Synopses & Reviews
and#147;Just a phone call away, but what anguish! As employers of migrants who care for our children, clean our houses, work in fast food restaurantsand#151;or on the shop floorand#151;we are so often blind to the sacrifices made by parents who see no other choice but to leave their children back home in Mexico and come to the U.S. for work. With passion and insight,
Divided by Borders explores the agony that unfolds between husbands and wives, across generation, and the consequences on children left behind and those who cross the border."and#151;Carol B. Stack, author of
All Our Kin and
Call To Homeand#147;In this compelling, intimate, and heartbreaking look into the lives of Mexican migrants who leave children, Dreby brings an impressive blend of ethnography, interviews, and surveys with parents, children, and caregiversand#151;collected over four years on both sides of the borderand#151;to bear. This is a story of migration where parental sacrifice is monumental, yet dreams for intergenerational mobility are ultimately dashed. The work is rich with both sociological insight and policy importance. This is the rare academic work that readers will find hard to put down.and#147;and#151;Kathy Edin, author of Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Choose Motherhood Before Marriage
and#147;Joanna Dreby's excellent book illuminates dimensions of migration and transnational life that have remained too often in the dark. Her focus on what happens inside the 'black box' of the migrant family shows how migrants and their children live their lives in difficult circumstances. She deepens our understanding of many important issues, and does so via intimate, ethnographic research. For example, her work sheds light on the gendered practices and ideologies surrounding parental leave taking, and sheds light on the incompatibility of migrant time and developmental time. Her work on the power children wield in the intra-family negotiations on whether and when to reunite, and the long term human cost of migration, is pathbreaking. Watching Joanna Dreby's work develop into this book over the years has been a great joy, and reading it is even more so.and#8221;and#151;Robert Courtney Smith, Professor of Sociology, Immigration Studies and Public Affairs, Baruch College School of Public Affairs, and Sociology Department, Graduate Center, CUNY
and#147;Family separation brought about by labor migration is not new, but hostile immigration policies have made for prolonged separations for parents and children. How do families cope? In this gripping and acutely observed study of Mexican migrant families, Joanna Dreby reveals the multi-faceted challenges facing the parents, their children and teens (who often harbor resentment against parents), and the grandmothers who serve as caregivers 'back home.' This engagingly written book is ideal for classroom adoption, and it will become a classic contribution to the scholarship on families and contemporary immigration.and#8221;and#151;Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, author of God's Heart Has No Borders
Review
and#8220;Pine has written a path-breaking book that forms an analytical bridge between the structures of neoliberalism and daily life for the poor who live within its midst.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Dreby analyzes these themes through a transnational lens. In doing so, she offers new and important insights into the lives of immigrant families.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Offers insightful analysis.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;An excellent introduction to immigration, globalization, gender, childhood, immigration policy, and transnational family issues.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;An important contribution to immigration scholarship.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Provides a compassionate lens for analysing migration, a lens that is frequently missing from conventional discussions of Mexican-American migration.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Illuminating. . . . An important addition to both family and migration scholarship.and#8221;
Review
"Incisive, empathetic, and engaging . . .and#160;The rich data Dr. Carney has obtained through her engaged anthropology are a compelling indictment of the human failings of our national food system."
Synopsis
Based on ethnographic fieldwork from Santa Barbara, California, this book sheds light on the ways that food insecurity prevails in womenand#8217;s experiences of migration from Mexico and Central America to the United States. As women grapple with the pervasive conditions of poverty that hinder efforts at getting enough to eat, they find few options for alleviating the various forms of suffering that accompany food insecurity. Examining how constraints on eating and feeding translate to the uneven distribution of life chances across borders and how and#147;food securityand#8221; comes to dominate national policy in the United States, this book argues for understanding womenand#8217;s relations to these processes as inherently biopolitical.
Synopsis
"The Unending Hunger is a lucid, hard-hittting, and gripping ethnography of Mexican and Central American women migrants in Santa Barbara County, California. Carney unveils the harsh indignities and structural causes of their food insecurity as well as their creative and defiant struggles to eat and live well."and#151;Carole Counihan, coeditor of
Food Activism: Agency, Democracy, and Economy "In this beautiful and incisive ethnography, Carney debunks common conceptualizations about food security and insecurity; in the process, she exposes immigrant womenand#8217;s formidable capacity to survive structural constraints, deep social inequalities, and assaults from neoliberal politics and the inhospitable contexts where they arrive. This is an important and highly recommended book."and#151;Cecilia Menjand#237;var, author of Enduring Violence: Ladina Womenand#8217;s Lives in Guatemala
"In this beautifully crafted book, Megan Carney gives voice to the suffering of immigrant Latinas expected to provide care for their families while being systematically denied the means to do so. At once a theoretical intervention in the debates on the biopolitics of food in/security and a passionate call for a new, gender-sensitive politics of food, Carneyand#8217;s book represents the best of the new ethnographies of migration, food politics, and slow death of vulnerable populations in our neoliberal times."and#151;Susan Greenhalgh, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University and author of My BMI, My Self: The Hidden Costs of Americaand#8217;s War on Fat
Synopsis
"Honduras is violent." Adrienne Pine situates this oft-repeated claim at the center of her vivid and nuanced chronicle of Honduran subjectivity. Through an examination of three major subject areasand#151;violence, alcohol, and the export-processing (maquiladora) industryand#151;Pine explores the daily relationships and routines of urban Hondurans. She views their lives in the context of the vast economic footprint on and ideological domination of the region by the United States, powerfully elucidating the extent of Honduras's dependence. She provides a historically situated ethnographic analysis of this fraught relationship and the effect it has had on Hondurans' understanding of who they are. The result is a rich and visceral portrait of a culture buffeted by the forces of globalization and inequality.
