Globalization and the Margins

Intellectual without being overwhelming, this slim book looks at the conditions of globalization as they affect people on the margins of society in four countries: India, Peru, Ghana, and South Korea. Global concepts need to be understood in the context of the local, the editors believe, so each chapter is sharply focused on one narrow aspect, such as rural advertising in India or microenterprise in Lima, Peru. Residents of a slum in Ghana, for example, are "prisoners of place," who aren't benefiting from globalization's promise, writes Deborah Pallow, one of the contributors and an anthropology professor at Syracuse University. All the chapters here have sprung from a conference held at Syracuse several years ago; the editors are both specialists in geography and regional and/or environmental studies.