1st Edition

Geographies of Commodity Chains

Edited By Alex Hughes, Suzanne Reimer Copyright 2004
    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    292 Pages
    by Routledge

    Individuals, consumer groups, nation states and supra-national bodies increasingly have interrogated the ethics of particular production and consumption relations such as GM foods. Flowing from and bound up with these political concerns is the growing interest in the mutual dependence of sites of (for example) production, distribution, retailing, design, advertising, marketing and final consumption.

    This timely volume draws 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.

    Taking a geographical approach to the analysis of links between producers and consumers, the book focuses upon 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 skilfully threaded through each section.

    1. Introduction  Part 1: Commodity Chains, Networks and Filières  1. From Farm to Supermarket: The Trade in Fresh Horticultural Produce from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United Kingdom  2. Are Hogs like Chickens? Enclosure and Mechanization in Two 'White Meat' Filières  3. Spilling the Beans on a Tough Nut: Liberalisation and Local Supply System Changes in Ghana's Cocoa and Shea Chains  Part 2: Commodity Chains and Cultural Connections  4. New Geographies of Agro-Food Production: An Analysis of UK Quality Assurance Schemes  5. Culinary Networks and Cultural Connections: A Conventions Perspective  6. Initiating the Commodity Chain: South Asian Women and Fashion in the Diaspora  Part 3: Commodities, Representations and the Politics of the Producer-Consumer Relation  7. Geographical Knowledges in the Ecuadorian Flower Industry  8. Citrus, Apartheid and the Struggle to (Re)present Outspan Oranges  9. Tropics of Consumption: 'Getting with the Fetish' of 'Exotic' Fruit?  Part 4: Ethical Commodity Chains and the Politics of Consumption  10. Unravelling Fashion's Commodity Chains  11. Accounting for Ethical Trade: Global Commodity Networks, Virtualism and the Audit Economy  12. The 'Organic Commodity' and Other Anomalies in the Politics of Consumption  13. Knowledge, Ethics and Power in the Home Furnishings Commodity Chain

    Biography

    Alex Hughes, Suzanne Reimer

    This book offers a rich variety of empirical case studies to illustrate both the achievements of commodity chain approaches, and the new avenues down which research may head. Jennifer Jones, University of Liverpool