From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea

310 Pages·2012·2.473 MB·English

by  Paige West

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THE WORLD OF COFFEE FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA
One way that scholars have tried to understand the social effects
of global capitalism has been by looking at the production, circu-
lation, and consumption of commodities. Coffee is a commodity
par excellence that has been uniquely important to Papua New
Guinea and its citizens historically and currently, particularly
in the Highlands Regions of the country.∞ Historically, coffee
spread through capillary social networks and in many ways
grafted onto and complemented existing Melanesian ideas of
personhood and sociality. Today new neoliberal forms of capital-
ism have brought fair-trade, organic, and other coffee-certifi-
cation schemes to Papua New Guinea—schemes which impose
fully formed prescriptive regimes of governmentality at odds in
many ways with Melanesian ways of seeing and being in the
world. These same forms of capitalism have brought into being
the specialty coffee market, a market in which coffee is valued,
bought, and sold based on images of coffee producers and loca-
tions of production. This book uses coffee to understand labor,
and the multiple forms it takes in our global economy, value, and
the ways it is produced today with regard to both objects and hu-
man lives, images, and how specific ideas about nature and cul-
ture are made to adhere to objects, and the politics and material
effects of the circulation of images of Papua New Guinea and the
people whose labor brings Papua New Guinean coffee into be-
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ing. With this, the book examines the world of coffee from Papua New
Guinea, including its political ecology, social history, and social meaning, in
order to contribute to anthropological discussions about circulation and
neoliberalization. The book explores these issues ethnographically.≤
Senses of Coffee
Coffee is a plant native to Ethiopia, which has, over the past two thousand
years, become a commodity powerhouse producing physical spaces and
human subjectivities on a global scale.≥ Coffea, the genus that encompasses
the multiple species of coffee, is part of the enormous family Rubiaceae,
which includes six hundred genera and about ten thousand species (Clif-
ford and Wilson 1985; Wrigley 1988). Within the genus Coffea are ten
species, two of which—Coffea arabica and Coffea robusta—have radically
transformed ecologies and societies in the equatorial and subtropical parts
of the world.∂ Today 25 million people in sixty countries produce 12 billion
pounds of coffee a year, and each year coffee generates retail sales of over
$70 billion, the vast majority produced in tropical countries and 75 percent
of it imported by the United States, Europe, and Japan.∑ In the world
market of commodities only petroleum has greater monetary value and is
traded more frequently than coffee (Donald 2004).
Coffee grows on trees that thrive at altitudes between 1,800 and 3,600
feet in the subtropics and between 3,600 and 6,300 feet in the tropics (Illy
and Viani 1995, 21). In these environments you can easily take a ripe,
pulped, and fermented coffee bean, plant it, germinate it, and then propa-
gate it as a coffee-tree seedling (Mitchell 1988, 46). You can then plant that
seedling, once it reaches about 30 centimeters in height, in a field or a
mixed-crop garden, and in three to four years your seedling, now a tree, will
produce tiny white flowers. About thirty-five weeks after the flowers are
pollinated your tree will be covered in ripe, red coffee ‘‘cherries’’ that are
ready to be harvested.∏
While there are some farms that use harvesting machines, the majority of
coffee is harvested by hand, which allows farmers and pickers to go tree to
tree and harvest only the ripest ‘‘cherry.’’π Pickers can also return to trees
over and over again to make sure that every cherry is eventually harvested.
Once the cherries are harvested they must be pulped, fermented, dried, pro-
cessed, shipped, roasted, packaged, and marketed before they are con-
sumed. Throughout this process the beans are bought and sold many times
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Flowering coffee
plant
over and moved to numerous locations. With each relocation their eco-
nomic and social value as well as their social and symbolic meaning changes.
Coffee moves around our planet. It is carried by farmers on their backs,
in donkey-drawn wagons, and in wheelbarrows. It is loaded into trucks,
cars, airplanes, boats, and ships. It moves down walking tracks through
dense tropical forests and well-worn paths across deforested land. It travels
on dirt and gravel roads, on regional highways, and on superhighways. It
moves across our airways and shipping lanes. At every moment, every
second of the day and night, there is coffee moving around our world. And
it has moved like this for a very long time (Schivelbusch 1993; Wild 2005).
Coffee has been at the commodity forefront of what is today described as
‘‘globalization’’ since the social, economic, and political processes and con-
figurations that we name with that term began (Schivelbusch 1993).∫
The smell of coffee is one of my first memories. When I was a child I
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spent a great deal of time at my grandparents’ house in the rural mountains
of northern Georgia. My grandfather’s father built the farmhouse in 1882,
and its old wooden walls allow for sound and smell to flow through it freely.
