Transparency has, in recent years, become a watchword for good governance. Policymakers and analysts alike evaluate political and economic institutions courts, corporations, nation-states according to the transparency of their operating procedures. With the dawn of the New World Order and the mutual veil dropping of the post Cold War era, many have asserted that power in our contemporary world is more transparent than ever. Yet from the perspective of the relatively less privileged, the operation of power often appears opaque and unpredictable. Through vivid ethnographic analyses,...