Drawing on fieldwork from a range of locations around the globe, this volume explores the struggles of ordinary people in the face of capitalist change and the ways in which political economy as a mode of analysis, particularly in its Marxist variant, can move anthropology toward a vital, engaged form of scholarship that responds to the urgent need for theoretical and methodological approaches that can apprehend the forces shaping our contemporary world.

Pauline Gardiner Barber is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Dalhousie University in Canada.

Winnie Lem is Professor of International Development Studies at Trent University, Canada.

Belinda Leach is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph.

1. Introduction: Confronting Anthropology: The Critical Enquiry of Capitalism Pauline Gardiner Barber, Belinda Leach and Winnie Lem Part I: Politics 2. Making Connections: The Politics of Intellectual Labor in Colombia Leslie Gill 3. Security Anthropology and Northern Morazán, El Salvador: Confronting the Present There and Elsewhere Leigh Binford 4. Effective Politics: Band Elections and Decision Making in a Northern Onario Anishnaabek Community Krystyna Sieciechowicz 5. The Soviet Revenge: How the Unrecognized Soviet-Style Mechanisms of Contemporary Finance Capitalism Cause Social Crisis and Catastrophe in the West Don Kalb and Oane Visser Part II: Histories 6. To Die in the Silence of History: Tuberculosis Epidemics and Yup'ik Peoples of Southwestern Alaska Linda Green 7. Not the Same Old Stories: Labor Anthropology, Vulnerabilities and Solidarity Struggles Belinda Leach 8. Native Livelihoods and Capital Punishment in the Carolinas and Labrador Gerald Sider 9. "They Say We Aren't From Around Here": The Production of Culture Among a Displaced People Gastón Gordillo Part III: Livelihoods 10. Global Connections and Disconnections: Space and Labour in Mumbai's Slums Judith Whitehead 11. Ghostly Figures Outside the Domain of Political Economy: Class Analysis and the Invisiblized Livelihoods of an Andean Export Zone Christopher Krupa 12. Humanitarian to Livelihood Approaches: A View from the Dadaab Refugee Camps in Kenya Wenona Giles 13. Gender Mainstreaming and Market Fundamentalism in Rural Yucatán, Mexico Marie France Labrecque 14. Alternatives to Expanded Accumulation and the Anthropological Imagination: Turning Necessity into a Challenge to Capitalism? Susana Narotzky 15. Afterword: In Defence of Historical Realist Anthropology Gavin Smith