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Migratory imaginations: The commodification and contradictions of shade grown coffee

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2006

SARAH LYON
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 203B Lafferty Hall, Lexington, KY 40506-0024, USAsmlyon3@email.uky.edu
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Abstract

In recent years the consumption of shade grown coffee has expanded rapidly in North America, becoming an established sector of the growing green products market. The certified shade grown coffee market is influenced by North American fantasies of pure, untouched nature and romantic portrayals of small coffee farmers as natural conservationists, eager to protect birds, biodiversity, and natural resources. These Northern constructions of habitat and eco friendly agricultural production directly influence the regulations constituting the shade grown certification system. Consequently, farmers seeking shade grown certification and access to the sustainable coffee market confront a rigid certification system whose requirements may appear irrational and excessive within a local agricultural system.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2006

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Footnotes

This research was generously supported through a University of Kentucky Summer Faculty Research Fellowship; a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant; a Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant; and an Emory University Fund for Internationalization Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant. I would like to thank Ismael Vaccaro, the editor of Social Anthropology, Peter Pels, and anonymous reviewers for their suggestions.