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Petty Capitalists and Globalization
Globalization is often seen as driven by large corporations and supranational organizations. Enterprises operated by petty capitalists may be small, but there is nothing petty about their significance for the operation of economies or our understanding of contemporary societies, families, and localities. Petty Capitalism and Globalization uses ethnographic research to examine how small firms in Europe, Asia, and Latin America have been compelled to operate and compete in a fast-moving transnational economic environment. From Nepalese rug makers to German bakers to Taiwanese memory chip designers, these fascinating case studies delve into the complex situation of petty capitalists, often ambiguously situated between capital and labor, cooperation and exploitation, family and economy, tradition and modernity, friends and competitors. Understanding the position of petty capitalists in a global economy provides lessons in the potential and limitations of promoting small firms and entrepreneurship as a route to sustainable development.
Posthumanism
Designed to explain posthumanism to those outside of academia, this brief and accessible book makes an original argument about anthropology's legacy as a study of "more than human." Smart and Smart return to the holism of classic ethnographies where cattle, pigs, yams, and sorcerers were central to the lives that were narrated by anthropologists, but they extend the discussion to include contemporary issues like microbiomes, the Anthropocene, and nano-machines, which take holism beyond locally bounded spaces. They outline what a holism without boundaries could look like, and what anthropology could offer to the knowledge of more-than-human nature in the past, present, and future.
Corruption and the Secret of Law
This volume presents an anthropological perspective on the hidden continuities between corruption and law. The authors argue that the two opposites, corruption and law, are inextricably linked - with the possibility of the former already inscribed into the latter. Taking a critical stance towards the normative good governance agenda spearheaded by institutions such as Transparency International and the World Bank, this volume argues that by uncritically depicting corruption as an absolute evil, these anti-corruption programs disregard the close relationship that exists between corruption and state power. Addressing various aspects of a complex and ambivalent phenomenon, Corruption and the Secret of Law draws on studies from different parts of the world including Burundi, China, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico and the USA and provides a valuable resource for students, researchers and policy-makers working in this area.
Norms and Illegality
Norms and Illegality: Intimate Ethnographies and Politics explores liminal and illegal practices in relation to political control and cultural normativity. The contributors draw on years of ethnographic experiences in Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Italy, Madagascar, Mali, Philippines, and Thailand to study the contradictions of what is legal and illegal. They explore the production of illegal subjects by the state, the creation of illegal and normative values by liminal and illegal actors, and the mutual entanglements of legal and illegal in the public domains of markets and trade networks. This volume shows that criminalization policies are not necessarily oriented toward erasing crime. Ins...
China Urbanizing
China turned majority urban only in the recent decade, a dramatic leap given that less than 20 percent of its population lived in cities before 1980. This book situates China’s urbanization in the interconnected forces of historical legacies, contemporary state interventions, and human and ecological conditions. It captures the complexity of the phenomenon of urbanization in its historical and regional variations, and explores its impact on the country’s socioeconomic welfare, environment and resources, urban form and lifestyle, and population and health. It is also a book about China, in which the contributors provide new perspectives to understand the transitions underway and the gravi...
Anxious Wealth
An ethnographic study of China’s new elites and their rarified world of debauchery and corruption: “A must have book for China studies” (Choice). This pioneering investigation reveals the private lives—and the nightlives—of the powerful entrepreneurs and managers redefining success and status in the Chinese city of Chengdu. For more than three years, anthropologist John Osburg accompanied wealthy Chinese businessmen as they courted clients, partners, and government officials. Now he invites readers along on his journey through the highly gendered world of luxury karaoke clubs, saunas, and massage parlors—places designed to cater to the desires of elite men. Within these spaces, a...
Historicizing Canadian Anthropology
Historicizing Canadian Anthropology is the first significant examination of the historical development of anthropological study in this country. It addresses key issues in the evolution of the discipline: the shaping influence of Aboriginal-anthropological encounters; the challenge of compiling a history for the Canadian context; and the place of international and institutional relations. The contributors to this collection reflect on the definition and scope of the discipline and explore the degree to which a uniquely Canadian tradition affects anthropological theory, practice, and reflexivity.
Like an Animal: Critical Animal Studies Approaches to Borders, Displacement, and Othering
Like an Animal features a number of relevant critical animal studies scholars providing theoretical and empirical accounts on the intersection of border politics, displacement and nonhuman animals.
Going First Class?
People travel as never before. However, anthropological research has tended to focus primarily on either labor migration or on tourism. In contrast, this collection of essays explores a diversity of circumstances and impetuses towards contemporary mobility. It ranges from expatriates to peripatetic professionals to middle class migrants in search of extended educational and career opportunities to people seeking self development through travel, either by moving after retirement or visiting educational retreats. These situations, however, converge in the significant resources, variously of finances, time, credentials or skills, which these voyagers are able to call on in embarking on their respective journeys. Accordingly, this volume seeks to tease out the scope and implications of the relatively privileged circumstances under which these voyages are being undertaken.
Comparative Approaches to Informal Housing Around the Globe
Comparative Approaches to Informal Housing Around the Globe brings together historians, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, urban planners and political activists to break new ground in the globalisation of knowledge about informal housing. Providing both methodological reflections and practical examples, they compare informal settlements, unauthorised occupation of flats, illegal housing construction and political squatting in different regions of the world. Subjects covered include squatter settlements in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, squatting activism in Brazil and Spain, right-wing squatting in Germany, planning laws and informality across countries in the Global North, and squatting in post-Second World War UK and Australia.
