overall themes concerning spaces of globalcapitalism and uneven geographical develop-ment, these become somewhat muddled and lost,particularly in the final chapter. I feel that thebook would have benefited from an introductorychapter that clearly sets out the overall areas andissues that the book explores and states why thisis important. It would also benefit from a con-cluding chapter which considers how the theoryof uneven geographical development has beenadvanced.

This book remains an excellent and scholarlypiece of work, intended for those with a reason-able understanding of critical geographical con-cepts. While some may not agree with the focuson the Marxist perspective, the work is importantbecause it provides key insights into how spaceshould be considered in the development of geo-graphical theory.

Paul SmithUpper Hunter Shire Council

Australia

An Everyday Geography of the Global SouthJonathan Rigg, Routledge, London, 2007, 264pp, ISBN 978 0 415 37608 2 (hardback)US$160.00, ISBN 978 0 415 37609 9 (paper-back) US$54.95.

Rigg’s book presents a geography of the GlobalSouth that is concerned with understanding theeveryday and personal geographies of globalisa-tion. Rather than focusing on the meta processesof globalisation, the book approaches the topicfrom the daily experiences and perspectives ofordinary people – farmers, mothers, daughters,factory workers and migrants. By adopting thisapproach a different reading and understandingof the Global South emerges that reveals thelocally embedded process of development andchange.

This book begins by meeting Mrs Chandaeng,a widow and mother of six children living in arural village in Laos. Mrs Chandaeng is relativelywell off in village terms: her wealth displayed ina new and ‘impressive’ (p.2) house under con-struction. Yet Mrs Chandaeng does not emergefrom the ranks of the village or political elite.Instead she belonged to the poorest of groups inLaos – a previously landless widow with childrento support. She became landless when forced toleave the village when her husband died. The

family moved to another village, but with noaccess to land and little education, there werefew opportunities for Mrs Chandaeng to liftthe household out of poverty. The opportunityarose when four of her children migrated asadults to Thailand and began to remit moneyto their mother in the village. The changing cir-cumstances of Mrs Chandaeng’s life and themigration experiences of her children highlightmany of the key concerns and themes explored inthis book. These include livelihood transition,household livelihood strategies, human agency,modernity, the interconnections between localplace-based dynamics and globalisation, and thevalue of investigating the minutiae of local every-day lives for understanding development andchange.

The book consists of nine chapters. The ratio-nale, focus, analytical scale and approach of thebook are outlined in the introductory chapter,together with an explanation of what is meantby the ‘everyday’. This chapter presents a per-suasive argument for a geography text book onthe Global South and one which privileges afocus on the micro-level and everyday lives ofpeople. With the overwhelming concentration ofgeographical research in the West/NorthernHemisphere, greater engagement with the Southis necessary to reach a more balanced under-standing about the world and, as Rigg pointsout, to address the domination of conceptualand theoretical frameworks derived from theNorth that are used to explain and understandthe South. Rigg argues for a more groundedapproach in the local level and the everyday toallow greater scope for ‘theorising up’ (p.7) as away to explain local outcomes and to challengethe all too common depiction of local commu-nities as products of the meta-processes of glo-balisation. Further justification for an everydayand local-level perspective on globalisationincludes: i) everyday micro-geographies revealwhat the grand studies hide from view; ii) theypresent not only ‘more finely detailed under-standing of change, but a different view’ (p.8)and, iii) they force a consideration of humanagency.

In Chapter 2 Rigg examines the livelihoodsapproach, opening with a discussion of Giddens’and Bourdieu’s contributions to the debates onstructure and agency that provided the theoreticalbackground from which the livelihood approachdeveloped. Some critical reflections are thenmade of the functionalist approach employed inmany livelihood studies and the tendency to view

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livelihoods in empirical and material terms, withlittle recognition of the social (including personalrelationships), cultural and political contexts inwhich they are embedded, or of how and whylivelihoods change over time. Rigg closes thechapter with two case studies, one from Ghanaand the other from South Africa to illustrate thepractical application of the livelihood approach,including some of its shortcomings.

