Transparency and Conspiracy

“This edited volume brings together transparency and conspiracy, two subjects that are receiving a great deal of attention both inside the academy and outside, in an effort to capture contemporary operations of power.” - Amy Levine , PoLAR

"[A] series of diverse cases drawn from the long-term, intensive projects of anthropologists who bend and lend what they know from their wideranging and deep knowledge of their subjects to the topic in question. . . . [A] fascinating cabinet of curiosities. . . ." - George E. Marcus and Michael G. Powell , Anthropological Quarterly

"All of the essays are of high quality. . . . [They] present a potential path-breaking model for social scientists to use in uncovering the complex realities that bring culture and global structures to become mutually constitutive." - William Biebuyck , Utopian Studies

"Although this volume will be of special interest to anthropologists, a wider audience will be interested in discussion of the devastating impact of structural adjustment programs (SAPS) on the poor living in developing countries. Highly recommended." - L. O. Imade , Choice

"Not a single chapter disappoints. . . . [The editors] have achieved the uncommon distinction of the cogent edited volume. This book could be used in any classroom setting in which students need to be quickly disabused of the boundaries between the spiritual and the political." - Bruce Grant , American Anthropologist

"The strongest quality of the book . . . is its attention to the complexity and depth of interpretive frameworks held by relatively powerless people. . . ." - Josiah McC. Heyman , Journal of Anthropological Research

"The studies are richly informative. They show a side of humanity often overlooked in straight-laced standard overviews of finance, law, and living conditions." - Bertil L. Hanson , Perspectives on Political Science

"This volume provides thoughtful discussion and rich evidence of popular efforts to conceptualize powers beyond local control." - Paul Clough , Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"There are few topics of more profound and immediate significance than transparency and conspiracy, the twin specters of contemporary globality. Harry G. West’s and Todd Sanders's collection displays the virtues of analyzing the particularities of experience in different places while, at the same time, treating this topic as one with general implications and transnational origins. This is what anthropology does best, and this group of essays does it very well indeed." - Rosalind C. Morris, Columbia University

”Transparency and Conspiracy connects with a central question presently before the field of anthropology and globalization studies: how to interpret the varied cultural forms which alienation from modernity is taking today.” - Don Robotham, City University of New York Graduate Center