Synopsis
"A theoretically cutting edge ethnography of neoliberalism as suffered by most poor people across the globe. Pine creatively links macro-structural forces in Honduras to the everyday life of factory workers, shanty town dwellers, gang kids, alcoholics and crack smokers within the context of globalized consumerism and the history of U.S. domination of Central America."and#151;Philippe Bourgois, author of
In Search of Respect"Gutsy fieldwork. A compassionate analysis of the links between work, violence, corporate capitalism, American empire, and self-worth. It will make your blood boil."and#151;Laura Nader, University of California, Berkeley
"Using largely the voices of others, Pine's rigorous but sensitive anthropological approach interweaves gangs, work, religion, drink, politics, and even globalization to show clearly how violence pervades the everyday life of many Hondurans. It is a realistic tour de force!"and#151;Dwight B. Heath, Brown University
Synopsis
Since 2000, approximately 440,000 Mexicans have migrated to the United States every year. Tens of thousands have left children behind in Mexico to do so. For these parents, migration is a sacrifice. What do parents expect to accomplish by dividing their families across borders? How do families manage when they are living apart? More importantly, do parents' relocations yield the intended results? Probing the experiences of migrant parents, children in Mexico, and their caregivers, Joanna Dreby offers an up-close and personal account of the lives of families divided by borders. What she finds is that the difficulties endured by transnational families make it nearly impossible for parents' sacrifices to result in the benefits they expect. Yet, paradoxically, these hardships reinforce family members' commitments to each other. A story both of adversity and the intensity of family ties, Divided by Borders is an engaging and insightful investigation of the ways Mexican families struggle and ultimately persevere in a global economy.
Synopsis
In an era of escalating food politics, many believe organic farming to be the agrarian answer. In this first comprehensive study of organic farming in California, Julie Guthman casts doubt on the current wisdom about organic food and agriculture, at least as it has evolved in the Golden State. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor in opposition to "industrial" agriculture, Guthman explains how organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.
Synopsis
"
Agrarian Dreams throws a cold shower of reality over the dream of organic agriculture in California, demonstrating all that is lost when organic farming goes industrial. This is a challenging book, and until we can answer the hard questions Julie Guthman poses, a genuinely sustainable agriculture will elude us."and#151;Michael Pollan, author of
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World"Agrarian Dreams puts organic agriculture in a broad intellectual, social, and theoretical context in a readable way. Nobody has written at this scale and scope about organics. The availability of this basic data and interpretation will open discussion to a broad range of citizens, scholars, and decision makers. This is an outstanding work."and#151;Sally K. Fairfax, Henry J. Vaux Distinguished Professor of Forest Policy, University of California, Berkeley
"Guthman takes on the sacred cow of organic agriculture: that farmers and consumers can transform our food system simply through by adopting new philosophies of eating, farming and nature. With an analysis that is at the forefront of agrarian theory today, she shows that organic farmers, no matter what their philosophy, have to work under the economic gun of markets and land prices. As a result, organic growers in California are forced to become increasingly industrialized, unjust and unhealthy. Her analysis is proof that it will take more than new kinds of thinking to create sustainability in our food system."and#151;Melanie DuPuis, author of Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink
About the Author
Megan A. Carney is a Lecturer in Anthropology and in the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at the University of Washington. As a food activist, she was a cofounder of the Santa Barbara County Food Policy Council and served as a Sustainable Food Coordinator for UC, Santa Barbara.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Maps
1. Agrarian Dreams
2. Finding the Way: Roads to Organic Production
3. Organic Farming: Ideal Practices and Practical Ideals
4. California Dreaming: Californiaand#8217;s Agro-Industrial Legacy
5. Organic Sediment: A Geography of Organic Production
6. Conventionalizing Organic: From Social Movement to Industry via Regulation
7. Organic Regulation Ramified
8. The Agrarian Answer?
Appendix
Notes
Glossary of Key Terms
References
Index