As a child I slept in the room across the hall from the kitchen, and I
remember waking up in the big, old bed, deep with quilts even during the
hottest days of July, hearing my grandparents’ voices and smelling my
grandmother’s coffee. I would lie in bed and let the sense of safe calmness
wash over me before I sneaked into the kitchen. There my grandfather,
eating a bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and my grandmother, drinking a
cup of watery black instant Maxwell House coffee, would greet me.
Instant coffee—dried, crispy, diamond-like granules—was the staple
coffee in most households from the end of the Second World War until the
late 1980s. Between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s the global market for
coffee was internationally regulated and dominated by large corporate
roasters like Maxwell House and Procter and Gamble. These roasters pro-
duced what many coffee drinkers and coffee marketers today consider low-
quality, homogeneous coffee, coffee that mirrored the Fordist industrial
economy in which standardization and mass production were central goals
(see Harvey 1990).
Today when I visit my grandmother, I bring the coffee. On most days she
still drinks Maxwell House, but in the early mornings when I find her in the
kitchen, I make a pot of what Roseberry (1996) calls ‘‘yuppie coffee,’’ for-
mally known as ‘‘specialty coffee.’’ This kind of coffee gained entry into the
global coffee market when it was deregulated in the late 1980s and when
the International Coffee Agreement (ica)—a global price stabilization
agreement—fell apart in 1989. The term ‘‘specialty coffees’’ includes fla-
vored coffees, ‘‘single-origin’’ coffees (e.g., Papua New Guinea coffee mar-
keted as such and Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee), organic coffees, fair-trade
coffees, and other seemingly socially responsible coffees that are usually
brought to market by small coffee companies—roasters, distributors, and
coffee shops. Specialty coffees are often marketed to communicate an
evolution in our discerning palette, and their high prices convey their
exclusivity. But in fact the availability of these diverse coffees reflects struc-
tural changes in the global economy. Their market is flexible, consumer-
oriented, and specialized; we might think of them as post-Fordist coffees
(Doane 2010; Harvey 1990).Ω
When I’ve recently returned from Papua New Guinea, the country
where I have conducted anthropological research since 1997, I have brought
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Arabicas Coffee, Goroka Coffee, or Kongo Coffee for my grandmother,
brands that are produced, processed, packaged, and marketed locally in
Papua New Guinea.∞≠ Arabicas Ltd. and Goroka Coffee Roasters are in the
town of Goroka, the capital of the Eastern Highlands Province, and Kongo
Coffee Ltd. is in Kundiawa, the capital of the Simbu Province. If I have not
recently been to Papua New Guinea, I bring coffee from Coffee Connec-
tions, a Goroka-based company that exports to Vournas Coffee Trading, a
small importing company in California that buys organic and fair-trade-
certified coffees from around the world and sells them to roasters and
distributors across the United States.
Among coffee experts, often called ‘‘cuppers’’ in the coffee business,
Papua New Guinea coffee is variously described as ‘‘sweetly acidic with
mild to medium body and fruity undertones,’’ having ‘‘uniquely wild notes
in the cup with a fruity endnote,’’ ‘‘bright, clean, fruited,’’ ‘‘rustic,’’ ‘‘rich with
good acidity and a rich chocolaty finish,’’ ‘‘what Jamaica Blue Mountain
used to taste like, primitive flavors,’’ and ‘‘full-bodied with a thick texture
and a smooth and soft aftertaste.’’∞∞ Papua New Guinea coffee, which is
often described as one of the Indonesian coffees, is also discussed with
other single-origin coffees. It is compared to coffees from Java and Sumatra
because of similar ‘‘notes’’ in flavor and because of its shared Indonesian
origin; to coffees from Jamaica’s Blue Mountain region because of taste,
and because seedlings planted in Papua New Guinea in the 1930s came
from Jamaica; and to coffee grown in the mountains of Tanzania, because
the flavor is derived from similar high-altitude, volcanic-soil cultivation.
