Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South : The Human Consequences of Piracy in China and Brazil

At the end of the 1970s, Chinese merchandise moved to Brazil via Paraguay, forming an on-the-margins-of-the-law trade chain involving the production, distribution, and consumption of cheap goods. Economic changes in the twenty-first century, including the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the growing importance of emerging economies, have had a dramatic effect on how this chain works, criminalizing and dismantling a trade system that had previously functioned in an organized form and stimulated the circulation of goods, money, and people at transnational levels. This book analyses how exchange networks that produced, distributed, and sold cheap manufactured products animated a huge and vibrant system from China to Brazil, examining the process at global, national, and local levels. From a global perspective, intellectual property is a powerful discourse that governs the world system by framing the notion of piracy as a criminal activity. But at the national level, how do nation-states resist and/or endorse, interpret, and apply a global perspective? And what effect does that have on how ordinary people organize their lives around this system? Interweaving discourse on transnational traders and producers, national projects, and international institutions, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South presents low-income traders not as passive victims of globalization, but as active actors in the distribution of cheap goods across borders in the Global South.Based on fifteen years of ethnographic field work in China and Brazil, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South will be of interest to scholars of economic anthropology, development studies, political economy, Latin America studies, Chinese studies, and socio-legal studies. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 Acknowledgments 9 Note on the text 11 1. Introduction: the tale of a Chinese Santa 12 From China to Brazil, via Paraguay 15 The intellectual property discourse 19 State mediations 24 In search of Santa Claus 27 The structure of the book 30 Note 31 References 31 PART I: South America 36 2. Bargaining and selling: regimes of value in a market before the war against piracy 38 The roots of an unwanted market 39 Life and value in stone 42 Currencies of exchange 48 I am a slave to myself 50 Networked bodies 53 Bargaining kinship 57 Paraguay will end! Crises and arrangements 63 References 64 3. Traveling and smuggling: intellectual property discourse reaches Brazil 66 From marginalization to criminalization 68 The clean self 73 Local notions on intellectual property 77 Smuggling roads 80 Embodying power: authorities 85 Further developments 87 Notes 90 References 90 4. Migrating and importing: the Chinese community in a time of change 92 From “Made in Taiwan” to “Made in China” to piracy 94 Self-orientalizing projects amid interethnic friction 96 Family in a time of change 107 Final remarks 110 Notes 112 References 112 PART II: China 114 5. Enterprising and producing: leisure and sacrifice in the production system 116 Leisure and pleasure: emerging subjectivities in the world’s factory 118 The leisure self 122 The others’ sacrifice 127 Final remarks 135 Notes 136 References 137 6. Protecting and dreaming: state interests, elite alliances, and laissez-faire 139 Negotiating legal discourses 140 Elite alliances, networks, and protection 145 A discursive wall for black cats 149 The China Dream: final remarks 157 References 160 Conclusion: ending and changing routes 162 Follow-up: a final ethnographic story 166 Unpredictable futures 168 Note 170 References 170 Index 171 "At the end of the 1970s, Chinese merchandise moved to Brazil via Paraguay, forming an on-the-margins-of-the-law trade chain involving the production, distribution, and consumption of cheap goods. Economic changes in the twenty-first century, including the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the growing importance of emerging economies, have had a dramatic effect on how this chain works, criminalizing and dismantling a trade system that had previously functioned in an organized form and stimulated the circulation of goods, money, and people at transnational levels. This book analyses how exchange networks that produced, distributed, and sold cheap manufactured products animated a huge and vibrant system from China to Brazil, examining the process at global, national, and local levels. From a global perspective, intellectual property is a powerful discourse that governs the world system by framing the notion of piracy as a criminal activity. But at the national level, how do nation-states resist and/or endorse, interpret, and apply a global perspective? And what effect does that have on how ordinary people organize their lives around this system? Interweaving discourse on transnational flow of small capital, petty capitalism, non-hegemonic globalization and globalization from below, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South presents low-income tradifers not as passive victims of globalization, but as active actors in the distribution of cheap goods across bordifers in the Global South.Based on fifteen years of ethnographic field work in China and Brazil, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South will be of interest to scholars of economic anthropology, development studies, political economy, Latin America studies, Chinese studies, and socio-legal studies. "--Provided by publisher "At the end of the 1970s, Chinese merchandise moved to Brazil via Paraguay, forming an on-the-margins-of-the-law trade chain involving the production, distribution, and consumption of cheap goods. Economic changes in the twenty-first century, including the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the growing importance of emerging economies, have had a dramatic effect on how this chain works, criminalizing and dismantling a trade system that had previously functioned in an organized form and stimulated the circulation of goods, money, and people at transnational levels. This book analyses how exchange networks that produced, distributed, and sold cheap manufactured products animated a huge and vibrant system from China to Brazil, examining the process at global, national, and local levels. From a global perspective, intellectual property is a powerful discourse that governs the world system by framing the notion of piracy as a criminal activity. But at the national level, how do nation-states resist and/or endorse, interpret, and apply a global perspective? And what effect does that have on how ordinary people organize their lives around this system? Interweaving discourse on transnational flow of small capital, petty capitalism, non-hegemonic globalization and globalization from below, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South presents low-income traders not as passive victims of globalization, but as active actors in the distribution of cheap goods across borders in the Global South. Based on fifteen years of ethnographic field work in China and Brazil, Counterfeit Itineraries in the Global South will be of interest to scholars of economic anthropology, development studies, political economy, Latin America studies, Chinese studies, and socio-legal studies."--Provided by publisher