Creating a Social Wasteland? Non-Traditional Agricultural Exports and Rural Poverty in Ecuador

Korovkin, Tanya

doi:10.18352/erlacs.9662

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…In banana production, for example, labour managed to maintain its long‐standing organization on banana plantations in the face of wide‐ranging, often government supported, anti‐union campaigns and attacks (e.g. Korovkin 2005). Workplace strength and regional trade union co‐ordination in the form of COLSIBA provided the foundation for strategies within the banana value chain which was extended to Northern labour NGOs and consumer markets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for Labour in Global Value Chains: Labour Standards in the Cut Flower and Banana Industries

Riisgaard

Hammer

2011

British Journal of Industrial Relations

170

136

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Global value chain (GVC) governance is central to analyses of labour's strategic options. It frames the terrain on which labour campaigns and institutions -such as Private Social Standards and International Framework Agreements -contribute to the social regulation of value chains.GVC concepts help to emphasise how power in the employment relationship transcends organisational boundaries, as well as how industrial power is shifting from the sphere of production to that of consumption. Based on extensive case studies of the banana and cut flower value chains, we explore the implications of GVC restructuring for the scope and form of labour rights strategies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for Labour in Global Value Chains: Labour Standards in the Cut Flower and Banana Industries

Riisgaard

Hammer

2011

British Journal of Industrial Relations

170

136

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“…The elimination of the hacienda system deepened the integration of smallholders into the rural labour market and capitalist social relations. For example, broccoli and flower production, both of which take place in the highlands, draw upon the pool of land‐poor ex‐ huasipungueros in the highland provinces of Pichincha, Cotopaxi, and Imbabura (Korovkin, ; Martínez, ). In other areas of Ecuador, such as the coastal province of Los Ríos, for example, the processes of agrarian reform of the 1960s and 1970s have given way to the reconcentration of land into large agro‐industrial properties (Cueva, Landívar, Jácome, & Macías, ).…”

Section: Agrarian Change and Neoliberalism In Ecuador: The Transformamentioning

confidence: 99%

Neo‐developmentalism and a “vía campesina” for rural development: Unreconciled projects in Ecuador's Citizen's Revolution

Clark

2017

Journal of Agrarian Change

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From the outside, it appears that the government of President Rafael Correa in Ecuador has put in place a legal and policy framework for a vía campesina model of rural development, inspired by food sovereignty and buen vivir. Recent studies have, however, concluded that a considerable disjuncture exists between this framework and the actual agricultural policies and programmes implemented by the government. In this paper, I provide a broad overview of the agricultural and rural development policies under the Correa government and analyse some of the causes of the gap between the policy framework and policy implementation. I argue that Ecuador under Correa speaks to the difficulties of reconciling a vía campesina approach to rural development with a neo‐developmental economic model. I focus on several issues in particular in order to explain the disjuncture: how the growth of “vía campesina” proposals and political discourse in Ecuador since the 1980s coincided with significant processes of agrarian change; the transformation of rural social movement federations from a sociopolitical force into a political/electoral force and the subsequent decline of these movements; and the deepening integration of small‐scale producers into domestic agribusiness commodity chains and the growth of national agribusiness firms during the Correa government.

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“…10 Los efectos centrífugos del sector florícola sobre las comunidades y las organizaciones comunitarias fueron subrayados por la socióloga Tanya Korovkin (Korovkin, 2005). Tales efectos siguen siendo una de las razones principales del debilitamiento de las organizaciones locales en años recientes, además de la actual retirada de la cooperación internacional del Ecuador, la variabilidad climática (dado que muchas organizaciones se constituyen como organizaciones de pequeños agricultores) y la migración a Quito (especialmente en el contexto del boom del sector de la construcción).…”

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¿Incrustamiento sin espacio? Situando el comercio justo en la industria florícola ecuatoriana

Lyall¹

2015

Eutopía

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ResumenEn las últimas dos décadas Fairtrade International se ha consolidado como la certificadora de comercio justo más grande del mundo. Mucho de su crecimiento se debe a la expansión de sus prácticas desde la exclusiva certificación de cooperativas de pequeños agricultores hacia la regulación de agroindustrias y empresas no agrícolas. En contextos de trabajo asalariado, Fairtrade afirma mejorar las condiciones laborales y ambientales y promover el desarrollo local. Muchos investigadores elogian a Fairtrade por "re-incrustar" relaciones económicas en relaciones sociales y éticas. En este artículo, señalo los testimonios de trabajadores de tres florícolas ecuatorianas certificadas, quienes si bien reconocen varias de estas afirmaciones, nos permiten observar que al enmarcar Fairtrade como mecanismo de "re-incrustamiento" se omite el deseo de ellos de dejar la industria floricultura y re-incrustar sus relaciones económicas en las relaciones del espacio social local. Mientras Polanyi concibe el incrustamiento en relaciones histórica y geográficamente situadas, planteo que ciertos acercamientos académicos a Fairtrade se mal apropian de su noción del concepto para describir relaciones abstractas entre consumidores y trabajadores. Pongo este concepto en diálogo con el trabajo de Henri Lefebvre sobre el espacio social y el territorio para re-conceptualizar lo que significaría un desarrollo territorial bajo Fairtrade y subrayar los límites y contradicciones de este mecanismo.Palabras clave: comercio justo, incrustamiento, Polanyi, espacio social, Lefebvre, industria florícola, Ecuador. AbstractIn the last two decades, Fairtrade International has consolidated as the largest fair trade certifier in the world. Much of its growth has involved the expansion of its practices from exclusively certifying cooperatives of smallholder farmers to regulating agroindustries and nonagricultural companies. In hired labor contexts, Fairtrade claims to improve labor and environmental conditions and promote local development and many researchers praise Fairtrade for "re-embedding" economic relations in social and ethnical ones. In this article, I highlight the testimonies of workers on three certified Ecuadorian flower plantations, who acknowledge many of these claims, but remind us that framing Fairtrade as a mechanism for "re-embedding" economic relations elides the desire among workers to leave the flower industry and re-embed their economic relations in local social space. Whereas Polanyi conceives of embeddedness in historically and geographically situated relations, I argue that academic approaches to Fairtrade often misappropriate his notion of the concept by employing it to describe abstract relations between consumers and workers. I place this concept in dialogue with the work of Henri Lefebvre on social space and territory to re-conceptualize what an embedded territorial development might look like under Fairtrade and to foreground the limits and contradictions of this mechanism.

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Creating a Social Wasteland? Non-Traditional Agricultural Exports and Rural Poverty in Ecuador

Cited by 18 publications

References 41 publications

Prospects for Labour in Global Value Chains: Labour Standards in the Cut Flower and Banana Industries

Prospects for Labour in Global Value Chains: Labour Standards in the Cut Flower and Banana Industries

Neo‐developmentalism and a “vía campesina” for rural development: Unreconciled projects in Ecuador's Citizen's Revolution

¿Incrustamiento sin espacio? Situando el comercio justo en la industria florícola ecuatoriana

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