Reviewed by: Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival Andrew R. Martin Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival. Edited by Garth L. Green and Philip W. Scher. Bloomington: Indiana Uni versity Press, 2007. [x, 254 p. ISBN-10 0253348234; ISBN-13 9780253348234. $60.] Illustrations, references, index. Errol Hill's The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), and an issue of the Caribbean Quarterly (4, nos. 3–4 [1956]) devoted entirely to the Trinidad carnival, are perhaps the two primary sources providing the foundation for a significant amount of carnival scholarship. Accordingly, Garth L. Green and Philip W. Scher's Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of A Trans national Festival pays homage to these studies, suggesting in the acknowledgements that this collection is in fact a fiftieth-year celebration of the 1956 Caribbean Quarterly special issue. A welcome addition to the catalog of globalization studies within the Caribbean diaspora, in this collection Green and Scher, citing the advanced nature of the carnival's unique hybridity, offer several nuanced readings of globalization placing special emphasis on carnival as a historical product. Moreover, the essays in the collection approach and situate carnivals (in Trinidad, New York, Toronto, Aruba, and others) "within migration patterns, diverse forms of colonialist discourse, forms of cultural resistance, and desires for cultural recognition" (p. 2). Green and Scher carefully selected essays for this collection that reflect the identity crisis within the parent Trinidadian carnival, while paying special attention to the transnationalism of the offspring carnivals spread throughout the globe. Broadly conceived, this collection initiates a discussion of how the ideology of national cultural forms is affected locally by global forces. Moreover, this essay collection examines the process by which carnival fosters and adapts to the changing nature of Caribbeaness on a global scale. A fine example of reading carnival as a contemporary creation of a historical past, the first essay, "The Invention of Tradi tional Mas and Politics of Gender," by Pamela R. Franco, offers an argument for understanding the current role of women within the contemporary Trinidad carnival. Since the 1960s, female participants in carnival parades, calypso tents, and steel bands have steadily increased in number, while the actual number of carnival characters has steadily decreased. Franco argues that construction of traditional mas, as formulated by Daniel Crowley in the 1956 Caribbean Quarterly, is male-centric, afro-centric, and increasingly problematic for positing an understanding of female dominated contemporary carnival. Moreover, Franco explores the contemporary notion of "femininity as inauthentic" by exploring the 1950s Trinidadian nationalist movement that adopted this new understanding of traditional mas. Anthropologist and carnival participant Patricia A. De Freitas embodies a unique perspective when approaching carnival studies. Her essay, "The Masquerader Anthropologist: the Poetics and Politics of Studying Carnival," raises many interesting questions about who, the insider or the outsider, is best suited for carnival study. Moreover, De Freitas suggests that "the contest over representation is both about 'politics' and 'poetics,' about who has the authority, both politically and epistemologically, to study and represent Carnival" (p. 52). Throughout this personal essay, De Freitas insists on detaching the native from the insider and the anthropologist from the outsider, arguing that position is [End Page 761] irrelevant so long as the perspective is reflective. However, De Freitas appears to take sides in the matter, warning anthropologists to question the purpose and motivations of their research, suggesting that perhaps the most well-qualified agent is a Trinidadian anthropologist—one able to express carnival from the inside-out. Co-editor Garth L. Green supplies the third essay in the collection, "Authenticity, Commerce, and Nostalgia in the Trinidad Carnival." Green argues that the forms of nostalgia, in this instance Kathleen Stewart's concept of hegemonic nostalgia, are influenced by political and economic agendas of persons of "cultural authority" (p. 64). Members of the government, carnival directors, and tourism industry officials often attempt to control interpretations of Trinidad carnival, and Green discusses the political nature and implications that inform carnival representations. Green employs two unique case studies as the basis of his essay. The first is special carnival competition devoted to traditional characters called the Veiy La Cou...