Unsettled Frontiers

Reviews / Votes

[W]hat readers expect is not only a well-rounded ethnography of a market rhizome, but also whether, and to what extent, the state of being in the borderland renders market formation rhizomic.

(Journal of Contemporary Asia) Mahanty deftly weaves the story of a particular place within a broader tapestry of shifting market relations and integration, showing how markets are produced through the actions of individuals and families, the policies implemented by governments and other institutions, and the agency of nonhuman nature and the physical environment. Mahanty's accessible prose is complemented by excellent visuals, including clear and detailed maps of her study sites and her own photographs. The result is a text that is clear and compelling in its theoretical arguments but also an excellent resource for those interested in the Vietnam-Cambodia borderlands or the broader question of how markets take hold, how they change over time, and why efforts to govern them often fall short.

(Annals of the AAG) The landscapes of Cambodia are unsettled indeed, and Sango Mahanty capyures the frenetic and precarious effects of market formation n the state-created borderlines delineating (or connecting) Cambodia and Vietnam.

(Sojourn) Sango Mahanty's Unsettled Frontiers is an excellent addition to literature on Southeast Asian agrarian studies.

(Sojourn)