We understand very little about the billions of dollars that flow throughout the world from migrants back to their home countries. In this rigorous and illuminating work, Matt Bakker, an economic sociologist, examines how these migrant remittances—the resources of some of the world’s least affluent people—have come to be seen in recent years as a fundamental contributor to development in …
This book is a major contribution exploring the policy options available for developing and emerging economies in response to the global economic crises. Written by a highly respected development economist, the book gives a clear-eyed account of the issues particular to these countries and critically evaluates different policy approaches, including reforms in financial, monetary and trade polic…
We cannot simply listen to our urban past. Yet we encounter a rich cultural heritage of city sounds presented in text, radio and film. How can such 'staged sounds' express the changing identities of cities? This volume presents a collection of studies on the staging of Amsterdam, Berlin and London soundscapes in historical documents, radio plays and films, and offers insights into themes such a…
The world's food system is broken, and today's peasant societies are at a crossroads. This collection explores the multiplicity of problems faced by global family agricultures in the current neoliberal era. The contributors, including include Samir Amin, Joao Pedro Stedile and Utsa Patnaik, argue that an understanding of the revival of peasant struggles for their social emancipation and legitim…
Everyday articulations of music, place, urban politics, and inclusion/exclusion are powerfully present in Istanbul. This volume analyzes landscapes of music, community, and exclusion across a century and a half. An interdisciplinary group of scholars and artists presents four case studies: the rembetika, the music of the Asiks, the Zakir/Alevi tradition, and hip-hop, in Beyoglu, Üsküdar, the…
This updated edition of the influential Development Against Democracy is a critical guide to postwar studies of modernisation and development. In the mid-twentieth century, models of development studies were products of postwar American policy. They focused on newly independent states in the Global South, aiming to assure their pro-Western orientation by promoting economic growth, political ref…
Modern music notation developed out of the so-called square notation and this out of the Latin neumes. The question of where these neumes came from has long been the subject of scholarly debate. As the author demonstrated in his three-volume Universale Neumenkunde published in German in 1970, there is a very close relationship between the Paleo-Byzantine notation and the Latin neumes. Although …
A Precarious Game is an ethnographic examination of video game production. The developers that Ergin Bulut researched for almost three years in a medium-sized studio in the U.S. loved making video games that millions play. Only some, however, can enjoy this dream job, which can be precarious and alienating for many others. That is, the passion of a predominantly white-male labor force relies on…
In the early years of the Cold War, Western nations increasingly adopted strategies of public diplomacy involving popular music. While the diplomatic use of popular music was initially limited to such genres as jazz, the second half of the 20th century saw a growing presence of various popular genres in diplomatic contexts, including rock, punk, reggae, and hip-hop. This volume illuminates the …
In basements, dingy backrooms, warehouses, and other neglected places around the world music is being made that doesn't fit neatly into popular or classical categories and genres, whose often extreme sounds and tiny concerts hover on the fringes of these commercial and cultural mainstreams. The term “underground music” as it’s being used here connects various forms of music-making that ex…