Thursday Afternoon Faculty Seminar

1. Gendered Blackberry Fields (fruit, not cell phones!):Globalization, Non-traditional Export Production, and the Hidden Costs of Pesticide ExposureDonna L. Chollett, Anthropology Thursday Afternoon Faculty Seminar May 6, 2010

2. Los Angeles, Michoacán, Mexico

3. San Sebastián, Closed 2002 3

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5. Some Terminology • Los Reyes — regional city • Los Angeles — research community • Cañeros — cane growers • Ejidatarios — agrarian reform landholders • NTAE — non-traditional agricultural Export production

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8. Kelsey Interviewing Rosaura • “Todos Somos Dueñas: Sustainability of a Tortillería Cooperative in Michoacán, Mexico” • 2004 Ethnographic Field School in Mexico 8

10. The Sugar War: HFCS vs. Cane Sugar

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13. The Santa Clara Sugar Mill 13

14. In the Shadow of the Sugar Mill 14

15. From Cane to Blackberries 15

16. “Blackberry Row”

17. The Agribusinesses

18. Economic Differentiation • Sugar Cane (previously): • 10,000 hectares • 1500 cane growers • Health insurance and pensions • Blackberries & Raspberries (2006) • 3000 hectares converted from cane • 800-1000 growers • 6.5 million boxes of berries per year • Annual profits of $46,742,720 • Los Angeles – ¾ of land is rented

19. The Transition From a Male-Dominated Agricultural Domain to a Female-Intensive Waged Labor force 19

20. The Wages of Work

21. Ten Boxes = $10.90 Dollars Per Day • = $1.09 Per Box • = $.09 Cents Per Container

22. Tarascan Women Workers 22

23. Discrimination Against Tarascan Workers • “It is the most difficult thing to work with indigenous people. They don't speak Spanish and they don't understand. There is a lot of ignorance. They have a very low culture. If there is the slightest irregularity, they leave“ —Sun Belle Manager

24. Segmenting the Berry Labor Market • “Men’s Work”

25. “Women’s Work”

26. Rosa Rosita Proceso

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29. Aaron Presentating Research to the Community:“Exchange and the Environment: a study of agricultural practice and information transmission in the Gildardo Magaña Ejido” • 2004 Ethnographic Field School in Mexico 29

31. Companies’ Rejection of Fruit • Leobardo: “They said the fruit arrived with mold. God knows! How would we know? When the packing company receives our fruit, then it is the company’s responsibility. That is what we said, but they denied that. What could we do?” • Alicia: “Hursts was good at first, but they began to reject the fruit. They were saturated with growers. I had to work under the hot sun, with the thorns of the blackberries. That made me very angry. They returned a mountain of boxes—60, or 70, or 80, sometimes all of it. It made me mad. It was a pretext.”

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33. Organophosphates: Chlorinated Hydrocarbons: • Persistant, less toxic • Non-persistant, more toxic • Grower mentioned chemicals: • Permethrin (Permitrina)—banned in Canada • Azinphos methyl (Gusatión)—highly toxic • Benomyl (Binolate)—endocrine-disrupting effects • Captan—carcinogenic fungicide • Carbaryl (Sevín)—endocrine-disruptor, causes mutations • Methyl parathion—organophosphate, “extremely toxic” • Paraquat (Gramaxone, Metílico)--#1 cause of poisonings

34. Gender & Household Diversity • Wide age range (13-67) • Single, married, divorced, widowed, abandoned, single mothers • Life cycle • Economic status

35. Irma & Rafael AGRICOLA LOS REYES GARABAY MORALES IRMA

36. An Uncertain Future Ingenio Puruarán

37. Conclusions • Northern demand, transnational agribusiness, and household arrangements in the Global South are bound in a network of dialectical contradictions that are constitutive of emergent class and gender differentiation and shifting hierarchies of power