num_pages: 248
description: The term tinker calls to mind nomadic medieval vendors who operate on the fringe of formal society. Excluded from elite circles and characterized by an ability to leverage minimal resources these tradesmen live and die by their ability to adapt their stores to the popular tastes of the day. In Delhi in the 21st century an extensive network of informal marketplaces or bazaars has evolved over the course of the city's history across colonial and postcolonial regimes. Their resilience as an economic system is the subject of this book. Today instead of mending and selling fabrics and pots these street vendors are primarily associated with electronic productscomputers cell phones motherboards and video games. This book offers a deep ethnography of three Delhi bazaars and a cast of tinkers traders magicians street performers and hackers who work there. It is an exploration and recognition of the role of bazaars and tinkers in the modern global economy driving globalization from below. In Delhi and across the world these street markets work to create a new information society as the global popular classes aspire to elite consumer goods they cannot afford except in counterfeit.
language: English
title: Traders and Tinkers: Bazaars in the Global Economy
publisher: Stanford University Press