Globalization from Below

This book explores globalization as actually experienced by most of the world’s people, buying goods from street vendors brought by traders moving past borders and across continents under the radar of the law. The dimensions and practices of ‘globalization from below’ are depicted and analyzed in detail by a team of international scholars. Topics covered include the ‘New Silk Road’, African traders in China, street hawking in Calcutta and pirate CDs in Mexico. The chapters provide intimate portrayals of routes, markets and people in locations across the globe and explore theories that can help make sense of these complex and fascinating case studies. Students of globalization, economic anthropology and developing-world economics will find the book invaluable.

Gordon Mathews is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket (2000) and Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong (2011).

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Brasilia and Research Fellow of Brazil’s National Council of Scientific and Technological Development. He has written Transnational Capitalism and Hydropolitics in Argentina (1994) and edited (with Arturo Escobar) World Anthropologies (2006).

Carlos Alba Vega is Professor and Researcher at El Colegio de Mexico. He has been a visiting fellow in universities in Mexico, France, Germany and the United States.