"Worlds Apart maps out one of the new directions of anthropology, that aimed at advances in technologies which create an imagination of new global and local forms. It examines global institutions ranging from bureaucracy to business and from soap operas to beauty contests in regions such as West Africa, Hawaii, Australia, Belize and Egypt. The overall issue is whether there exists either a global level that transcends these loaclized manifestations or a local level that exists other than in relation to a wider domain.
Anthropology has traditionally been more concerned with what is often assumed were regional traditions, and may have appeared threatened by increasing transnational institutions. In this book, however, the contributors who have studied these themes in their specific localized forms, show why there may be more, rather than less, reason to carry out ethnographic and comparative research when ethnographic detail is acknowledged to be closely linked to emergent global forms.
This book will provide a firm foundation for future debates about local-global relations as well as demonstrating the continued significance of the contribution of anthropology to such discussions. It will be invaluable reading to all anthropologists and students of anthropology, cultural studies, media studies, human geography and sociology.

Chapter 1 Introduction, D. Miller; Chapter 2 Inconsistent temporalities in a nation-space, Michael Rowlands; Chapter 3 Creating a culture of disillusionment, Caroline Humphrey; Chapter 4 Bureaucratic erasure, Bruce Kapferer; Chapter 5 Around a plantation, Jean-Pierre Warnier; Chapter 6 Learning to be local in Belize, Richard Wilk; Chapter 7 Global complexity and the simplicity of everyday life, Kajsa Ekholm-Friedman, Jonathan Friedman; Chapter 8 On soap opera, Veena Das; Chapter 9 The objects of soap opera, Lila Abu-Lughod; Chapter 10 Aboriginal art in a global context, Howard Morphy; Chapter 11 Traversing the global and the local, Karin Barber, Christopher Waterman;

Daniel Miller is Reader in Anthropology at University College London.