Making It at Any Cost Aspirations and Politics in a Counterfeit Clothing Marketplace : Aspirations and Politics in a Counterfeit Clothing Marketplace

FELIPE: previously owned a car business that he lost in the 2001 financial crash. His stall is positioned at the main entrance of a leading shed market. He manufactures and sells children's clothing. JUAN MANUEL: one of Felipe's sons. Felipe wants to open a further stall for him. OSVALDO: together with his wife, he manufactures and sells "Gap" clothing in one leading shed market. BETINA: manufactures and sells jackets for security staff. Cart-Pullers, Warehouse Owners, Squatters, and Money Collectors MICKY: flamboyant warehouse owner who answers in metaphors. Likes to sit on the bench outside his warehouse watching the passersby. GRACIELA: single mother who "owns" several stalls mounted on the streets. VALERIA: used to be a shed-market collector. She is now an influential political broker. EMILIO: a former "owner" of street stalls. ESPERANZA: used to "own" several street stalls and defend her property armed. ALEJO: experienced cart-puller working for the Urkupiña shed market. Used to fight for payment in cash or bags of vegetables at Central Market. Later sold flowers and spent the money on drugs before becoming a cart-puller. SILVINA: Alejo's wife. DANIEL: cart-puller and former gang member with a history of committing armed robbery and using the money to fund a serious drug habit. Now a born-again Christian. LA SALADA CHARACTERS xiii ÁLVARO: chief of security at one of the shed markets. He previously worked for Argentina's secret service during the military dictatorship. ## Sweatshop Workers (Only) JAVI: migrant from the Argentine province Jujuy. He sells his skills as a buttonhole maker and ironer. CÉSAR: Peruvian immigrant specialized in cutting fabrics. CHEPITA: Bolivian migrant. She has a sweatshop and provides sewing services for La Salada garment manufacturers. MÓNICA: Bolivian migrant. She was recruited in Bolivia through kinship networks and exploited in sweatshops. She no longer works in the garment industry. ## BETWEEN LA SALADA AND POLITICS HORACIO: influential local politician whose father was mayor of the district. "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." --Descripción del editor "This study of the large, dangerous counterfeit clothing market in Buenos Aires known as La Salada addresses questions about informal and/or black markets, revealing how market exchanges function outside of the law, how the agreements for the market are made, and how social norms are conducted within the market itself and concluding that aspirations for future success shape the present actions and behavior of workers there"-- Provided by publisher An examination of the vast counterfeit clothing marketplace in Buenos Aires known as La Salada, this book is the first ethnographic study to examine how aspirations shape behaviors of workers in an informal and illegal economy.