Edges of Global Transformation: Ethnographies of Uncertainty

(Hardback)

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Through nine ethnographic case-studies, Edges of Global Transformation explores situations where global transformations associated with neoliberalism meet local realities. The edge of transformation is characterized by uncertainty, as old patterns are consumed and new formed. The nine case studies from Africa, Europe and the Middle East shed light on how uncertainty plays an inevitable and essential role in the grey zone between macro-transformations and local responses. Despite the tremendous difference in precariousness between these cases, each contributor explores ways in which transformations are conceived and acted upon within the space of possibility that is opened and apprehended locally. The role of uncertainty as an active force is explored throughout the book. While in some cases, uncertainty has a clear restricting effect; other cases illustrate its potential as a productive force. As a contribution to understanding the dynamic of the local realities of global change, the book will be valuable reading for anyone interested in globalization and the neoliberal world order.

Reviews

The seesaw between inclusion and exclusion, between nativism and cosmopolitanism, is analyzed through the dual prisms of global neoliberalism and ontological uncertainty in this excellent and eminently readable book, where the universally human and the locally unique comes together through people uncomfortably wedged between the hopes and fears of an unpredictable world. The case studies, most of them African, demonstrate the strength of the ethnographic attention to flesh and blood, detail and context, while also indicating why anthropology must go multiscale and interdisciplinary to make a difference. -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Edges of Global Transformation is a truly enlightening book. It brings together a wide variety of ethnographic studies of the neoliberal atmosphere of late capitalism and its effects in various locations in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, and provides a sharp and multidimensional analysis of heightened uncertainty. The contributing authors all demonstrate in minute detail how and why the intensification of uncertainty and vulnerability is generated, as well as how it is experienced, resisted, and absorbed in local worlds. Both the empirical and analytical insights emerging from the chapters deepen our understanding of contemporary global articulations. The book deserves a wide readership. -- Halvard Vike, University of South-Eastern Norway

Author Bio

Hkon Fyhn is senior researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Harald Aspen is associate professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Anne Kathrine Larsen is associate professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.