What link can be established between Tripoli, capital of the former rogue state of Libya, the small Egyptian border town of Salloum, inhabited by Bedouins, the Egyptian metropolis of Cairo, and Yiwu, a market city three hours’ drive from Shanghai? At first glance, the question may seem like a guessing game, but in fact it leads geographers, anthropologists, and other social scientists to face the increasing difficulty of working out the unexpected and often invisible connections between locations along the routes of “globalization from below.”