" Markets of Dispossession is a brilliant study of contemporary forms of market ideology and practice. Exploring central questions about value and social resources, debt and dispossession, culture and power, it offers an original and outstanding contribution to the anthropological analysis of the economic."--Timothy Mitchell, author of Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity "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 " Markets of Dispossession is an engaging book from the first page. It embodies keen academic analysis with a humanistic touch." -- Heidi Morrison Digest of Middle East Studies "[A] masterful description and sophisticated interpretation of the transformation of the social, cultural, and political economy of urban Egypt since the early 1990s. Elyachar has written a book that is essential reading for anyone concerned with development, Egypt and the Arab World, and the dangers of ideologically motivated interference by foreign social scientists and other experts in local economies and societies.

" -- Donald (Abdallah) Cole American Ethnologist "[A] masterful description and sophisticated interpretation of the transformation of the social, cultural, and political economy of urban Egypt since the early 1990s. Elyachar has written a book that is essential reading for anyone concerned with development, Egypt and the Arab World, and the dangers of ideologically motivated interference by foreign social scientists and other experts in local economies and societies." -- Donald (Abdallah) Cole American Ethnologist "[Elyachar''s] research furthers our understanding of social capital and microcredit as well as the theorization of markets, capitalism, value and informality. This book is an example of the scholarship needed for a deeper understanding of a market-crossed world." -- Alice Wilson Cambridge Anthropology "Elyachar has produced a work rich in fine ethnographic detail and driven by important theoretical insights into the workings of market, the anthropology of value, the play of power in society, and the social consequences of development strategies. This is a brilliant study on many levels. This work is a tour-de-force of critical analysis and ethnographic exposition. It sets new standards for the study of programmatic economic development, the ethnography of craft and small-scale production, and the cultural consequences and human costs of structural adjustment.

" -- Roy Dilley Social Anthropology "Elyachar has produced a work rich in fine ethnographic detail and driven by important theoretical insights into the workings of market, the anthropology of value, the play of power in society, and the social consequences of development strategies. This is a brilliant study on many levels. This work is a tour-de-force of critical analysis and ethnographic exposition. It sets new standards for the study of programmatic economic development, the ethnography of craft and small-scale production, and the cultural consequences and human costs of structural adjustment." -- Roy Dilley Social Anthropology "Julia Elyachar''s superb book arrives at the right moment, revealing how seeds of today''s insecurities were sewn by contradictory market liberalization projects as they reshaped urban spaces and male social identities. Elyachar has written a landmark analysis of how the so-called ''free market'' trains the men of the popular classes to perform the most destructive forms of entrepreneurial subjectivity, previously associated only with a small island of rich barons." -- Paul Amar International Journal of Middle East Studies.