Geographical Diversions: Tibetan Trade, Global Transactions

Description

Geographical Diversions uses history and ethnography of trans-Himalayan trade to contribute fresh conceptualizations of the relationship between neoliberal globalization and state power, borders, and mobility. The book is based on innovative, multi-sited ethnography across three countries, and it is exciting to see how Harris has used ethnographic material from this region to speak to much broader questions in economic and political geography. The book also provides an excellent demonstration that globalization and ‘free trade’ provide new opportunities for regulation and the reassertion of state power.-Emily T. Yeh, associate professor of geography, University of Colorado, Boulder Tina Harris’s study of multiethnic, multinational traders who cross the borders of Tibet offers a rare glimpse of how capital operates far from the national centers and global cities we know best. Traders are quick to take advantage of changing opportunities, switching their products, their illicit strategies, their border-crossing areas, and even their national ID cards to make trade work. Here is a little-known world beyond national economies.-Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, author of Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection