"Ethnographically rich and analytically powerful, "Markets of Dispossession" fundamentally reshapes the debate over the informal economy, microenterprise, and economic development and points to the complex and many-layered world-conjuring work of that which we have come to call neoliberalism. Based on evocative accounts of craftsmen's workshops in Cairo, Julia Elyachar shows how the market expansion promoted by the World Bank, NGOs, and others poses critical challenges to both everyday lives and contemporary social analysis."--Bill Maurer, author of "Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason"

Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration xv
1. Introduction: The Power of Invisible Hands 1
2. A Home for Markets: Two Neighborhoods in Plan and Practice, 1905–1996 37
3. Mappings of Power: Informal Economy and Hybrid States 66
4. Mastery, Power, and Model Workshop Markets 96
5. Value, the Evil Eye, and Economic Subjectivities 137
6. NGO's, Business, and Social Capital 167
7. Empowering Debt
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Conclusion: The Free Market and the Invisible Spectator 213
Notes 221
Bibliography 245
Index 269

Julia Elyachar is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine.