Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States

338 Pages·2006·6.15 MB·English

by  John Soluri

banana cultures
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Banana Cultures
Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental
Change in Honduras and the United States
john soluri
UniversityofTexasPress Austin
Copyright©2005bytheUniversityofTexasPress
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Firstedition,2005
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(cid:9)Thepaperusedinthisbookmeetstheminimumrequirementsof
ansi/nisoz39.48-1992(r1997)(PermanenceofPaper).
libraryofcongresscataloging-in-publicationdata
Soluri,John.
Bananacultures:agriculture,consumption,andenvironmentalchangein
HondurasandtheUnitedStates/JohnSoluri.—1sted.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn0-292-70957-9(cloth:alk.paper)—isbn0-292-71256-1(pbk.:alk.paper)
1.Bananatrade—Honduras. 2.Bananatrade—Socialaspects—Honduras.
3.Bananatrade—Environmentalaspects—Honduras. 4.Bananatrade—United
States. 5.Bananatrade—Socialaspects—UnitedStates. I.Title.
hd9259.b3h678 2005
306.3'49'097283—dc22 2005015808
ForAmalia
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
introduction LinkingPlacesofProductionandConsumption 1
chapter 1 GoingBananas 18
chapter 2 SpaceInvaders 41
chapter 3 AlteredLandscapesandTransformedLivelihoods 75
chapter 4 Sigatoka,Science,andControl 104
chapter 5 RevisitingtheGreenPrison 128
chapter 6 TheLivesandTimeofMissChiquita 161
chapter 7 LaQuímica 193
chapter 8 BananaCulturesinComparativePerspective 216
Notes 247
Bibliography 293
Index 315
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Preface
This book began as a research question focused on the relationship
betweensocialandenvironmentalchangeinHonduras.Overmanyyears,
it has evolved into a study of the mass production and mass consump-
tionofbananas—themostfrequentlyconsumedfreshfruitintheUnited
States.The title refers both to the tropical places where export bananas
grewandtheculturalspaceswherebananaswereconsumed.WhenIfirst
becameinterestedinthetopicasanundergraduateinthelate1980s,events
takingplaceinHondurasandCentralAmericaroutinelymadeheadlines
intheUnitedStates.Today,theU.S.government’slatesteffortto‘‘install
democracy’’hasshiftedpublicattentiontootherplacesandcommodities.
InHonduras,thevalueofexportsofapparelnowdwarfsthatof banana
exports.However,thisoughtnottodiscourageseriousreflectiononthe
historyofbananas—animportantinternationallytradedcommoditythat
gave rise to, among other things, the United Fruit Company, one of the
first and most powerful transnational corporations of the past century.
Livinginanerawhenmanypeopleseematalosstoimagineaworldnot
dominated by corporations and mass markets, it strikes me as impera-
tivetoreexaminethehistoricalprocessesthathaveshapedplaceswhere
commoditiesareproducedandconsumed.
If this book has an overriding message, it is the need for people
to think and act in ways that acknowledge the dynamic relationships
between production and consumption, between people and nonhuman
formsof life,andbetweenculturesandeconomies.Ultimately,Ibelieve
thatmanytwentieth-centurymodelsandideologiesofdevelopmentand
conservationareflawedbecausetheyshareunderlying(andunexamined)
assumptionsthatnatureandcultureareeitherstaticorchangeinpredict-
ableways. However, there is little that is timeless about nature—human
orotherwise.
On a less lofty level, this book seeks to answer (finally) a question
thatfriends,familymembers,andacquaintancesfrequentlyask:‘‘Doyou