Bibliograph

Banana cultures, agriculture, consumption, and environmental change in Honduras and the United States, John Soluri

Type

Label

Banana cultures, agriculture, consumption, and environmental change in Honduras and the United States, John Soluri

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages [293]-313) and index

resource.governmentPublication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Illustrations

mapsillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Banana cultures

Medium

electronic resource eBook

Nature of contents

bibliographydictionaries

Responsibility statement

John Soluri

Sub title

agriculture, consumption, and environmental change in Honduras and the United States

Summary

Bananas, the most frequently consumed fresh fruit in the United States, have been linked to Miss Chiquita and Carmen Miranda, "banana republics," and Banana Republic clothing stores-everything from exotic kitsch, to Third World dictatorships, to middle-class fashion. But how did the rise in banana consumption in the United States affect the banana-growing regions of Central America? In this lively, interdisciplinary study, John Soluri integrates agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history to trace the symbiotic growth of the export banana industry in Honduras and the consumer mass market in the United States. Beginning in the 1870s when bananas first appeared in the U.S. marketplace, Soluri examines the tensions between the small-scale growers, who dominated the trade in the early years, and the shippers. He then shows how rising demand led to changes in production that resulted in the formation of major agribusinesses, spawned international migrations, and transformed great swaths of the Honduran environment into monocultures susceptible to plant disease epidemics that in turn changed Central American livelihoods. Soluri also looks at labor practices and workers' lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, the effects of pesticides on the Honduran environment and people, and the mass marketing of bananas to consumers in the United States. His multifaceted account of a century of banana production and consumption adds an important chapter to the history of Honduras, as well as to the larger history of globalization and its effects on rural peoples, local economies, and biodiversity. [from publisher description]

Table Of Contents

Linking places of production and consumption -- Going bananas -- Space invaders -- Altered landscapes and transformed livelihoods -- Sigatoka, science, and control -- Revisiting the green prison -- The lives and time of Miss Chiquita -- La Química -- Banana cultures in comparative perspective

Contributor