’s book, which the author penned while in prison, championed Newar traditions while simultaneously acknowledging the de facto multiethnicity of the modern Nepalese state. Whereas Lewis's rendering of how this Newar children's book fits into a larger picture of ethnopolitics is laudable, his conclusion takes a somewhat overambitious direction, as he ponders economic and ecological stagnation in the Kathmandu Valley and the impact of global mass media on Newar youth. As a reader, I was interested in a more direct connection between the chapter topic and its ramifications, for example, exploring how contemporary Newar families incorporate Newar children’s literature into their children’s early social and political identity formation. Nevertheless, the essay makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the political dimensions of Newar cultural identities, and it sheds further light on the impact of repressive laws that limited Newar cultural expression.

The volume concludes with an afterword by Robert Levy that aptly sums up and suggests trajectories for further contemplation. Levy writes, "The conditions of life in Nepal, as the chapters vividly suggest, are the sorts of conditions which cause a kind of hypertrophy of the 'I'" (p. 328). Broadly, this volume represents a vision of selfhood that enables its authors to interpret theories of self in diverse ways and ultimately allows a subjectively valid rendering of individual lives as social action. There is much here for specialists of many kinds, including those interested in comparative psychology, Asian studies, South Asian modern history, ethnopolitics, indigenous human rights, religion and politics, and contemporary cultural change. Selves in Time and Place is a valuable contribution to the literature on identity, agency, and personhood.