The 2008 SEA Book Prize Winners!
The Society for Economic Anthropology is very pleased to announce the Co-winners of the 2008 SEA Book Prize:
Carolyn Nordstrom for her book: Global Outlaws: Crime, money and power in the Contemporary World, published in 2007 by the University of California Press.
AND
Richard Wilk for his book: Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists, published in 2006 by Berg Publishers.
The 2008 book award committee considered seven books published since 2006, and were tied between these two excellent monographs (see comments below about the strengths of each volume). The SEA book prize is given every two years to the best (non-edited) book in economic anthropology published in the 2 years previous to the award year. Book author(s) must be SEA members for submission. The book prize includes a $500 award, given at the Spring (2009) SEA meetings in Los Angeles. The committee members were: Christina Garsten, Art Murphy, Faidra Papavasiliou, Paul Rivera, and Lisa Cliggett (chair).
Comments from judges on each book:
Carolyn Nordstrom - Global Outlaws: Crime, money and power in the Contemporary World. 2007 University of California Press.
“The book captures the powerful confluence of the extra-legal market globalization and advanced technology and shows how the local is weaved into transnational influences and inter-relationships. The book explores the trade in commodities that shape the illegal and the informal, from blood diamonds and arms through drugs and exotica to staples of life such as food and oil. Nordstrom brings out the values, ethics and morals surrounding the illegal and the informal and illuminates the complexities and contradictions around them. A courageously sharp and insightful book on the shadow side of global trade!”
“Nordstrom's book, I found fascinating and engaging reading, full of nice case studies and an intriguing expose' of aspects of the economy that few of us get to experience.”
“I found this to be a great empirical work on global trade flows, doing an excellent job in two things: demonstrating the scope and nature of "global interconnections" through trade at both the small and large scale (from street kids to mega corporations, and all sorts of other steps in between), and showing the grey lines between "legal" and "illicit," left in the space between market and regulation, and addressing the issue of "security" in a very incisive way. I feel it shows the significance of economic anthropology today, in a manner that is highly interesting, engaging and readable. This book will be a great addition to both undergraduate and graduate classes on globalization and/or economic anthropology.”
Richard Wilk – Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists. 2006 Berg Publishers.
“This book conveys the workings of globalization through a careful description of changes in everyday life in Belize. Wilk shows how local politics are related to international relations through food; how local diet, culture and economy interact with larger transnational processes. Using various notions of cultural crossovers, such as creolization, blending and fusion, Wilk shows how the Caribbean is unique but also like every other part of the world – simultaneously local, distinct and individual, and typical, global and anonymous. A wonderfully insightful and enjoyable book on food in the global marketplace!”
“The Wilk book is very readable yet rigorous, certainly a practical text that I plan to use in my own classes. I particularly enjoyed the unique lens he provided for viewing culture and economy. …. Wilk also has an excellent treatment of economic concepts.”
“Wilk does an excellent job discussing extractive economies and their impact in shaping Belize and its cuisine, and his point that the traditional and the modern are produced together is an excellent and much needed one. Chapters of this book are excellent to use in class to discuss both the anthropology of food, and colonialism/post-colonialism/globalization.”
Past Recipients of the SEA Book Prize
2006 Winner:
Theodore C. Bestor (Harvard University) — Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the Word. University of California Press (2004)
2003 Winner:
Karen Tranberg Hansen (Northwestern University) — Salaula: The World of Secondhand Clothing in Zambia. University of Chicago Press (2000).
2003 Honorable Mention: (unranked in alphabetical order)
Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld (University of Iowa) — The Native Leisure Class: Consumption and Creativity in the Andes. University of Chicago Press (1999).
Marc Edelman (City Univeristy of New York) — Peasants Against Globalization: Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica. Stanford University Press (1999).
William Fisher (College of William and Mary) — Rain Forest Exchanges: Industry and Community on an Amazonian Frontier. Smithsonian Institution Press (2000).
Carla Freman (Emory University) — High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink-Collar Identity in the Caribbean. Duke University Press (2000).
