In the Shadows of State and Capital

Striffler Steve Striffler

Description

Winner of the 2001 President's Award of the Social Science History AssociationIn the Shadows of State and Capital tells the story of how Ecuadorian peasants gained, and then lost, control of the banana industry. Providing an ethnographic history of the emergence of subcontracting within Latin American agriculture and of the central role played by class conflict in this process, Steve Striffler looks at the quintessential form of twentieth-century U.S. imperialism in the region-the banana industry and, in particular, the United Fruit Company (Chiquita). He argues that, even within this highly stratified industry, popular struggle has contributed greatly to processes of capitalist transformation and historical change.Striffler traces the entrance of United Fruit into Ecuador during the 1930s, its worker-induced departure in the 1960s, the troubled process through which contract farming emerged during the last half of the twentieth century, and the continuing struggles of those involved. To explore the influence of both peasant activism and state power on the withdrawal of multinational corporations from banana production, Striffler draws on state and popular archives, United Fruit documents, and extensive oral testimony from workers, peasants, political activists, plantation owners, United Fruit administrators, and state bureaucrats. Through an innovative melding of history and anthropology, he demonstrates that, although peasant-workers helped dismantle the foreign-owned plantation, they were unable to determine the broad contours through which the subsequent system of production-contract farming-emerged and transformed agrarian landscapes throughout Latin America.By revealing the banana industry's impact on processes of state formation in Latin America, In the Shadows of State and Capital will interest historians, anthropologists, and political scientists, as well as scholars of globalization and agrarian studies.

Sujets

• Ecuador

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 14 décembre 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822383765
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

I N T H E S H A D O W S O F S TAT E A N D C A P I TA L

A book in the series

A M E R I C A N E N C O U N T E R S / G L O B A L I N T E R A C T I O N S

A series edited by Gilbert M. Joseph

and Emily S. Rosenberg

I N

T H E

S TAT E

S H A D O W S

A N D

O F

C A P I TA L

The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle,

and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador,

–

S T E V E S T R I F F L E R

Duke University Press

Durham & London



© 2 0 0 2 D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Typeset in Stone by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear

on the last printed page of this book. Portions of this book originally appeared in a different form in ‘‘Wedded to Work: Class Struggles and Gendered Identities in the Restructuring of the Ecuadorian Banana Industry,’’Identities(). Copyright Overseas Publishers Association. Reprinted with permission from Taylor & Francis Ltd.

A M E R I C A N E N C O U N T E R S / G L O B A L I N T E R A C T I O N S

A series edited by Gilbert M. Joseph and Emily S. Rosenberg

This series aims to stimulate critical perspectives and fresh interpretive frameworks for scholarship on the history of the imposing global pres- ence of the United States. Its primary concerns include the deployment and contestation of power, the construction and deconstruction of cul- tural and political borders, the fluid meanings of intercultural encoun- ters, and the complex interplay between the global and the local. Ameri- can Encounters seeks to strengthen dialogue and collaboration between historians of U.S. international relations and area studies specialists. The series encourages scholarship based on multiarchival historical re- search. At the same time, it supports a recognition of the representational character of all stories about the past and promotes critical inquiry into issues of subjectivity and narrative. In the process, American Encounters strives to understand the context in which meanings related to nations, cultures, and political economy are continually produced, challenged, and reshaped.

C O N T E N T S

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2

3

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5

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9

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11

Acknowledgments, ix

Capitalist Transformations, 

PA R T O N EThe World of Plantations Introduction to Part One,

The Banana Boys Come to Ecuador, 

The Birth of an Enclave: Labor Control and Worker Resistance, 

On the Margins of an Enclave: The Formation of State, Capital, and Community, 

Imagining New Worlds, 

The End of an Enclave, 

PA R T T W OThe Emergence of Contract Farming Introduction to Part Two,

From Workers to Peasants and Back Again: Agrarian Reform at the Core of an Enclave, 

From Struggles to Movement: The Expansion of Protest and Community Formation, 

The Reconstitution of State, Capital, and Popular Struggle, 

In Search of Workers: Contract Farming and Labor Organizing, 

Conclusion, 

Notes, 

Bibliography, 

Index, 

Acknowledgments

In producing this book, I contracted numerous personal and intellec- tual debts, a number of which are evident in the pages that follow. First, I would like to thank all of my Ecuadorian friends and colleagues who made the process of collecting documents, finding people, and learn- ing about Ecuador both enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. Carlos Larrea not only shaped this project through his scholarship (as the bib- liography attests), but suggested that United Fruit’s Hacienda Tenguel might be an interesting place from which to understand twentieth- century Ecuador, the banana industry, and popular struggle. I agree, and am forever grateful. I am also in debt to him for having pointed me in the direction of two scholar-activists, Manuel Chiriboga and Padre Hernán Rodas. Manuel shared his time, knowledge, hospitality, and historical documents with uncommon generosity. Padre Hernán, as he is known to just about all of the protagonists in this book, not only opened his home and archive, but convinced a skeptical anthropologist that ‘‘the priest from the highlands’’ was and is as remarkable as everyone insists. To those who believe that one person cannot make a difference, I suggest spending a day with Padre Hernán. I cannot possibly thank everyone in the region where I worked, but I would like to especially mention the Izquierdo-Chica family, the Zam- brano family, Blanca, her mother, and the rest of the Arteaga family. Spe- cial thanks go to Humberto Eras and José Llivichusca for sharing so much of their time. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I would also like to thank Joaquin Vásquez and his entire family, Sergio Armijos, the León brothers, Juan Ochoa, as well as the community of Shumiral. Finally, in Quito, I thank my Ecuadorian family, Blanca Tafur, Cynthia, Gaby, and (the late) abuelita. They did their best to keep me from working. For that, I am eternally grateful. My deepest appreciation goes to (the late) William Roseberry. I am proud to say that for almost a decade he was my teacher, advisor, and mentor. He remains my intellectual guide. His warmth and understated humor made the process of graduate school, grant proposals, disserta-