Fair Trade Enclaves

Labour and Livelihoods in Costa Rica's Banana Industry
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-60010-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd (Sales)

Buch, Englisch, 142 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 376 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Anthropology

Fair Trade Enclaves tells the story of exploitation and inequality in the production of Fair Trade bananas. It draws on immersive fieldwork in Costa Rica, which was the original testing ground for US-owned plantations and is today the world’s third-largest exporter of bananas. The book offers an ethnographic study of Fair Trade’s impact on the ‘Dollar’ banana system and considers how the growth in Fair Trade affects workers’ livelihoods at the source of production. It documents the labour conditions and daily struggles of Costa Rican banana workers, featuring a comparative anthropological assessment of Fair Trade and conventional farms. The chapters provide a window onto Fair Trade’s ability to effect change within one of the world’s most exploitative and enduring commodity chains, exposing how Fair Trade currently fails to challenge the structural exploitation of banana production within the dollar system. The author reveals how, in some respects, workers at the conventional farm enjoy better conditions compared with those employed on the Fair Trade farm. The book is valuable reading for scholars of Anthropology, Development, and Latin American Studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zaglul Ruiz, Layla

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Entwicklungsökonomie & Emerging Markets
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Historische & Regionale Volkskunde

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction Disjunctions in the Fair Trade Movement Fair Trade enclaves within neoliberalism The discourse of crisis Self-exploitation and co-ownership Research methods and positionality Book structure 2. Producing bananas Producing bananas in Costa Rica Producing Alianza (and Caché) bananas Conclusions 3. Fair trade contradictions Contracts Working hours and payment Freedom of association Conclusions 4. Materializing power on the shop floor Caché: controlling through conflict and violence Alianza: Relatedness and kinship on the shopfloor Conclusions 5. Discourse of crisis in public and private spheres The shop floor in crisis Conclusion 6. The cost of quality The evolution of banana quality standards Surviving the market with extra-class bananas More restrictions, the same ‘perfect fruit’ Is first-class consumption ethical? Conclusion 7. The lack of social capital Agrofair’s modus operandi Conclusion 8. Conclusion. Index

Über Autor(innen)

Layla Zaglul Ruiz is a Canning House Research Fellow in the Latin America and Caribbean Center at the London School of Economics, UK.