Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail Second Edition
Author(s): Deborah Barndt (Author)
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Publication Date: 7 Dec. 2007
Edition: Second
Language: English
Print length: 360 pages
ISBN-10: 0742555569
ISBN-13: 9780742555563
Book Description
Where does our food come from? Whose hands have planted, cultivated, picked, packed, processed, transported, scanned, sold, sliced, and cooked it? What production practices have transformed it from seed to fruit, from fresh to processed form? Who decides what is grown and how? What are the effects of those decisions on our health and the health of the planet? Tangled Routes tackles these fascinating questions and demystifies globalization by tracing the long journey of a corporate tomato from a Mexican field to a Canadian fast-food restaurant. Through an interdisciplinary lens, Deborah Barndt examines the dynamic relationships between production and consumption, work and technology, biodiversity and cultural diversity, and health and environment. A globalization-from-above perspective is reflected in the corporate agendas of a Mexican agribusiness, the U.S.-based McDonald’s chain, and Canadian-based Loblaws supermarkets. The women workers on the front line of these businesses offer a humanized globalization-from-below perspective, while yet another “globalization” is revealed through examples of resistance and local alternatives. This revised and updated edition highlights developments since the turn of the millennium, in particular the deepening economic integration of the NAFTA countries as well as the growing questioning of NAFTA’s consequences and the crafting of alternatives built on foundations of sustainability and justice.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Barndt provides a rare synthesis of academic scholarship with an eminently accessible presentation of a social activist. Her writing style and liberal use of photographs are unusual in an academic work, yet Barndt’s scholarly credentials are strong. Highly recommended. ― CHOICE
Tangled Routes has much to offer a feminist classroom. The flexibility of Barndt’s chosen methodology allows her to focus on one product within the entire process of getting the product from the field to the table. The magnitude of the project―globalization from above and from below―also suggests that qualitative research can be a laborious and painstaking process. It is an example for students to learn how the scope of a project may inhibit an in-depth analysis of a particular feature if there are many other different and complex parts to examine. Instructors may also explore other possible themes to use in their classrooms, such as women and work, social oppression, or cultural/corporate hegemony. Barndt’s thoroughness in explaining occurrences within the food system as well as the stories of individuals directly or indirectly involved with the process, discloses an array of ideologies embedded within the global food system. Unveiling these social beliefs can elicit thought-provoking classroom conversations, allowing for rich analyses of the intersections taking place along the tomato trail. ―
Feminist Teacher
In this extensively-researched book, Deborah Barndt shines a spotlight on the ‘corporate tomato.’ . . . An extensive index makes this an essential addition to the libraries of people concerned with justice. ―
Horizons: The Magazine of Presbyterian Women
About the Author
Deborah Barndt is professor emerita in the faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto. A social justice activist, artist, and popular educator, her photographs have been published and exhibited widely, and her books include Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail Second Edition and edited volumes VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas, Wild Fire: Art as Activism, and Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain (deborahbarndt.com).
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