Along the Integral Margin
Uneven Development in a Myanmar Squatter Settlement
- Publisher
- Cornell University Press
- Initial publish date
- Aug 2022
- Category
- Southeast Asia, Capitalism, General
- Recommended Age
- 18
- Recommended Grade
- 12
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781501764882
- Publish Date
- Aug 2022
- List Price
- $70.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
In recent years anthropologists have focused on informal, unfree, and other nonnormative labor arrangements and labeled them as "noncapitalist." In Along the Integral Margin, Stephen Campbell pushes back against this idea and shows that these labor arrangements are, in fact, important aspects of capitalist development and that the erroneous "noncapitalist" label contributes to obscuring current capitalist relations.
Through powerful, intimate ethnographic narratives of the lives and struggles of residents of a squatter settlement in Myanmar, Campbell challenges narrow conceptions of capitalism and asserts that nonnormative labor is not marginal but rather centrally important to Myanmar's economic development. Campbell's narrative approach brings individuals who are often marginalized in accounts of contemporary Myanmar to the forefront and raises questions about the diversity of work in capitalism.
About the author
Stephen Campbell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Editorial Reviews
This introductory lesson in historical economics goes beyond the simple linear approach, its purpose being to highlight, in modern times, a systemic contradiction between elites and workers, a truncated relationship that the author qualifies as " passive revolution".