In 1992, Calhuasí, an isolated Andean town, got its first road. Newly connected to Ecuador's large cities, Calhuasí experienced rapid social-spatial change, which Kate Swanson richly describes in Begging as a Path to Progress. Based on nineteen months of fieldwork, Swanson's study pays particular attention to the ideas and practices surrounding youth. While begging seems to be inconsistent with—or even an affront to—ideas about childhood in the developed world, Swanson demonstrates that the majority of income earned from begging goes toward funding Ecuadorian children's educations in hopes of securing more prosperous futures. Examining beggars' organized migration networks, as well as the degree to which children can express agency and fulfill personal ambitions through begging, Swanson argues that Calhuasí's beggars are capable of canny engagement with the forces of change. She also shows how frequent movement between rural and urban Ecuador has altered both, masculinizing the countryside and complicating the Ecuadorian conflation of whiteness and cities. Finally, her study unpacks ongoing conflicts over programs to “clean up” Quito and other major cities, noting that revanchist efforts have had multiple effects—spurring more dangerous transnational migration, for example, while also providing some women and children with tourist-friendly local spaces in which to sell a notion of Andean authenticity.

Using data and insights from over ten years of field research in Cambodia this book explores how inequality persists in a hypermobile world.

One of the oldest survival pursuits undertaken by the weak and the downtrodden people across the world has been begging. Going back to the ancient Christian biblical times up to the present epoch as well as across varying spatial settings, in situations of trouble and tribulations, parts of various communities have resorted to beggary to either overcome immediate adversities or longer term calamities. Drawing on insights from two polar theoretical lenses of Social Constructionism and Social Deconstructionism, and guided by a pithy study of the begging across the African continent especially by Zimbabweans, this book troubles the various contours related to the subject of begging. Inter alia, the book considers the concept of begging, the causes of the prevalence of begging across the world and particularly among Zimbabweans, the challenges and benefits associated with the pursuit of alms, the impact of begging in foreign lands as well as some of the strategies that beggars employ to maximize their collections and/ or profits. What can be discerned from the book is that for many, begging is one of the last resort undertakings with low pickings. However, from a utilitarian perspective, begging has helped to sustain the impoverished livelihoods of Zimbabweans, both inside and outside the borders of the country since the advent of a debilitating crisis experienced from the turn of the new millennium. On the whole, this book seeks to provoke further researches on an important socio-economic area that affects many African communities but has so far been scantily researched. The book is handy for students and practitioners in economic history, African studies, economics, risk and disaster management, social anthropology, political science, and development studies.

Thus Spake the Dervish explores the unfamiliar history of marginal Sufis, known as dervishes, in early modern and modern Central Asia over a period of 500 years. It draws on various sources (Persian chronicles and treatises, Turkic literature, Russian and French ethnography, the author’s fieldwork) to examine five successive cases, each of which corresponds to a time period, a specific socially marginal space, and a particular use of mystical language. Including an extensive selection of writings by dervishes, this book demonstrates the diversity and tenacity of Central Asian Sufism over a long period. Here translated into a Western language for the first time, the extracts from primary texts by marginal Sufis allow a rare insight into their world. The original French edition of this book, Ainsi parlait le dervice, was published by Editions du Cerf (Paris, France). Translated by Caroline Kraabel.

A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars, is a comedy about four noble lovers who join the beggar community for a pastoral life of dance and song. Or is it? Whilst maintaining its unremitting good humour, A Jovial Crew shows that the literary depiction of beggar life, and real beggar life, are profoundly different. Daily aspects of life in the beggar world – poverty, dirt, licentiousness – come as a surprise to the well-born, who are ultimately led to question their own values. The last production mounted before theatres were closed for the English Civil War, A Jovial Crew's exploration of class, commonwealth, kinship and kingship shows an intense engagement with contemporary politics. This edition, with dedicated sections on music and language in the play, argues that A Jovial Crew also offers a nostalgic farewell to English theatre. It explores Brome's attitude to performance and print, and follows A Jovial Crew from its first, Caroline staging, to its later manifestations as a Restoration comedy, an eighteenth-century opera, and a twentieth-century proto-Marxist tragicomedy.