Illicit Flows and Criminal Things offers a new perspective on illegal transnational linkages, international relations, and the transnational. The contributors argue for a nuanced approach that recognizes the difference between "organized" crime and the thousands of illicit acts that take place across national borders every day. They distinguish between the illegal (prohibited by law) and the illicit (socially perceived as unacceptable), which are historically changeable and contested. Detailed case studies of arms smuggling, illegal transnational migration, the global diamond trade,...

The innovative, multi-site Youth and the City Project examined the effects of globalization and neoliberalism on the everyday experiences and future prospects of urban youth in the developing world. The economic and demographic trends that are transforming cities and widening the gap between North and South are also making it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for young people to establish themselves as independent, self-sufficient adults in many parts of the world. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, Vietnam, and Zambia, this volume integrates youth studies with urban...

Made in Mexico introduces us to the people, places, and ideas that create Zapotec textiles and give them meaning. From Oaxaca, where guides escort tourists to weavers' homes and then to the shops and markets where weavings are sold, to the galleries and stores of the American Southwest, where textiles are displayed and purchased as home decor or ethnic artwork, W. Warner Wood's ethnographic account crosses the border in both directions to describe how the international market for Native American art shapes weavers' design choices. Everyone involved in this enterprise draws on images of...

For young men in urban Tanzania, barbershops are sites of the struggle to earn a living amid economic crisis. With names like Brooklyn Barber House and Boyz II Men, these workplaces are also nodes in an explosion of popular culture that appropriates images drawn from the global circulation of hip hop music, fashion, and celebrity. Street Dreams and Hip Hop Barbershops grapples with the implications of globalization and neoliberalism for urban youth in Africa today, exploring urban Tanzanians' complex, new ways of understanding their place in the world.

This book examines the stories that corporations tell about themselves-and explores the powerful influence of corporations in the transformation of cultural and social life. Six case studies draw on CEO memoirs, annual reports, management manuals, advertising campaigns, and other sources to analyze the self-representations and rhetorical maneuvers that corporations use to obscure the full extent of their power. Images of corporate character and responsibility are intertwined with the changes in local economy, politics, and culture wrought by globalization and neoliberalism. The...

Contract workers from the Philippines make up one of the world's largest movements of temporary labor migrants. Deirdre McKay follows Filipino migrants from one rural community to work sites overseas and then home again. Focusing on the experiences of individuals, McKay interrogates current approaches to globalization, multi-sited research, subjectivity, and the village itself. She shows that rather than weakening village ties, temporary labor migration gives the village a new global dimension created in and through the relationships, imaginations, and faith of its members in its potential...

Contract workers from the Philippines make up one of the world's largest movements of temporary labor migrants. Deirdre McKay follows Filipino migrants from one rural community to work sites overseas and then home again. Focusing on the experiences of individuals, McKay interrogates current approaches to globalization, multi-sited research, subjectivity, and the village itself. She shows that rather than weakening village ties, temporary labor migration gives the village a new global dimension created in and through the relationships, imaginations, and faith of its members in its potential...

Elizabeth Emma Ferry traces the movement of minerals as they circulate from Mexican mines to markets, museums, and private collections on both sides of the US-Mexico border. She describes how and why these byproducts of ore mining come to be valued by people in various walks of life as scientific specimens, religious offerings, works of art, and luxury collectibles. The story of mineral exploration and trade defines a variegated transnational space, shedding new light on the complex relationship between these two countries and on the process of making value itself.