Migration, networks, skills: these keywords not only denote three popular and important fields of current investigation in Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, they also mark the wide range of interests of cultural and social anthropologist Waltraud Kokot, who is to be honoured in this Festschrift. Internationally distinguished scholars from five European countries and various academic disciplines present their most recent research findings on topics such as diaspora and migration studies, urban anthropology and the anthropology of crafts, all of which are connected by the common themes of mobility and transformation.

In the past decades, international port cities have been strongly aff ected by global transformation processes, dramatically altering life and work around the ports, the built environment and public imagery of urban waterfronts. Based on recent theories of city-port development, the ethnographic studies in this volume focus on local stakeholders perceptions and strategies in port cities in Europe and Latin America. Th is book covers a wide variety of urban fi elds, from traditional dockland communities, inland waterway sailors and new forms of migration and exile, to active agents of urban transformation.