Based on in-depth ethnographic research, Norms and Illegality: Intimate Ethnographies and Political Control explores the entanglements and contradictions of legal and illegal practices across multiple cultures.

Norms and Illegality: Intimate Ethnographies and Politics explores liminal and illegal practices in relation to political control and cultural normativity. The contributors draw on years of ethnographic experiences in Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Italy, Madagascar, Mali, Philippines, and Thailand to study the contradictions of what is legal and illegal. They explore the production of illegal subjects by the state, the creation of illegal and normative values by liminal and illegal actors, and the mutual entanglements of legal and illegal in the public domains of markets and trade networks. This volume shows that criminalization policies are not necessarily oriented toward erasing crime. Instead, the contributors maintain that opaque spaces ensure the efficacy of control and outwardly conform to the rhetoric and ethics of global neoliberalism. Within these contexts, the contributors shed light on moral economies and frames of value entailed in systems of representation that have been set up by individuals who are deemed illegal, liminal, or deviant in their confrontations with the state. This book is recommended for students and scholars of anthropology, political science, and urban studies.

Introduction: Risk and Hope: Daily Life Subversions of the Norm

Part I Framing of Norms and Illegalities, Theoretical to Ethnographic

Chapter 1: Anthropological Shades of Grey: Informal Norms and Becoming (Il)legal

Chapter 2: Methodological Legalism

Chapter 3: On Doing Fieldwork, Outspokenly: Ethics, Money and Antiquities Illegal Trade

Part II Ethnographies of Illegalities and the Reframing of Norms and Margins

Chapter 4: Street Economies, Illegality and Rights in Antigua Guatemala

Chapter 5: Informal Economies, Illegal Subjects: Roma and Senegalese Traders in Rome

Chapter 6: Repositioning the Edge: The Resilience of Wholesale Vegetable Markets in Benguet Upland Philippines

Chapter 7: Frontier Justice: Making Norms, Negotiating Authority and Becoming Responsible in Northern Madagascar’s Artisanal Mining Sector

Chapter 8: To Legally Beg or Illegally Work? Norms and Illegality Among Asylum Seekers in Hong Kong