Lima certainly is a city full of contradictions. Well aware of this, the anthropologist Daniella Gandolfo's book The City at its Limits: Taboo, Transgression, and Urban Renewal in Lima offers some useful ideas on how to make sense of its complex urban realities. She presents an anthropological study of her home town, to which she is returning after several years abroad. Her overarching research interest is to understand how social distance in Lima is defined and regulated through the relationship to and management of space. She is analysing how the relationship of the Limeños to their city and its history is redefined ‘through ideas of cleanliness, order and beauty’ (p. 33).

While the book touches on many different issues, its central objective is to interpret one particular incident that occurred during a demonstration of street cleaners in the historic city centre of Lima in 1996. The workers were protesting against being laid off without adequate compensation after the municipal agency for trash collection was privatised. The privatisation was initiated by then-Mayor Andrade and coincided with the neoliberal political agenda of the Fujimori government. Unexpectedly, several women stripped naked in public during the protest march. Much of the media depicted the protests as violent outbursts of a ‘lumpen proletariat’ rather than a legitimate instrument during a labour struggle. The story laid out here focuses on Roberta, one of those involved. According to the author, the awkward reaction of the police force and the onlookers, as well as the subsequent news coverage, suggests that – following the arguments developed by French scientist Georges Bataille – the incident might represent a ‘transgression of a taboo’.

Gandolfo's approach is a personal one. She exclaims: ‘How can I … explain the events I'm writing about here if my interest in the events themselves and my need for an explanation of them could be said to explain me?’ (p. 109). In order to explain the incident she uses three intertwined thematic threads: analysis of the relationship between taboo and transgression as elaborated by Bataille; framing the analysis by presenting the urban and socio-political context; and reflection on returning to her home town of Lima.

First, she draws on Georges Bataille's work on the relationship between taboo and transgression. Bataille argues that during the evolutionary transition from nature (animal) to culture (human being), mankind has increasingly negated its animal origin. Taboos are a particular outcome of this process. They are used to distinguish mankind from animals and eventually contribute to the emergence of social divisions. Taboos form a dialectic relationship with ‘transgression’. The rare moment of the transgression of a taboo represents a so-called sovereign action. In order to understand the meaning of public nudity/stripping as a form of female protest, Gandolfo draws on examples from other regions of the world before elaborating on the historic evolution of clothing customs in Peru. She asks: ‘If … clothing helps turn individuals into social beings and the act of unclothing strips them of their personhood, under what circumstances does public nudity … become an act of aggression against society?’ (p. 207). She continues to think about the relationship between transgression and politics, or rather, the advantages and limitations of using transgression as a means to political ends: ‘The violation of a taboo is shocking (that is, effective) insofar as it is an extraordinary breach of an ordinary rule’ (p. 212).

Secondly, Gandolfo discusses the larger socio-political context of the increasingly corrupt and authoritarian Fujimori government (1990–2000) as well as the urban renewal efforts that took place during the term of Mayor Andrade (1996–2002). From the early 1990s onwards and fuelled by the political climate of the Fujimori years, Lima experienced a profound urban transformation. Through literature review and personal observations, Gandolfo comments on past and present urban development processes in Lima throughout the book. Andrade initiated an ambitious urban renewal campaign with the aim of reclaiming the historic city centre from physical decay, dirt, crime and the thousands of informal street vendors that had appropriated its public space. The author criticises the ideals guiding these efforts as reactionary and inappropriate for the contemporary city. Andrade's efforts were strongly constrained by Fujimori, who considered him a potential political rival. The eventual failure of the project demonstrates the discrepancies between Lima's attempted representation and the reality of ongoing physical decay and concentrated inner-city poverty.

Finally, Gandolfo reflects on returning home after several years. She realises that ‘truly returning is impossible’ (p. 177), which evokes a feeling of uneasiness. Through her friend Manolo, who is in a similar situation of temporary return, she succeeds in showing this ambivalence. While there is melancholy associated with the realisation of having somehow lost the key to her home context, it is obvious that the author's stay abroad has also broadened her perspective and enabled her to reflect on the issues in more depth. She uses encounters and discussions with family members, friends and strangers to reflect on the practice of taboo-setting, even if this means revealing private and intimate details about her family, such as her mother's plastic surgeries or the discovery of an old family secret.

The book is ordered into four chapters – entitled ‘Taboo’, ‘Beauty’, ‘Filth’ and ‘Nakedness’ – predominantly dealing with the theoretical reflections of her analysis, followed each by four chapters presenting field diary entries. The diary entries are used not only to illustrate the research progress, but also to describe personal encounters and experiences. The choice of the diary form is informed by Peruvian anthropologist and novelist José María Arguedas, who in his work on the social transition in Peru reflected on his personal position in the research process.

The City at its Limits is an ambitious and rewarding book that touches on a whole range of topics in order to understand the meaning of the incident at its centre. The book benefits from a clever structure which skilfully links the intellectual discussion with personal experiences and social urban commentary. For the reader the result is a satisfaction sometimes associated with investigative journalism. Anyone already familiar with Lima will enjoy the many well-drafted examples of its urban reality, though knowledge of the Peruvian capital is not a prerequisite for enjoying the book. Even if we are ultimately left uncertain of whether Roberta's action actually constitutes the transgression of a taboo or only an outburst of ‘pure despair’, we will have absorbed enough insight along the way to make this a very convincing read. Highly recommended.