Geographies of Commodity Chains

by Hughes,Alex; Hughes,Alex

• ISBN13: 9780415339100
• ISBN10: 0415339103
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-07-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Geographies of Commodity Chainsdraws together contributions concerned with the production, circulation, and consumption of commodities. Not only do these case study examples seek to transcend older understandings of production and consumption, but they also explicitly tap into wider public debate about the meanings, origins, and biographies of commodities. The book takes a geographical approach to the analysis of links between producers and consumers, focusing on the ways in which these ties increasingly are stretched across spaces and places. Critical engagements with the ways in which these spaces and places affect the economies, cultures, and politics of the connections between producers and consumers are threaded through each section.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
Notes on contributors	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(16)
ALEX HUGHES AND SUZANNE REIMER
PART I Commodity chains, networks and filieres	17	(64)
1 From farm to supermarket: the trade in fresh horticultural produce from sub-Saharan Africa to the United Kingdom	19	(20)
HAZEL R. BARRETT, ANGELA W. BROWNE AND BRIAN W. ILBERY
2 Are hogs like chickens? Enclosure and mechanization in two 'white meat' filieres	39	(24)
MICHAEL J. WATTS
3 Spilling the beans on a tough nut: liberalization and local supply system changes in Ghana's cocoa and shea chains	63	(18)
NIELS FOLD
PART II Commodity chains and cultural connections	81	(56)
4 New geographies of agro-food chains: an analysis of UK quality assurance schemes	83	(19)
CAROL MORRIS AND CRAIG YOUNG
5 Culinary networks and cultural connections: a conventions perspective	102	(18)
JONATHAN MURDOCH AND MARA MIELE
6 Initiating the commodity chain: South Asian women and fashion in the diaspora	120	(17)
PARVATI RAGHURAM
PART III Commodities, representations and the politics of the producer-consumer relation	137	(56)
7 Geographical knowledges in the Ecuadorian flower industry	139	(17)
JUSTINE COULSON
8 Citrus, apartheid and the struggle to (re)present Outspan oranges	156	(17)
CHARLES MATHER AND PETRINA ROWCROFT
9 Tropics of consumption: 'getting with the fetish' of 'exotic' fruit?	173	(20)
IAN COOK, PHILIP CRANG AND MARK THORPE
PART IV Ethical commodity chains and the politics of consumption	193	(77)
10 Unravelling fashion's commodity chains	195	(20)
LOUISE CREWE
11 Accounting for ethical trade: global commodity networks, virtualism and the audit economy	215	(18)
ALEX HUGHES
12 The 'organic commodity' and other anomalies in the politics of consumption	233	(17)
JULIE GUTHMAN
13 Knowledge, ethics and power in the home furnishings commodity chain	250	(20)
SUZANNE REIMER AND DEBORAH LESLIE
Index	270