Rubbing two sticks together produces heat and light while one stick aone is just a stick. It is the friction that produces movement, action and effect. Anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing challenges the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a clash of cultures, developing friction as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world. Focusing on the social drama of the Indonesian rainforest in the 1980s and 1990s, she shows how a host of competing interest-from environmentalists and North American investors to advocates, for Brazilian rubber tappers, international funding agencies, and village elders-are drawn into unpredictable, miessy misunderstandings, but misunderstandings that sometimes work out. Now with a new preface by the author. Friction provides an invaluable portfolio of methods for the study of global interconnections.