Much of the literature on “first encounters” is one-sided: it reveals our own preoccupations, but only rarely considers whether our questions are also theirs. In the Forest does not fall into this category. The book, authored by Vishvajit Pandya, a well-known expert on the Andaman Islands, is based on more than two decades of research and professional engagement with the different groups that inhabit them. Richly detailed yet broad in scope, the book combines an impressive array of archival and ethnographic source material, the density of which enables Pandya to productively revisit old questions and to pose important new ones regarding successive “contact events.” Particular emphasis is placed on the multiple ways in which Andaman Islanders have experienced and interpreted these events, as well as the roles both play in how they represent themselves to one another as well as strategically re-present themselves outsiders.
These concerns inform the overall structure...
