The Licit Life of Capitalism

“A brilliant and deeply ethical rumination on the emancipatory potential and limitations of ethnographic critiques of capitalism, this searing ethnography delves into the very making of landscapes of exploitation and subordination. It is a theoretically and methodologically breathtaking investigation into the conditions of possibility that allow global capitalism to self-represent as ‘aboveboard’ and ‘transparent.’ By delving into the muck of what constitutes ‘the licit’ in the architecture of capitalism, Hannah Appel notices and refuses ‘comp-licit’ normative assumptions. The Licit Life of Capitalism thus achieves what few ethnographies have: it shows how capitalist abstractions are culturally deliberate and painstakingly reproduced.” -- Karen Ho, author of * Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street *
“In this compelling and engaging work Hannah Appel ethnographically captures a big thing: capitalism as a project. Asking after the fulsomeness with which capitalism powerfully does all the things it is supposed to do, Appel sets out a new path for grappling with this dominant force in contemporary politics and economics. Her book exemplifies the best critical writing on the workings of capitalism in anthropology, geography, sociology, and allied fields.” -- Bill Maurer, author of * How Would You like to Pay?: How Technology is Changing the Future of Money *
"This book deserves a very wide audience. Scholars and activists engaged with the impact of multinational corporations in African countries, neoliberal efforts to control the movement of bodies while endorsing unlimited flows of capital and uneven distributions of blame, and the limits of neoliberal calls for political reform really need to read The Licit Life of Capitalism." -- Jeremy Rich * African Studies Quarterly *
"Appel’s study of US oil companies in Equatorial Guinea is revelatory for its theoretical contributions to the anthropology of capitalism (beyond the rather more niche anthropology of oil), with a critical recentring of attention on the role of industry in shaping the politics and economics of resource extraction. With enviable access to the internal operations of these transnational corporations, Appel provides key insights into the assumptions and worldmaking strategies of what has long been an ethnographic black box." -- Wen Zhou * LSE Review of Books *
“The Licit Life of Capitalism is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of oil or the itinerant infrastructures of global capitalism. While Appel’s subject matter is complex, the book’s clear, compelling, and approachable prose make it an excellent addition to graduate-level geography courses focused on political economy, political ecology, infrastructure, or racial capitalism. Portions of the book, particularly ‘The Enclave’ and ‘The Economy,’ would also be appropriate for upper-division undergraduate courses on global development, postcolonial geography, and natural resource geographies.” -- Kendra Kintzi * Geographical Review *
“The Licit Life of Capitalism is an outstanding work of scholarship that combines theoretical innovation with incisive ethnographic detail.... Appel’s text makes for essential reading for anyone concerned about the energy industry, multinational corporations, and the lopsided exchanges between the global South and North.” -- Tanmoy Sharma * Society for the Anthropology of Work *
“The Licit Life of Capitalism is an energetic and polemical read. Appel’s account brings to life the seemingly yawn-worthy artefacts of the oil industry—contracts, budgets, corporate housing, conferences, sub-contracts—and reveals how these objects depend on and re-create the global, racialized inequality which itself doubles as one of this book’s central themes.” -- James Christopher Mizes * Society & Space *
“Appel’s scholarship has helped define anthropology’s infrastructural turn. Here, she expands her portrayal of oil not through money alone—the narrow prerogative of resource curse theories—but as an industry dependent on material infrastructures, racialized labor regimes, technical expertise, and capitalist fantasies.” -- Geoffrey Aung * Focaal *
“The Licit Life of Capitalism is above all a sophisticated study of capitalist world-making at different levels.... The book holds the tension between the ethnographic ‘particular’ and the ‘universal’ exceptionally well.” -- Gisa Weszkalnys * Anthropological Quarterly *
“The Licit Life of Capitalism is incredibly informative. . . . The finely detailed ethnographic particulars in each chapter do an excellent job of illustrating contemporary life in Equatorial Guinea.” -- Jerry K. Jacka * Africa *