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Book Review
| Dirt: Filth and Decay in a New World Arcadia. By Pamela Wood (Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2005, pb, ISBN 1-86940-348-7, $49.99) 272pp.
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| Do not let the title and subject matter put you off this intriguing book. In nine packed chapters, enlivened by superbly captioned contemporary photographs, cartoons, and drawings, Pamela Wood tells a sweeping tale of colonial dirt, defilement, miasma, mud, and excrement. Her narrative sheds light on a whole host of colonial problems and preoccupations, traversing issues far beyond those of public health, town planning, and the lurking dangers of moral depravity that so obsessed colonial settlers. Focussing on Dunedin, New Zealand's largest and most industrialised city for much of the nineteenth century, Wood is careful to put her case study in a wider context, making useful comparisons with other New Zealand and Australian cities, and the contemporary benchmark for settlers of Britain—the Old World and its attendant evils that they thought they had improved upon. Justifying her choice of topic, Wood makes the point that dirt has usually played a contextualising role to other themes, such as urbanisation and public health, whereas she aimed to put it centre stage, 'so that all its forms could be explored, as well as its connection with sanitation, public health and municipal governance' (p. vii). Explaining that hers is both a social and a cultural history, she is interested in 'how colonial settlers defined dirt, how they thought about it and what part it played in their vision and realisation of a New World settlement' (p. vii). |
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While much of the story she tells is familiar in its broad outlines, her focus on symbols, meanings, and attitudes is novel, at least in the New Zealand context. Just what actually dirt, or matter out of place, was, how people viewed it and argued over it, and how these ideas changed over time, form the core of the book. Along the way we learn much about settler lives and livelihoods: how settlers travelled to and from their huts before roads were formed; how their clothes stood up to thigh-deep mud, dust, a very changeable climate, and settlers charged with 'furious' riding; where they put all their waste and sewage; the fights over where factories and cemeteries should be built; the long campaign for public toilets for women (men got theirs rapidly because of the problem of flax-bush abuse!); the provision of public baths, especially when so many houses had no amenities for private ablutions; and the public fulminating about Dunedin's 'slumland.' Wood has a wonderful ear and eye for the telling anecdote and the apt metaphor. Dunedin's problems sound both strange and yet also familiar in the light of current issues around waste disposal, sustainability, and public versus community responsibility. She also pays due attention to the public bodies charged with the regulation and surveillance of dirt and waste, the men who ran them, and the doctors and inspectors who had to carry out their instructions, often in the face of hostile individuals. |
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Wood structures her book thematically, moving from general ideas and practices around health and habitat through mud, poisons and excrement, to public matters and sanitarian surveillance, including slums, hospitals, and cemeteries. This means a certain amount of repetition and backtracking to remind the reader of key markers of change, such as the 1860s goldrushes, the key public inquiries that frame her book, and the changes in the city more generally over time. The conclusion is very necessary to put her discussion in a meaningful chronological order. Dirt as a subject is potentially unlimited, and Wood sets clear limits, but by the end I was also feeling a little overwhelmed with all the detail given, wonderful as it is. |
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It is only in the latter stages that key questions about her sources are raised directly. In her discussion of the reportage of slums, Wood makes the point on p. 182 that it is difficult to tell whether the descriptions were exaggerated and distorted for effect, and yet this could apply to many of the wide range of sources she uses. Similarly, she notes in her conclusion that 'Dunedin residents were perversely reluctant to relinquish their own town's reputation for worrisome sickness associated with filth' (pp. 221-2). While her reading of the sources and literature is always careful and nuanced, the 'cultural' in this cultural history needs some more teasing out. Dunedin's reporters and reverends, as in many Victorian cities, were journeying to the seedy parts of their city, to capture 'real' stories, which would shock and titillate their readers and congregations, and galvanise them into action. Wood's discussion of linguistic devices and tropes is useful but she could have gone further, especially considering all the studies of these endeavours now available. |
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As Wood shows, it is not only sex that Victorians were publicly obsessed about. Excrement and its disposal was also a preoccupation, as were public amenities, how the poor should live, management of bodily boundaries, obtaining unadulterated food, city reputations, and tenacious notions about Dunedin as Arcadia. The discovery of germs and microbes amidst changing scientific notions of dirt, sickness, and health are played out here too. The connectedness of Dunedin's citizens to international ideas and practices is clear, as comments, proposals, and examples from other countries were frequently proffered in the city's newspapers and from its medical men and sanitary officers. This stimulating book deserves a wide readership. |
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| Bronwyn Labrum
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| Massey University – Wellington, New Zealand |
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