Description
Book SynopsisA case study of economic development in Cairo that sheds light on issues of agency and empowerment in the age of neoliberal globalization
Trade Review“
Markets of Dispossession is a brilliant study of contemporary forms of market ideology and practice. Exploring central questions about value and social resources, debt and dispossession, culture and power, it offers an original and outstanding contribution to the anthropological analysis of the economic.”—Timothy Mitchell, author of
Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity“Ethnographically rich and analytically powerful,
Markets of Dispossession fundamentally reshapes the debate over the informal economy, microenterprise, and economic development and points to the complex and many-layered world-conjuring work of that which we have come to call neoliberalism. Based on evocative accounts of craftsmen’s workshops in Cairo, Julia Elyachar shows how the market expansion promoted by the World Bank, NGOs, and others poses critical challenges to both everyday lives and contemporary social analysis.”—Bill Maurer, author of
Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason“[A] masterful description and sophisticated interpretation of the transformation of the social, cultural, and political economy of urban Egypt since the early 1990s. . . . Elyachar has written a book that is essential reading for anyone concerned with development, Egypt and the Arab World, and the dangers of ideologically motivated interference by foreign social scientists and other experts in local economies and societies.”
-- Donald (Abdallah) Cole * American Ethnologist *
“Elyachar has produced a work rich in fine ethnographic detail and driven by important theoretical insights into the workings of market, the anthropology of value, the play of power in society, and the social consequences of development strategies. This is a brilliant study on many levels. . . . This work is a tour-de-force of critical analysis and ethnographic exposition. It sets new standards for the study of programmatic economic development, the ethnography of craft and small-scale production, and the cultural consequences and human costs of structural adjustment.” -- Roy Dilley * Social Anthropology *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration xv
1. Introduction: The Power of Invisible Hands 1
2. A Home for Markets: Two Neighborhoods in Plan and Practice, 1905–1996 37
3. Mappings of Power: Informal Economy and Hybrid States 66
4. Mastery, Power, and Model Workshop Markets 96
5. Value, the Evil Eye, and Economic Subjectivities 137
6. NGO's, Business, and Social Capital 167
7. Empowering Debt
191
Conclusion: The Free Market and the Invisible Spectator 213
Notes 221
Bibliography 245
Index 269
