Abstract
The criminalization of Chinese counterfeit goods in the global market calls for a fresh approach to understanding well‐established binary distinctions such as legal/illegal, licit/illicit, and formal/informal. Based on a multi‐sited ethnography in China, Paraguay and Brazil, I examine five commodity chains of two products – toys and watches – and their regulatory frameworks in terms of merchandise status, business formality, and international transaction legality. Certain merchandise produced in the formal economy has no legal definition a priori, but legal variability starts when goods leave the factory. A great interchangeability of a product's legal status existed along its chain according to governance structures, legal cultures, geographical domains, and power relations. These findings suggest that the illicit is a relational category and the so‐called criminal economy is not a segmented market, but part of a global process integrated with formality and marked by great legal variability within and between nations.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 479-499 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Global Networks |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 16 Jan 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Jun 2018 |
Access to Document
- GN_Informal_Economy_Final
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Pinheiro Machado, R. (2018). Rethinking the Informal and Criminal Economy from a Global Commodity Chain Perspective: China-Paraguay-Brazil. Global Networks , 18(3), 479-499. , which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/glob.12187. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.