In this political ethnography of the "marginalized" population of Netzahuacoyotl Izcalli, the fourth largest city in Mexico, Carlos V�lez-Iba�ez shows that although marginalized groups seldom emerge the clear winners of political struggles, they gain a sense of autonomy and social power that can never be erased.

The turn of the century has been a moment of rapid urbanization. Much of this urban growth is taking place in the cities of the developing world and much of it in informal settlements. This book presents cutting-edge research from various world regions to demonstrate these trends. The contributions reveal that informal housing is no longer the domain of the urban poor; rather it is a significant zone of transactions for the middle-class and even transnational elites. Indeed, the book presents a rich view of "urban informality" as a system of regulations and norms that governs the use of space and makes possible new forms of social and political power. The book is organized as a "transnational" endeavor. It brings together three regional domains of research--the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia--that are rarely in conversation with one another. It also unsettles the hierarchy of development and underdevelopment by looking at some First World processes of informality through a Third World research lens.

People are moving to the margins of the Catholic Church. As one dialogue partner states, "I left the Church to beat the rush." Yet, another remarks, "I just wonder. I have to ask, who's on the margins? I'm not sure." Let Your Voice Be Heard details original practical theology research that endeavors to understand the dynamics on the margins of the Roman Catholic Church in dialogue with fifty dialogue partners from across the United States. Practical theology, the theology of marginality of Jung Young Lee, reciprocal ethnography, and the communication theory of Mikhail Bakhtin join in a cross-disciplinary dialogue. In conversation with dialogue partners, Joan Hebert Reisinger seeks the reasons why Catholics over the age of twenty-one who were once active and involved in the Catholic Church find themselves on the margins of the Church and how they understand their own marginality. The dialogue partners speak of new ways of being Church emerging on the margins. This emerging Church is marked by inclusive relationships that include dialogue that does not seek agreement or consensus, a critical and thoughtful recalling of memories and narratives of the Catholic faith tradition, and appropriation of these in new and creative ways.

Access to water and sanitation service in industrialized countries is nearly taken for granted, but in many developing countries less than half of the population has access to such services. Decades of effort on a global scale have been invested to solve this problem. One such effort--Brazil's participatory approach to water and sanitation--is Nance's subject in Engineers and Communities. In the early 1980s, Brazilian engineers created participatory sanitation (known locally as condominial sewerage) to make basic sanitation service more inclusive. Fiercely contested at first, the technology's success hinged on the formation of strong and stable coalitions of diverse actors and on the promotion of both real participation and a participation narrative. The innovations described in the book contributed to the now indispensable concepts of community participation and locally appropriate technology. Today the technology has spread across Brazil- it has been legally incorporated into sewer design norms and codes, it is counted in the national census, and the model is being transferred to other countries by The World Bank and others who are trying to make basic urban services more inclusive of the poor. Engineers and Communities sheds light on what is essential in the broader discourse of international development.

How the sustainability movement has been co-opted: from ecobranding by Wal-Mart to the “greening” of the American military. The idea of “sustainability” has gone mainstream. Thanks to Prius-driving movie stars, it's even hip. What began as a grassroots movement to promote responsible development has become a bullet point in corporate ecobranding strategies. In Hijacking Sustainability, Adrian Parr describes how this has happened: how the goals of an environmental movement came to be mediated by corporate interests, government, and the military. Parr argues that the more popular sustainable development becomes, the more commodified it becomes; the more mainstream culture embraces the sustainability movement's concern over global warming and poverty, the more “sustainability culture” advances the profit-maximizing values of corporate capitalism. And the more issues of sustainability are aligned with those of national security, the more military values are conflated with the goals of sustainable development. Parr looks closely at five examples of the hijacking of sustainability: corporate image-greening; Hollywood activism; gated communities; the greening of the White House; and the incongruous efforts to achieve a “sustainable” army. Parr then examines key challenges to sustainability—waste disposal, disaster relief and environmental refugees, slum development, and poverty. Sustainability, Parr says, offers an alternative narrative of the collective good—an idea now compromised and endangered by corporate, military, and government interests.