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SOCI 2070 Coffee

SOCI 2070 Coffee. January 19, 2009. Today’s Readings. Eric R. Wolf ‘The Movement of Commodities’ Europe and the People Without History Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, pp. 310-315; 336-339; 350; 352-353.

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SOCI 2070 Coffee

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  1. SOCI 2070Coffee January 19, 2009

  2. Today’s Readings Eric R. Wolf ‘The Movement of Commodities’ Europe and the People Without History Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, pp. 310-315; 336-339; 350; 352-353. Leah Hager Cohen Glass, Paper, Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things New York: Doubleday, 1997, pp. 10-14; 45-60. Deborah James ‘Justice and Java’ NACLA Report XXXIV:2 (September/October 2000, 11-14. Leah McLaren ‘Bland, Boring Tim Hortons Doesn’t Belong in My Neighbourhood’ Globe and Mail 7 July 2001, L3.

  3. Lecture Outline Global Historical Significance Coffee Production and Political Economy Marx Fair Trade, Organic, Shade-grown Coffee Coffee Consumption – Historical Significance Coffee Consumption – Contemporary Significance Foucault Film: Java Jive

  4. Global Historical Significance Native to Ethiopia the harvesting of coffee is said to have begun in the middle of the 12th century, trading of coffee around the continent of Africa, through to the Middle East Spread to Europe in the late 1600s Significant crop for colonial expansion: examples: Dutch – Indonesia, British and French – Caribbean, Portuguese – Brazil

  5. Colonial Capitalism and European Expansion Colonial exploitation: slave trade or wage labourer exploitation on large plantations Combined pre-existing networks of exchange with new networks between continents Created a regional specialization in products (one commodity is main crop) for export to the colonial centres Created a world wide movement of commodities. Anyone heard of Juan Valdez?? Production accelerated as colonization proceeded Eric Wolf, Reading Kit

  6. Contemporary Production • Currently the world’s 2nd most valuable commodity (after oil) • estimates of global coffee production are; • 70 Southern producing countries • employing 20 million workers of all ages, • who pick over 6 million tonnes of beans annually from approximately • 11 million hectares of tropical, fertile farmland • -Waridel 2002:31

  7. Technology • ‘technifyied’ coffee plant grown in the open sun with herbicides and pesticides = • the destruction of local and indigenous communities, clear-cutting of rainforests, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, agro-chemical pollution, toxic work conditions • Take-out innovation = waste

  8. Political Economy • A significant source of foreign exchange for many Central American countries • Producers on small estates often receive less than the cost of production in price • Must sell future rights to harvests to creditors to secure basic necessities • On large plantations, labourers earn bare subsistence wages • Guatemala: less than $3 for 100 lbs of coffee • Forced overtime and no benefits • Employment of child labour

  9. Coffee, Land, and Labour Brazil Coffee production by the early 18th century Largely through slave plantations exporting ¾ of the world’s coffee by end of 18th century Mexico another key site for coffee production Coffee estates created through legislation that abolished communal distribution of land Foreign-owned coffee estates became a key source of Mexican coffee production and of the employment of indigenous peoples who had lost access to the land

  10. Marx • Global Domination • Communist Manifesto –bourgeoisie chasing across globe… • Relations of production • classes, ownership, labour • Commodity Fetishism • The value of an object is assessed only in relation to consumption: monetary worth, and worth believed to be intrinsic to object • Obscures relations of production; ignores the history of people and labour

  11. Capitalism and Commodities “Today we want, and get, most things boxed and beribboned – sealed off from their origins, ensconced from their own true stories, which are the stories of people, of work, of lives” Leah Hagar Cohen, Reading Kit, p. 307 Coffee is produced Coffee has a history

  12. Fair Trade, Organic, Shade-grown • based on the ideals of respect, equity and sustainability. • Cooperatives are set-up with a direct relationship between the producers and the roasters/sellers • coffee growers are paid a fair wage without exposure to chemicals (Waridel, 2002).

  13. Coffee Consumption:Historical Significance • Coffee replaced beer and ale in public sphere • ‘delibidinized’ ‘rational’ • connection to capitalist personality • ‘Wakeful’, ‘civilized’, ‘disciplined’ • “quite radical realignment of place, body, status and discourse” (Stallybrass and White:99) • Coffee shops into capitalist institutions • English stock exchange, Lloyd’s of London and Sun-Fire insurance • Penny universities

  14. Coffee Consumption:Contemporary Significance • Coffee Breaks: “fulfill a capitalist fantasy, providing a respite from work undertaken for the sake of work itself – and thus the direct conversion of ‘leisure’ into ‘productivity’ – made possible through the medium of a highly desired, commodified stimulant”. - Brad Weiss, 1996:101 • ‘going for coffee’ • Studying/working in coffee shops: office space • Socially accepted drug • Symbolic Value – class and identity

  15. Symbolic Value

  16. Symbolic Value “the one person who wants a Tim Hortons in the neighbourhood is the guy who owns the pool hall. He’s a Tim Hortons kind of guy.” Leah McLaren,“Bland, Boring Tim Hortons Doesn’t Belong in My Neighbourhood”, Globe and Mail 7 July 2001, L3. Signifies class identity Tim Hortons vs. Starbucks

  17. Nation and Representation Tim Hortons is a ‘national institution’ Connected to hockey A Canadian economic success Advertising suggests TH: unites the country, symbolizes home

  18. Symbolic Value http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nZ36rmAJBc&NR=1&feature=fvwp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuFLon26nMw&feature=related

  19. Foucault • “Capitalism would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes.” - Michel Foucault, 1978: 141 • bio-power - link between the control of bodies and the development of capitalism. • Social regulation through normalization and discourse.

  20. Main Points – Coffee is… • a key commodity for the development of colonial capitalism • significant for the regulation of bodies in contemporary consumer capitalism • An example of: • the destructiveness of capitalist exploitation • commodity fetishism • symbolic value • an alternative trading system

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