Full Description
La Salada is South America's largest marketplace for fraudulently labeled clothing, a sprawling and dangerous bazaar on the fringes of Buenos Aires where counterfeit goods are bought and sold, armed thieves roam the nearby streets, and corrupt police and politicians turn a blind eye to widespread unlawful behaviors. Despite conditions traditionally considered inhospitable to economic growth-including acute interpersonal distrust, pervasive personal insecurity, and rampant violence-business in La Salada is booming under an established order completely detached from the state.
MatÍas Dewey dives deep into the world of La Salada to examine how market exchanges function outside the law and how agreements and norms develop in the economy for counterfeit clothing. Drawing on seven months of ethnographic research and more than a hundred interviews, Dewey argues that aspirations for a better future shape garment workers' everyday practices, from their home-based sweatshops to the market stalls. The book unearths a new configuration of garment production and commercialization detached from global supply chains, submerged in the shadows of informality and illegality, and rooted in aspiration and opportunity.
Contents
Maps
The Structure of La Salada Marketplace
List of La Salada Characters
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Aspirations amid Distrust
Part I: History, Place, and Politics
Chapter 1. The Garment Market and the Marketplace
Chapter 2. Governing La Salada
Chapter 3. With God and the Devil
Part II: Prisoners of Aspirations
Chapter 4. All I Want Is a Sweatshop
Chapter 5. The Garment Entrepreneur at La Salada
Chapter 6. Dynamics of Aspirations
Part III: Aspirations in Action
Chapter 7. Narratives of Sacrifice and Autonomy
Chapter 8. Taste, Credit, and Bullets
Chapter 9. Squatters, Cart-Pullers, and Demolition
Conclusion
Epilogue
Methodological Appendix
Notes
Works Cited
Index
