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. Matias 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.

From illegal drugs, stolen artwork, and forged trademarks, to fraud in financial markets - the phenomenon of illegality in market exchanges is pervasive. Illegal markets have great economic significance, have relevant social and political consequences, and shape economic and political structures. Despite the importance of illegality in the economy, the field of economic sociology unquestioningly accepts the premise that the institutional structures and exchanges taking place in markets are law-abiding in nature. This volume makes a contribution to changing this. Questions that stand at the centre of the chapters are: What are the interfaces between legal and illegal markets? How do demand and supply in illegal markets interact? What role do criminal organizations play in illegal markets? What is the relationship between illegality and governments? Is illegality a phenomenon central to capitalism? Anchored in economic sociology, this book contributes to the analysis and understanding of market exchanges in conditions of illegality from a perspective that focuses on the social organization of markets. Offering both, theoretical reflections and case studies, the chapters assembled in the volume address the consequences of the illegal production, distribution, and consumption of products for the architecture of markets. It also focuses on the underlying causes and the political and social concerns stemming from the infringement of the law.

Das Buch bietet einen neuen Blick auf Lateinamerika aus der Perspektive der Systemtheorie Niklas Luhmanns und leistet dabei zweierlei: Einerseits gelingt ein neuer Blick auf altbekannte Probleme der Weltgesellschaft, und gleichzeitig wird andererseits die starke Rezeption Luhmanns in Lateinamerika aufgegriffen, indem wichtige lateinamerikanische Autoren ihre Perspektiven in dieses Buch einbringen.