Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights the place of borders in our lives, by pointing to an actual border setting at the southeastern margins of Turkey. It presents the story of the transformation of Ottoman Kilis into a border town, as told from the perspective of its dwellers. The book explores the inner stratification and change in Kilis border town and focuses on the growth of the shadow economy along Kilis border and explore the social and economic conditions of the rise of new wealth since the 1960s. It shows that the illegal trade of gold as well as consumer goods promoted upward mobility by undermining structural constraints of social stratification and shifted the social and urban landscape of the town by embedding the local economy into national and transnational shadow networks.