My grandmother loves both the flavor and the packaging of New Guinea
coffee; the Arabicas and Goroka coffee packages are the ones she likes the
best. Arabicas Ltd. has a series of New Guinea Bird of Paradise paintings on
its packaging. The bags are metallic blue, orange, or black, each with a
different bird. The orange bag, the Paradiso Organic blend, has a Raggiana
Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea raggiana) on it, the national symbol for the
country of Papua New Guinea: it is depicted on the country’s flag, and is
the emblem of the Coffee Industry Corporation (cic) of Papua New
Guinea, the national agency for coffee. Birds of Paradise are also on the
Goroka coffee packages, which are deep green, golden yellow, bright red,
and sky blue, while a drawing of a man wearing face paint and a feathered
headdress is on the white bag.∞≤
The feathered and painted man on the white bag of ‘‘Goroka house-
blended coffee’’ from Goroka Coffee Roasters is reminiscent of much of the
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Cupping at Coffee Connections in Goroka
packaging on coffee that is marketed as New Guinea ‘‘single-origin’’ cof-
fee.∞≥ New Guinea is known throughout the world for its cultural, linguis-
tic, and biological diversity. According to the Ethnologue bibliography of
world languages, Papua New Guinea has 841 living languages, while West
Papua has 263.∞∂ This linguistic diversity, coupled with the unique and very
recent history of exploration, colonization, and independence of Papua
New Guinea, has lodged the place and its people in the consciousness of
the rest of the world in compelling ways.∞∑ The entire island of New Guinea
is often represented in popular media as a remote, Edenic paradise replete
with undiscovered species of plants and animals and colorful, partially
clothed natives, a beautiful and noble people balanced on a cliff between
the savage, dangerously primitive aspects of humankind and a moderniza-
tion which will destroy their pristine nature and culture.∞∏ The packaging
and marketing of much Papua New Guinea single-origin and certified
coffee draws on this imagery, as does much of the other marketing associ-
ated with coffee.
Arabicas Coffee, Goroka Coffee, and Coffee Connections all buy coffee
from people in Maimafu village, a rural, Gimi-speaking village in the Lufa
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District, on the border of the Eastern Highlands, Gulf, and Simbu prov-
inces. I’ve spent over fifty months in Maimafu over the past sixteen years
working as a cultural and environmental anthropologist, and much of the
social and economic life that I have documented there revolves around
coffee production. But not just rural villagers are connected to coffee
production in Papua New Guinea. One of every three people in the coun-
try is connected to the coffee industry in some way, and between 300,000
and 400,000 households depend upon it as their only source of income.∞π
People work as growers, workers in the processing factories and coffee
transport industries, and businesspeople in the processing, transporting,
and distributing industries. Thousands of people support the industry as
security guards, cleaning women, clerical and accounting staff, and truck
drivers. In the Eastern Highlands most other regional industry depends on
coffee to keep the cash flowing: the secondhand clothing industry sees an
increase in business during coffee season, the trade-stores see profits in-
crease during the season, and the restaurants, shops, car dealerships, and
other small businesses depend on the coffee season to make yearly profit
margins.∞∫ In Goroka women in the craft and fresh vegetable markets say
that their profits go up every coffee season. Many people in the country call
coffee ‘‘the people’s industry’’ because it directly links people throughout
the country with each other socially and economically, and it links Papua
New Guineans with other people across the globe.∞Ω
Between 86 and 89 percent of coffee grown in Papua New Guinea is
‘‘smallholder’’ coffee, grown by landowners who live in relatively rural
settings with small family-owned and family-operated coffee gardens, and
with little to no support from private or government agricultural exten-
sion.≤≠ Of all the coffee produced in Papua New Guinea, 95 percent is
arabica coffee grown in the Highlands of the country. Among Gimi-
speaking people, families run these small coffee businesses, which often
serve as their only source of income.≤∞ During the coffee season men,
women, and children work on coffee plots, and social life revolves around
this seasonal agriculture. The season, which in Maimafu runs from late May
to early October during the southwest monsoons, is the driest time of year
in a place that is always hot, wet, and humid. During these months families
pick their coffee. They begin in groves at the lower altitudes and move up
the sides of the mountains as the coffee ripens. Maimafu is located in the
high mountains and is made up of family group–based hamlets on fifteen
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ridge-tops that span a topographic range between 1,500 and 1,700 meters.
Coffee groves have transformed the landscape in and around Maimafu
village just as they have transformed landscapes across the Highlands.≤≤
Families go to their coffee groves together, and everyone spends days
picking the ripe, red cherries from the coffee trees. Women carry cher-
ries back to the hamlet or to the closest source of running water—either
streams or the village water system—and wash them. After washing, cher-
ries are put into white coffee bags until the family has enough of the crop to
begin the village-based wet processing. When a sufficient amount of coffee
has been picked, the coffee is washed again and the red cherry (the pulp),
which is held to the coffee beans with a thick, sticky-sweet substance, is
taken off the beans. This can be done by hand or by using a hand-turned
coffee-pulping machine.≤≥ The coffee is then placed in clean bags to fer-
ment for twelve to twenty-four hours so that the sticky substance can be
removed with a final washing. Once the water runs clean, the coffee beans
are laid out in the sun to dry. Depending on the amount of rain that falls,
the drying process may take a few or many days. Once the beans are dry the
coffee (now called ‘‘parchment’’) is ready to be sold.≤∂ Unless these rural
smallholders have a direct relationship with a coffee-buying company, they
usually sell their coffee to intermediary buyers who visit villages and trans-
port the coffee to Goroka.
