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Spring 2025 Colloquium
March 6, 2025 @ 3:30 pm
Illegalities from Above and Below: Making a City for Contraband in the Paraguay-Brazil Borderlands
Thursday, March 6 @ 3:30 p.m. in Graham 106
Outlaw Capital (University of Georgia Press, 2023) shows how transgressive economies and gray spaces are central to globalized capitalism. With an enthography of the largest contraband economy in the Americas running through Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, Outlaw Capital shows how conflicts over everyday illegalities shape urban development. By studying the differential treatment of ‘elite illegalities’ and the ‘street illegalities’ of street vendors, Outlaw Capital shows how racialized narratives of economic legitimacy across scales – not legal compliance – sort whose activities count as formal and legal, and whose are targeted for reform or expulsion. Ultimately, reforms criminalized the popular economy while legalizing, protecting, and ‘whitening’ elite illegalities.
This event is free and open to the public. For disability accomodations, contact mlreaga2@uncg.edu / 336.334.5388
