Broccoli and Desire: Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala

✍ Scribed by Edward F. Fischer; Peter Benson

Publisher: Stanford University Press
Year: 2006
Tongue: English
Leaves: 224
Category: Library

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis

This book takes a surprising look at the hidden world of broccoli, connecting American consumers concerned about their health and diet with Maya farmers concerned about holding onto their land and making a living. Compelling life stories and rich descriptions from ethnographic fieldwork among supermarket shoppers in Nashville, Tennessee and Maya farmers in highland Guatemala bring the commodity chain of this seemingly mundane product to life. For affluent Americans, broccoli fits into everyday concerns about eating right, being healthy, staying in shape, and valuing natural foods. For Maya farmers, this new export crop provides an opportunity to make a little extra money in difficult, often risky circumstances. Unbeknownst to each other, the American consumer and the Maya farmer are bound together in webs of desire and material production.

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