Chapters 3 and 4, respectively examine thestructures of everyday life and change (mod-ernisation and modernity), and how communi-ties, households and individuals experiencelivelihood transition. The beginning of Chapter3 situates the discussion of change and liveli-hood transition with reference to householdsand communities. This is a good place to start adiscussion on change since it is by understand-ing the cultural and social norms and power andsocial relations within households and commu-nities that we can appreciate how people andplaces differently experience, interpret, resistand adapt to their changing environments. Riggprovides interesting case studies from Thailand,Zambia and Nepal to demonstrate the variousways in which households and communitiesengage with and negotiate modernity. Some ofthese case studies examine changing aspirationsand lifestyles among the younger generationand highlight the problems of the traditional/modern binary that is commonly applied to theliterature on change. Chapter 4 continues thetheme of change but with more emphasis onrural livelihood transition, and on the implica-tions of such change for particular groups insociety. This chapter addresses some of the keychallenges and issues of contemporary rural lifein the Global South that are driving livelihoodchange: namely declining access to land anddiminishing returns to agriculture and other tra-ditional rural activities.

Chapters 5 and 6 provide further empiricalevidence of the changing everyday experiencesof people in the Global South and their engage-ment with globalisation through a discussion ofmodernity (explored through an examination ofcommodity production and factory work) andmigration (with a focus on source communitiesrather than destination sites). These chapters,replete with rich local case studies and drawnfrom numerous countries, capture well the variedand complex everyday experiences and manifes-tations of modernity and migration. Some of theissues examined in these two chapters includeagro-industrialisation, household and gender

relations, changing lifestyles, remittance land-scapes and identity construction. The recurrentthemes in the book of the unexpected andcontradictory consequences of socio-economicchange are illustrated well in these chapters, andare used to question many common assumptionsand views regarding the nature and trajectories ofchange.

In Chapters 7 and 8 the discussion focuseson state-society relationships and the ways inwhich political structures interact with andoperate at the local level – often not in the waysenvisaged by government. Chapter 7 drawsattention to the ability of governments to governat the local level and to impact on local liveli-hoods through examining systems of local levelgovernance (for example, village/communitypolitical and cultural institutions and NGOs),community participation, and decentralisation.Chapter 8 focuses on everyday forms of com-munity resistance to state policies and struc-tures. These two chapters lead neatly into thefinal chapter where Rigg’s intent is to re-emphasise the linkages and interconnectionsbetween the local and wider scales and the needfor geographers to engage more in place-basedscholarship as a means of understanding thevarious trajectories of development and changein the Global South.

Some readers who are seeking structuralexplanations for the geographies of the GlobalSouth may be disappointed by this book, but forthose who see the merits of place-based geogra-phies in helping to understand how place, struc-ture and agency are intertwined and how localplaces are transformed will find the book engag-ing. Yet, while the focus of the book is clearly atthe micro-level, the backdrop of globalisationand broader processes are always present so thatthe reader is constantly drawn into the two wayinteractions and linkages between the local andwider scales and levels.

This book makes a significant contribution tothe literature on globalisation and developmentand comes with the strong message that, byexploring the everyday geographies of peoplein the Global South, we, as geographers, arecompelled to understand how local peopleexperience and comprehend the changing worldaround them in their own terms. This is a nec-essary first step towards developing a geogra-phy of the Global South that is informed by thelived experiences of local people rather than bythe conceptual and theoretical frameworks ofthe North.

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The book is an excellent resource for under-graduate teaching. It contains over 90 local casestudies from 36 countries. Each chapter has a listof further readings. Key debates and approachesare concisely and simply explained, and a diverseand interesting set of topics fill the chapters tokeep students engaged throughout the book. At

approximately $A70.00 the book is within thegeneral price range of student textbooks.

Gina KoczberskiCurtin University of Technology

Australia

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