Once the village-dry coffee is ready to be sold to buyers, women pack it
in 60-kilogram bags and carry it to the village airstrip. In Maimafu this trip
may be a ten-minute or one-hour walk, depending on the distance of a
family’s hamlet from the airstrip. After the coffee arrives at the airstrip it
must be weighed by a buyer or by the village-aviation coordinator. The
airfreight cost is calculated, and if the smallholders are selling to a buyer or
a company with which they have a direct relationship, they receive the daily
price of coffee in Goroka minus the freight cost.≤∑ On occasion growers
take the coffee to Goroka themselves—this is rare but does happen when
smallholders can get a better price in town than what is being offered
to them by village-visiting buyers. Regardless of who takes the coffee to
Goroka, all of this coffee is known as ‘‘airstrip coffee.’’ When fuel prices rise,
as they have done dramatically over the past several years, flying in and out
of rural airstrips becomes more expensive, and since the cost of transporta-
tion is passed on to growers, coffee profits from airstrip coffee go down.
Whether purchased directly from coffee producers by a company or
moved through an intermediary coffee buyer, once the coffee is in Goroka
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Weighing airstrip coffee in Maimafu village
the parchment is usually dried a bit more and the waxy, white skin, the
‘‘silver skin,’’ is removed. At this stage of development beans, until roasted,
are referred to as ‘‘green bean.’’ The green bean is either processed in Papua
New Guinea (roasted and packaged for shipment to stores in Papua New
Guinea and abroad) or sold for export to those who will then ship the
beans through the international port in the Papua New Guinean city Lae,
and then all over the world.
Locally owned coffee-producing factories and businesses and the pro-
cessing and export subsidiaries of major global trading corporations like
volcafe and Neumann Kaffee Gruppe are found in Goroka. The coffee
industry there consists of a rich mix of people from all over Papua New
Guinea, Australia, Germany, India, England, and the United States. Many
of the industry’s expatriate leaders have long histories in Goroka, either
through their parents’ and grandparents’ participation in the early coffee
industry or through their own ties to the colonial history of the Highlands.
And many of the industry’s national leaders have equally involved family
histories in the industry and its development.
For the past twenty years the total annual production of coffee in Papua
New Guinea has hovered around one million bags.≤∏ Papua New Guinea
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produces only about 1 percent of the total amount of coffee worldwide.
Nevertheless, the industry brings about $1.9 billion into the Papua New
Guinea economy each year, thus accounting in the late 1990s and early
2000s for about 4 percent of total export revenue for the country. Given
that the three main export commodities in Papua New Guinea are gold,
crude oil, and copper, and that the other main agricultural commodities are
timber and palm oil (which have slightly higher revenues than coffee), and
that these commodities are owned and operated by the state and joint
ventures between large multinational companies and the state (with minor
revenue streams flowing down to landowners), coffee is the only export
commodity owned and operated by the local people to be consumed both
nationally and internationally.≤π Coffee connects people in Papua New
Guinea with people all around the world along a ‘‘commodity ecumene,’’ a
‘‘transcultural network of relationships linking producers, distributors, and
consumers’’ (Appadurai 1986, 27).≤∫
The cic is the bureaucratic and administrative body that links the world
of coffee in Papua New Guinea to the world of coffee that circulates glob-
ally. A private limited-guarantee company, it is made up of coffee growers,
processors, and exporters, and the Departments of Agriculture and Live-
stock, Trade and Industry, and Treasury and Planning.≤Ω Its research and
grower services division is charged with conducting research and training
and providing extension services, its industry operations division with
overseeing quality control, exports, levy collection, and the dissemination
of economic studies and information concerning the industry. The cic is
supposed to regulate the formal relations between growers and the fifty-six
coffee processors and seventeen coffee exporters countrywide, and at-
tempts to regulate the informal relations between these growers and the
independent coffee buyers, or ‘‘middlemen,’’ who move between rural and
urban areas, buying from growers and selling to processors. The cic is
meant to be the nexus—materially, monetarily, and ideologically—of rural
and urban, of Papua New Guinea and elsewhere, of production, distribu-
tion, and consumption.
The world of Papua New Guinea coffee is multicultural, multiracial,
multiethnic, multiclassed, and multisited. It is multicultural and multi-
racial in that its participants are from Papua New Guinea, Australia, the
United Kingdom, India, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United
States. It is multiethnic in that its national participants are from different
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