Oh! Re: Outskirters... I forgot, because I was not sure how to be reading them. I think I was seeing them as an amalgamation of various nomadic tribes, both European and non-, but there's the fact that they do walkabout that was extremely confusing to me. AFAIK, that's a specifically Indigenous Australian thing. Also, there's the bit about Face People cannibalism, which of course is not limited to POC but tends to signal the stereotype of the scary cannibal savage POC hordes to me.
I... don't think Rowan pushes it too much, which is why the books are still just slightly nidgy to me and not "ARGH!!!" And I do like that Kirstein points out that it doesn't just discomfit Bel; Bel outright rejects it (and there's a line saying Rowan pursues it, too caught up to worry about insulting her friend). Ditto with Rowan copying down all the names in Efraim's line and Bel being very disapproving of that. Rowan doesn't bring it up after that, but... nidgy.
I think there's also just that there is no case of people outright refusing to tell Rowan something. Rowan isn't the type who would push them to, as evidenced in the book, and I see it as an idealized form of the anthropologist interacting with the "natives," in which she wins their trust. And I know it's not the story Kirstein is writing, but it feels like there is a lack of stories in the SF I've read (which is very little, so feel free to contradict) about a scientist/anthropologist type who goes in to find out things about an alien culture and gets rejected, as it happens in RL.
Hrm. I have thought a little about spreading knowledge, but not as much. Mostly I was thinking of it in terms of the article on un-inventing the atomic bomb and the diffusion of knowledge, how so far we've touched more on anthropological discovery and less on actively hurtful discovery. It'll be interesting to read in the fourth book!
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I... don't think Rowan pushes it too much, which is why the books are still just slightly nidgy to me and not "ARGH!!!" And I do like that Kirstein points out that it doesn't just discomfit Bel; Bel outright rejects it (and there's a line saying Rowan pursues it, too caught up to worry about insulting her friend). Ditto with Rowan copying down all the names in Efraim's line and Bel being very disapproving of that. Rowan doesn't bring it up after that, but... nidgy.
I think there's also just that there is no case of people outright refusing to tell Rowan something. Rowan isn't the type who would push them to, as evidenced in the book, and I see it as an idealized form of the anthropologist interacting with the "natives," in which she wins their trust. And I know it's not the story Kirstein is writing, but it feels like there is a lack of stories in the SF I've read (which is very little, so feel free to contradict) about a scientist/anthropologist type who goes in to find out things about an alien culture and gets rejected, as it happens in RL.
Hrm. I have thought a little about spreading knowledge, but not as much. Mostly I was thinking of it in terms of the article on un-inventing the atomic bomb and the diffusion of knowledge, how so far we've touched more on anthropological discovery and less on actively hurtful discovery. It'll be interesting to read in the fourth book!