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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. SECURITY, RIGHTS, AND THE LAW IN EVO'S BOLIVIA -- Chapter 2. GETTING ENGAGED: Reflections on an Activist Anthropology -- Chapter 3. THE PHANTOM STATE: Law and Ordering on the Urban Margins -- Chapter 4. EXORCISING GHOSTS: Managing Insecurity in Uspha Uspha -- Chapter 5. COMMUNITY JUSTICE AND THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION -- Chapter 6. INHUMAN RIGHTS? Violence at the Nexus of Rights and Security -- Chapter 7. AN UNCERTAIN ANTHROPOLOGY -- Notes -- References -- Index

Security, rights, and the law in Evo's Bolivia -- Getting engaged : reflections on an activist anthropology -- The phantom state : law and ordering on the urban margins -- Exorcising ghosts : managing insecurity in Uhspa Uhspa -- Community justice and the creative imagination -- Inhuman rights? : violence at the nexus of rights and security -- An uncertain anthropology.

Introduction: becoming visible in neoliberal Bolivia -- Ethnography, governmentality, and urban life -- Urbanism, modernity, and migration in Cochabamba -- Villa Sebastián Pagador and the politics of community -- Performing national culture in the fiesta de San Miguel -- Spectacular violence and citizen security -- Conclusion: theaters of memory and the violence of citizenship.

The appearance of effective security making—demonstrated through surveillance, visibility, and ongoing performance—is significant to contemporary sovereign authority in urban spaces characterized by quotidian violence and crime. This article examines La Cancha, Cochabamba, Bolivia's enormous outdoor market, which is policed not by the state but by private security firms that operate as nonstate sovereign actors in the space of the market. The article provides an ethnographic account of one of these firms (the Men in Black), and documents the work of both municipal and national police—all of them distinguished by differently colored uniforms—in the management of crime, administration of justice, and establishment of public order in the market. Sovereignty here is derived through public performance, both violent and nonviolent, through which the Men in Black demonstrate and maintain their sovereign power.

What does it mean for anthropology to be relevant in the context of an ongoing global war on terror? This article examines the meanings of "security," concentrating on the discipline's engagement with the military and the ways in which the anthropological concept of culture has been deployed in post‐9/11 security campaigns. It argues that while there are many potential pitfalls awaiting the so‐called culture expert in military collaborations, security nevertheless remains an important field to which anthropologists can bring critical scholarly attention and ethical engagement.