Alan Smart and Josephine Smart are Professors of Anthropology at the University of Calgary. Alan Smart is the author of Making Room: Squatter Clearance in Hong Kong. Josephine Smart is the author of The Political Economy of Street Hawkers in Hong Kong and the coeditor (with Martha W. Rees) of Plural Globalities in Multiple Localities: New World Borders.

Globalization is often seen as driven by large corporations and supranational organisations. Enterprises operated by petty capitalists may be small, but there is nothing petty about their significance for the operation of economies or our understanding of contemporary societies, families, and localities. "Petty Capitalism and Globalization uses ethnographic research to examine how small firms in Europe. Asia, and Latin America have been compelled to operate and compete in a fast-moving transnational economic environment. From Nepalese rug makers to German bakers to Taiwanese memory chip designers, these fascinating case studies delve into the complex situation of petty capitalists.