"At a time of rising global economic precarity and social inequality, the field of economic anthropology offers solutions through the study of local and contextualized economic practices. This book is made up of an exciting collection of succinct essays authored by leading scholars primarily...

In recent years, Vietnam has intensified programmes aimed at building “rich, beautiful, and civilized” cities. The modernization of urban markets forms part of these efforts. This paper focuses on the contestations and negotiations surrounding the upgrade of a state-run market in the...

Based on ethnographic research conducted over several years, Market Frictions examines the tensions and frictions that emerge from the interaction of global market forces, urban planning policies, and small-scale trading activities in the Vietnamese border city of Lào Cai. Here, it is revealed...

Making the marketplace : traders, cadres, and bureaucratic documents in Lào Cai City / Kirsten W. Endres -- Run and hide when you see the police : livelihood contestations and the politics of the street economy in Vietnam's northern uplands / Sarah Turner -- Grand designs? : state agendas and...

Resources are essential building blocks of society. All societies need resources of a wide kind and have mechanisms for their allocation, distribution, management, use and exchange. Resources are also at the centre of social struggles and to this extent particularly instructive when exploring...