Slipping Away

Banana Politics and Fair Trade in the Eastern Caribbean
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-1-84545-145-5
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 4, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 543 g

Reihe: Dislocations

During the 1990s, the Eastern Caribbean was caught in a bitter trade dispute between the US and EU over the European banana market. When the World Trade Organization rejected preferential access for Caribbean growers in 1998 the effect on the region’s rural communities was devastating. This volume examines the “banana wars” from the vantage point of St. Lucia’s Mabouya Valley, whose recent, turbulent history reveals the impact of global forces. The author investigates how the contemporary structure of the island’s banana industry originated in colonial policies to create a politically “stable” peasantry, followed by politicians’ efforts to mobilize rural voters. These political strategies left farmers dependent on institutional and market protection, leaving them vulnerable to any alteration in trade policy. This history gave way to a new harsh reality, in which neoliberal policies privilege price and quantity over human rights and the environment. However, against these challenges, the author shows how the rural poor have responded in creative ways, including new social movements and Fair Trade farming, in order to negotiate a stronger position for themselves in the in a shifting global economy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Moberg, Mark

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

List of Tables, Figures and Maps

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Linking the Personal, the Local and the Global

Chapter 2. An Island in History

Chapter 3. Banananomics: Work and Identity Among Island Growers

Chapter 4. St. Lucia in the Global Banana Trade

Chapter 5. Banana Politics

Chapter 6. Privatization and Fragmentation

Chapter 7. Survivors

Chapter 8. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Chapter 9. Fair Trade in Discourse and Practice

Chapter 10. Fair Trade and Conventional Farming in the Mabouya Valley

Chapter 11. Conclusion: A New World or a New Kind of Dependence?

References Cited

Über Autor(innen)

Moberg, Mark
Mark Moberg is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Alabama. His research centers on the economic and political dimensions of rural development in Central America and the Caribbean. He has published extensively in cultural and applied anthropology and is the author or co-editor of three previous books: Citrus, Strategy and Class (1992), Myths of Ethnicity and Nation (1997), and Banana Wars (2003; edited with Steve Striffler).