From modern production to imagined primitive
Subtitle: the social world of coffee from Papua New Guinea
By: Paige West
Publisher: Duke University Press; Duke University Press Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Durham, NC
Language: eng
Number of pages: 315
ISBN-13: 9780822351368; 9780822351504
Subjects: Coffee industry; Coffee
Description: "In this vivid ethnography, Paige West tracks coffee as it moves from producers in Papua New Guinea to consumers around the world. She illuminates the social lives of the people who produce coffee, and those who process, distribute, market, and consume it. The Gimi peoples, who grow coffee in Papua New Guinea's highlands, are eager to expand their business and social relationships with the buyers who come to their highland villages, as well as with the people working in Goroka, where much of Papua New Guinea's coffee is processed; at the port of Lae, where it is exported; and in Hamburg, Sydney, and London, where it is distributed and consumed. This rich social world is disrupted by neoliberal development strategies, which impose prescriptive regimes of governmentality that are often at odds with Melanesian ways of being in, and relating to, the world. The Gimi are misrepresented in the specialty coffee market, which relies on images of primitivity and poverty to sell coffee. By implying that the 'backwardness' of Papua New Guineans impedes economic development, these images obscure the structural relations and global political economy that actually cause poverty in Papua New Guinea."--Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The world of coffee from Papua New Guinea; title: Neoliberal coffee; title: Historic coffee; title: Village coffee; title: Relational coffee; title: National coffee; title: International coffee.