Utilizing rich ethnographic accounts and first-person narratives, the contributors examine how ordinary people are responding to the complexities of living in today's world, including: genetic counseling, surrogate motherhood and the abortion debate in the US; resisting management policies in the new workplaces of Malaysia; and contesting forms of cultural and economic domination in Jamaica and the US-Mexican border. Several essays explore the politics of representations, including how colonial administrators, missionaries and the tourist industry have represented the "Other", such as the Tswana of South Africa, the peoples of Sumatra and Malaya or Pueblo women potters in the Southwest.

In analyzing cultural transformation, gendered practice and varied forms of resistance, these essays give a sense of hope for even in the most fouled work sites, repressive regimes or segregated neighborhoods, women and men express their own cultural meanings, take matters into their own hands and work together.
-- Includes case studies from the United States and developing world
-- Focuses on issues of gender, while exploring its connections to class, race, technology and the global economy