Description
Book SynopsisWith an ethnography of the largest contraband economy in the Americas running through Ciudad del Este, Paraguay,
Outlaw Capital shows how transgressive economies and gray spaces are central to globalized capitalism.
Trade ReviewWith elegant prose and vivid ethnographic detail, Outlaw Capital reveals how the class conflicts at the heart of Paraguay’s globalized illicit economies have built nothing less than an entire city. It’s a compelling and well-told story." - Teo Ballvé, author of
The Frontier Effect: State Formation and Violence in Colombia"A story told from the borderlands between Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, Outlaw Capital upends commonsensical notions about capitalism and corruption everywhere. Here is a riveting and beautifully rendered ethnography of contraband trade and the lives of poor, racialized street vendors. It is also an unflinching critique of the powerful politicians and elite financiers who stand most to benefit from economic transgressions and their selective 'whitening' or legalization. A massive contribution to critical corruption studies and the political economy of racial capitalism." - Malini Ranganathan, coauthor of
Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City"
Outlaw Capital navigates Ciudad del Este’s labyrinthine street economy—its contraband hidden in plain sight—to show how licit and illicit flows of goods become entangled with state power to produce shifting boundaries of (il)legality. This is a first-rate global ethnography that reveals a partially hidden abode of commodity circulation that has become central to capitalist accumulation." - Nik Theodore, coauthor of
Fast Policy: Experimental Statecraft at the Thresholds of Neoliberalism
