Stolen Cars is an innovative ethnography of urban inequalities and violence in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

• Organized around the journeys of five stolen cars, each chapter discusses a specific theme, such as the distinctions between violent robbery and the more commercial non-violent theft or the role of national borders interconnecting illegal and legal economies
• Provides an original theoretical framework for a rarely studied urban and transnational supply chain
• Draws from empirical data and a combination of different methodologies to demonstrate mechanisms of urban inequalities and violence reproduction
• Highlights how everyday life is entangled with structural urban transformations
• Uses an ethnographic narrative to show how urban development produce various forms of illegality and violent crime

About the Author

Gabriel Feltran is an urban ethnographer who has studied the 'world of crime' in Brazil for more than two decades. He is Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Sao Carlos and Senior Researcher at the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP). He has held Invited Scholar positions at University of Oxford, UK, and Humboldt University, Germany, and is former Academic Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Professor Feltran's works include The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo.

Reviews
'Something of an instant classic, Stolen Cars pins its researcher's sights on the moving targets selected by the thieves and robbers of Sao Paulo's criminal networks. Those expecting only underworld revelations are quickly re-educated to see how acts of illicit acquisition form part of a more complex and vast urban economy whose shadow embraces both the formal and the illicit. Stolen Cars is a detailed, complex and exciting story with an intellectual energy that matches the turbo-charged vehicles so prized by Sao Paulo's thieves.'
Rowland Atkinson, Research Chair in Inclusive Societies, University of Sheffield, UK


'This book should be an instant classic. Theft and crime shape urban livelihoods and everyday experiences in many cities, at the frontiers of often extreme inequality. But these themes are absent from the canon of urban theory. Through a detailed ethnography of car theft in Sao Paulo, Stolen Cars traces the deep ties of these illegal circuits with insurance, finance, auto production and repair, as well as the international drug trade. A highly innovative account of crucial transnational networks shaping urban life and urban economies, this book represents an essential new starting point for global urban studies.'
Jennifer Robinson, Professor of Geography, University College London, UK



Book Information
ISBN 9781119686125
Author Gabriel Feltran
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint John Wiley & Sons Inc
Publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc
Weight(grams) 397g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 15mm