In recent years anthropologists have focused on informal, unfree, and other nonnormative labour arrangements and labelled them as 'noncapitalist.' In this book, Stephen Campbell pushes back against this idea and shows that these labor arrangements are, in fact, important aspects of capitalist development and that the erroneous 'noncapitalist' label contributes to obscuring current capitalist relations. Through powerful, intimate ethnographic narratives of the lives and struggles of residents of a squatter settlement in Myanmar, Campbell challenges narrow conceptions of capitalism and asserts that nonnormative labour is not marginal but rather centrally important to Myanmar's economic development. This narrative approach brings individuals who are oftenmarginalized in accounts of contemporary Myanmar to the forefront and raises questions about the diversity of work in capitalism.

Previously issued in print: 2022.