Overview

Tangled Routes follows a corporate tomato from a Mexican field through the United States to a Canadian table, examining in its wake the dynamic relationship between production and consumption, work and technology, health and environment, bio-diversity and cultural diversity. Three case studies - a Mexican agribusiness, a Canadian supermarket, and a U.S.-owned fast-food restaurant - offer a view of globalization from above (corporate profiles), globalization from below (stories of women who plant, pick, pack, scan, slice, and sell tomatoes), and the other globalization (acts of resistance and alternatives to the corporate model).

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9780847699490

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Reviews

The life histories of the women workers are insightful and compelling, and...the photographs are superb. Book Review Digest Who could believe that the story of a tomato's northward journey could reveal the true heart of corporate globalization? Women, that's who. Women whose toil speeds the journey and whose stories leap off the page to touch our hearts and our consciousness. Deborah Barndt's Tangled Routes is a wonderful and important book. -- Barlow, Maude With Tangled Routes, Deborah Barndt pioneers a method for demystifying the technologies of globalization with an extraordinarily well-crafted and lively ethnography of the transnational tomato chain. Along the way, we encounter not only the women working the fields, factories, and fast-food outlets but also the variety of survival practices and resistances that constitute 'globalization from below.' These compelling stories counterpoint the spatial and social abstractions of the genetically engineered corporate tomato, its neoliberal trade regime, and its flexible workplaces. Barndt's coherent framing of a series of situational accounts models an understanding of the underside of globalization that is instructive, empowering, and richly textured. -- Philip McMichael Philip McMichael Philip McMichael Describes in vivid detail the intricate path of the commodified tomato from the agricultural fields of the South to the fast-food restaurants and supermarkets of the North. Canadian Woman Studies The author examines concepts old and new in an innovative, creative, and thoroughly engaging manner by mixing a strong writing style with a series of contextualising photographs... An excellent interdisciplinary text that is equally useful inside and outside the classroom. Just Labour What consumers have both an obligation and a right to know about where their food comes from and what it means. -- Rosset, Peter This book is an original contribution to the vast literature on globalization, providing a timely, relevant analysis as well as a set of creative and concrete strategies to challenge industrial agricultural practices. Activists and students alike will gain much from it. Gender, Place and Culture The strengths of this book are its organization and clarity, its skillful interweaving of global processes and local realities, and its attention to methodology. I definitely plan to use it again in my international studies course. -- Sita Ranchod-Nilsson This is a detailed, ethnographically rich text for undergraduates. The feminist and ecological perspectives are clear and compelling. The book also fits nicely as a case study for the world capitalist system and food as commodity. This is the final work I assign in my food and culture class because it summarizes and applies so many of the course theories and concepts in a single case that students are able to use to discuss a variety of issues. -- Carolyn Smith-Morris Tangled Routes caught my attention when I decided that I really needed to add a more global perspective to my course. It offers the unique opportunity to follow a single product across space and time and introduces globalization from above and below. This approach allows both sides to be seen clearly, demonstrating that some of the issues do not have simple answers. The connection of women to globalization, not only through agriculture but through world production in general, is also a real plus. The photographs are wonderful, and the activist pieces at the ends of the chapters offer students some concrete examples for responding to a corporate world. -- Richard Peterson

With Tangled Routes, Deborah Barndt pioneers a method for demystifying the technologies of globalization with an extraordinarily well-crafted and lively ethnography of the transnational tomato chain. Along the way, we encounter not only the women working the fields, factories, and fast-food outlets but also the variety of survival practices and resistances that constitute 'globalization from below.' These compelling stories counterpoint the spatial and social abstractions of the genetically engineered corporate tomato, its neoliberal trade regime, and its flexible workplaces. Barndt's coherent framing of a series of situational accounts models an understanding of the underside of globalization that is instructive, empowering, and richly textured.--Philip McMichael Philip McMichael Philip McMichael

Author Information

Deborah Barndt is a popular educator and photographer who teaches in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto. For over 25 years, she has worked with social justice movements in Canada, the U.S., and Central America. Her photographs have been published and exhibited widely, and her extensive publications include Education and Social Change: A Photographic Study of Peru, To Change This House: Popular Education under the Sandinistas, Naming the Moment: Political Analysis for Action, and Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food, and Globalization (editor).

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