Life in Traffic (Hardcover)

Ruth E. Goldstein

ISBN 10: 0520427343 / ISBN 13: 9780520427341

Published by University of California Press, Berkerley, 2026

About this Item

Hardcover. In the year 2000, the presidents of Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia agreed to construct the Interoceanic Highway as part of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America. Instead of bringing the promised economic benefits to the shared triple-frontier Amazonian region, the highway facilitated trade in extracted natural resources, as well as a traffic in women. Centering "traffic" as both an analytic and a method, Ruth E. Goldstein argues that projects like this 3,500-mile highway have deeply gendered effects, reorganizing political economies of sex, nature, kinship, and care. Life in Traffic underscores how markets for women, plants, and gold are not just intersecting phenomena but historically co-constituted economies. Amazonian extractive industries, too, have global ramifications for a warming planet: as rainforests disappear, so do the oxygen-creating, carbon-sequestering, and life-sustaining abilities of Earth, known to many as Mother. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780520427341

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Life in Traffic (Hardcover)
• Publisher: University of California Press, Berkerley
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520427343
• ISBN 13: 9780520427341
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In the year 2000, the presidents of Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia agreed to construct the Interoceanic Highway as part of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America. Instead of bringing the promised economic benefits to the shared triple-frontier Amazonian region, the highway facilitated trade in extracted natural resources as well as a traffic in women. Centering "traffic" as both an analytic and a method, Ruth E. Goldstein argues that projects like this 3,500-mile highway have deeply gendered effects, reorganizing political economies of sex, nature, kinship, and care. Life in Traffic underscores how markets for women, plants, and gold are not just intersecting phenomena but historically co-constituted economies. Amazonian extractive industries, too, have global ramifications for a warming planet: as rainforests disappear, so do the oxygen-creating, carbon-sequestering, and life-sustaining abilities of Mother Earth.

About the Author

Ruth E. Goldstein is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.