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3. Neoliberalism and the Transnational Activity of the State: Offshore Control in the US-Mexico Mango and Persian Lime Industry
- University Press of Colorado
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51 T h r e e NeoliberalismandtheTransnationalActivityoftheState OffshoreControlintheUS-MexicoMangoandPersianLimeIndustry RobertR.Alvarez This chapter focuses on a relatively ignored yet growing dimension of neoliberal effects in the global marketing of fruits and vegetables. It illustrates how, in the case of tropical export crops, specific US infrastructures penetrate offshore cultures of production and distribution at national, regional, and local levels. Of crucial importanceisthatpenetrationandinfluencecausedramaticsocial-culturalchange. Much of the literature on globalization and neoliberalism—which focuses on the inequities and economic dimensions of free trade, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—has ignored the nation-state’s offshore capacity as participant and organizer at regional, national, and local levels that influence offshore producers and distributors (Chambers and Smith 2002). In this chapter I illustrate how the United States, through its transnational influence and presence, has imposed specific conditions and requirements for Mexican exports into the country. Subsequently, this imposition and control have produced a vast change in local and regional agriculture. I argue here that this involvement needs to be viewed as part of a specific global process that defines the state as transnational. In the past decade, transnational processes and behavior have expanded and deepened, especially in relations between the United States and Latin America. 52 RobertR.Alvarez This is especially evident in the Mexican embrace of neoliberal trade and values andthegrowingvisibilityoftheUSinvolvementandinvestmentsintransnational economies and negotiations (see chapter 1, this volume). The ethnographic study of transnationalism focuses primarily on immigration and the connecting ties of new populations to their home regions. Labor, identity, and policy, as well as the transnational imagination in local regions, are now part of this complex literature (Brettell 2003; Chavez 2008; Levitt 2001; Smith 2005; Smith and Bakker 2007; Stephen 2007). People and commodities that cross international borders continue to be a major focus, but we also need to query the transnational role of the nation-state in local behavior. I acknowledge the myriad transnational processes and activities of people who cross national boundaries for purposes of trade and immigration, yet the controlling influence of the state raises questions concerning its role as an actual actor in transnational and trans-border activity. The transnational activities of the state wield a vast and encompassing power that forces producers and distributors engaged in the US-Mexican mango trade and marketing into specific behaviors and adaptations. For example, Mexican mango entrepreneurs (mangueros) organize their yearly schedule around the export market and have developed systematic levels of commodity control that begin with production. The actual harvesting and processing of export fruit are tied directly to current US regulations as well as market demand. Although this behavior is conditioned by the open market, the activities and regulatory forces of the state are a fundamental influence and controlling aspect. This chapter is an ethnographic account, as it stems from the perspective of the personnel involved in the production, distribution, and marketing of mangos and limes. It is based on field research that began in the period 1985–1991, when I worked in the trade, followed by subsequent field visits in 2001, 2002, and 2004. My primary focus is on mango-packing sheds in Sinaloa and Guerrero, but I also have a broader goal. In addition to focusing on the mango market and personnel, an important aspect of this ethnography is the state. Similar to other anthropologists, my method of analysis here is that of the commodity chain. Anthropologists examine fruits and vegetables as particular commodities and trace their accumulated social and economic value from field to market. Such analysis illustrates complex and important economic and cultural circles within which specific commodities flow (see Alvarez 1994, 2001, 2005; Appadurai 1996; Barndt 2002, 2004; Bestor 2001; Stanford 1994, 1998, 2004). Traditionally, commodities are often studied from a political economy perspective in which transnational companies exert and maintain control in the international market. Rather than focus on transnational companies, my focus here is how the state itself is engaged in controlling the commodity chain. Mangos, like other tropical fruit, differ from integrated market commodities that compete with US producers. Avocados (Stanford 1994, 1998, 2004), toma- [3.237.51.235] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:17 GMT) 53 Neoliberalism and the Transnational Activity of the State toes (Barndt 2002, 2004), and grapes (see Carter and Alexander, this volume), for example, are fruits and vegetables that were introduced both in Mexican agriculture and for the US market as off-season commodities that become integrated with production and distribution on both sides of the US-Mexico border. An important...