Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Algo Más

Translation: "something more," the answer given by Maya farmers in Guatemala for why they want to switch from subsistence farming to the lucrative cash crop of broccoli.

From colleague Ted Fischer's new book, Broccoli & Desire. There is a fierce debate among anthropologists about whether globalization is good for these subsistence farmers:
Our ethnographic examination of the desires and struggles of Maya farmers might not contain the kind of resistance narrative about exploitation and inequality that we initially set out to uncover. Yet we have been pushed to more honestly and humbly consider how broccoil production becomes desirable, if also dangerous.

1 comment: