IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eme/reanzz/s0190-1281(08)28007-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The hands that pick fair trade coffee: Beyond the charms of the family farm

In: Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical Consumption, and Corporate Social Responsibility

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Luetchford

Abstract

Fair trade commonly focuses on the figure of the smallholding peasant producer. The effectiveness of this as a strategy lies in the widespread appeal of an economy based upon independent family producers trying to secure livelihoods in impersonal and exploitative global commodity markets. But the attempt by fair trade to personalise economic relationships between coffee producers and consumers diverts attention away from aspects of the political economy of production for the market. This chapter examines a rural Costa Rican coffee economy that has supplied fair trade markets since the 1980s. Documenting differences in landholdings, the range of activities farmers engage in, and the relationship between landowners and landless labourers, women, and migrant harvesters from Nicaragua reveals differentiation and tensions that are obscured in the “smallholder” model invoked by fair trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Luetchford, 2008. "The hands that pick fair trade coffee: Beyond the charms of the family farm," Research in Economic Anthropology, in: Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical Consumption, and Corporate Social Responsibility, pages 143-169, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:reanzz:s0190-1281(08)28007-8
    DOI: 10.1016/S0190-1281(08)28007-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S0190-1281(08)28007-8/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S0190-1281(08)28007-8/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S0190-1281(08)28007-8/full/epub?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec&title=10.1016/S0190-1281(08)28007-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/S0190-1281(08)28007-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:reanzz:s0190-1281(08)28007-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.