A wheel turns because of its encounter with the surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing
two sticks together produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick. In both cases, it is friction that
produces movement, action, effect. Challenging the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a "clash"
of cultures, anthropologist Anna Tsing here develops friction in its place as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting
social interactions that make up our contemporary world.
She focuses on one particular "zone of awkward engagement"--the rainforests of Indonesia--where in the
1980s and the 1990s capitalist interests increasingly reshaped the landscape not so much through corporate design
as through awkward chains of legal and illegal entrepreneurs that wrested the land from previous claimants, creating
resources for distant markets. In response, environmental movements arose to defend the rainforests and the communities
of people who live in them. Not confined to a village, a province, or a nation, the social drama of the Indonesian
rainforest includes local and national environmentalists, international science, North American investors, advocates
for Brazilian rubber tappers, UN funding agencies, mountaineers, village elders, urban students, among others--all
combining in unpredictable, messy misunderstandings, but misunderstandings that sometimes work out.
Providing a portfolio of methods to study global interconnections, Tsing shows how curious and creative cultural
differences are in the grip of worldly encounter, and how much is overlooked in contemporary theories of the global.
Table of Contents
PART I. Prosperity
"Better you had brought me a bomb, so I could blow this place up"
Chapter 1. Frontiers of Capitalism
"They communicate only in sign language"
Chapter 2. The Economy of Appearances
PART II Knowledge
"Let a new Asia and a new Africa be born"
Chapter 3. Natural Universals and the Global Scale
"Dark rays"
Chapter 4. Nature Loving
"This earth, this island Borneo"
Chapter 5. A History of Weediness
PART III Freedom
