Customer Reviews

Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World (California Series in Public Anthropology)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There's little doubt in my mind that transnational crime networks are vastly understudied relative to their impact on global health, security, and economics. Anthropologist Nordstrom clearly agrees, and lays out the fruits of three years of field work in this loosely arranged triptych of illegal (or as she would put it, "il/legal") trade. Broken into twenty brief (6-10 page) chapters, the book starts with the micro of a lone war orphan hawking cigarettes in Angola and slowly zooms out to the macro of international trade and finance. Each chapter opens with a photo, which helps to ground the discussion in the lives of people, rather than policy. The framework is an ambitious one, attempting to tie together a very broad range of material, and it doesn't always work. For example ports are the focus of three unconnected chapters rather than one sustained narrative.

Others have written about much of the same material before, especially the drug trade, the arms trade, and overhyped blood diamond trade. However, these accounts are generally written from a journalism or policy perspective -- none that I'm aware of have grounded their material in such deep fieldwork, nor written about it with such a good ear for the pithy quote or telling anecdote. One of the central themes of the book is that while drugs, arms, and diamonds get all the press, her fieldwork reveals that trafficking in more mundane goods, such as food, is ultimately a much larger part of the informal economy in much of the world. Particularly chilling is her expose of the international shipping industry and just how laughable the customs and security controls on it are. (The same problems are also well documented in William Langswiesche's Atlantic Monthly essays collected in the book The Outlaw Sea).

Unfortunately, the positive aspects Nordstrom's writing are sometimes weakened by the kinds of arcane theoretical digressions and awkward terminology that often pop up in works by academics. The writing is alo marred by a certain shrill tone when it comes to the workings of large multinational corporations and a somewhat snide approach to the operations of international aid and relief agencies. While I don't generally disagree with her analysis, I find the strident and bitter tone somewhat diverting from the truths she lays out. Criticisms of structure and writing aside, this is a valuable, and quick-reading work that anyone with an interest in world affairs should check out. Nordstrom has done a stellar job in illustrating the pervasiveness and flexibility of informal trade networks, and how they can be manipulated around the world to move just about anything, anywhere.

A very frustrating book. The author certainly has a certain amount of physical courage but her prose is overblown and her analysis very superficial. Lots of stuff comes off trucks but not much real understanding of the big picture. This is CSI style academia--lots of blood and misery and not much insight. The author clearly has a very high opinion of her own skills but she is a journalist not an anthropologist and this is a series of anecdotes without any analysis to hold it together. You don't learn about who has the power, where it flows from, and how it is maintained. You just learn about how some contraband moves along.

This is an extremely interesting book, but really likes the details that I was looking for. If you are looking for an interesting read, this maybe something you like, but don't expect to get anything anything really in dept on how global criminal organizations operate.

Carolyn Nordstrom exposes a world of corruption and economic disparity intertwined with humanitarian aid and illegal trade. The interdependence of illicit and legitimate commerce sheds light on the complexity of our global trade systems and paints a dismal image of profiteering at the highest levels against a canvas of human suffering. The image she paints also depicts the diversity of forces driving war efforts, not just within Africa, but potentially throughout the planet. This ethnography discloses how these systems oppress entire nations, creating situations that damage health and well being for their populous and sustain poverty and hunger even in locations with access to humanitarian aid.

The striking aspect of this account is Nordstrom's ability to solicit such candor from those she interviewed. Perhaps this speaks to the futility of any hope of correcting or controling these corruptions, abuses, and tax avoidances, or perhaps this relates to a lack of willingness to correct these illegalities since it profits so many in high places.

If you thought you knew anything about illegalities or illicit markets, if you thought you knew anything about actuality, ideology and morality this book will show you that in fact you did not know anything.

An intriguing look at the culture and economy of smuggling and other illegal commerce, Global Outlaws opens many windows to provide a wide range of perspectives on the illegal economy, from the selling of a single smuggled cigarette in an African town to the movement of shipping containers (and their contents, legal and illegal) through a number of major American and European ports. Carolyn Nordstrom provides a rich view of the interdependencies of legal and illegal commerce, both the mundane (cigarettes, washing machines) and the exotic (endangered species of fish for high-end restaurants world-wide). She gives a sense of the range of people and networks involved in these activities, along with the benefits (how else could people get drugs to remote battlefields?) and the threats (could there be a bomb in that container of Barbie dolls?) of smuggling.
Much of the book represents deep field work at its best. Her presentation of trans-national shipping and port security contains good information that is not integrated so well as other parts of the book.

If you want to change your thinking about how the world works and adjust it to how the world really works, then read this. If you want to believe that everything is on the up and up, then don't read this. The work covers everything from cigarettes to port security to portable wealth to banking. While most of us recognize that we live in a global world, we often forget that this global world has trade happening in the back room of the cafe with the help of the banks. This is a very honest look at many forms of illegal trade and finance from a very human perspective.