The Ends of Coffee: State, Work, and Identity in Post-Cafta Costa Rica
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE ENDS OF COFFEE: STATE, WORK, AND IDENTITY IN POST-CAFTA COSTA RICA by KATHERINE VIRGINIA FISCHER B.A., Carleton College, 2003 M.A., University of Colorado, 2008 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology 2015 This thesis entitled: The Ends of Coffee: State, Work, and Identity in Post-CAFTA Costa Rica written by Katherine Virginia Fischer has been approved by the Department of Anthropology Dr. Donna Goldstein Dr. Carla Jones Dr. Carole McGranahan Dr. Kaifa Roland Dr. Catherine Tucker Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB protocol #0609.5 ABSTRACT The Ends of Coffee: State, Work, and Identity in Post-CAFTA Costa Rica Katherine V. Fischer Thesis directed by Dr. Donna Goldstein This dissertation is an ethnography of a people, a place, and a plant, in which I follow the ways in which ideas about what makes coffee good, and what makes good coffee, change across space and time. I take a multi-sited approach that combines participant-observation within the specialty coffee industry and with coffee growers in the Orosi Valley of Costa Rica. Coffee production once supported and is now challenging Costa Rica’s welfare state model. It provided the financial backing for the welfare state via taxes while its organization of social life maintained the values of equality and obligation on which the state’s ideological apparatus rested. That is, coffee engendered a sense of social responsibility and conciliation in Central America, where militarism and rule of the few was the norm. Costa Ricans thus credit coffee for their exceptionalism, and it anchors national identity. Since the 1980s, however, the ways in which farmers labor and connect with the state have been refigured. During that decade the price of coffee collapsed, Nicaraguans fleeing the Contra War arrived, and the first wave of economic liberalization began. Concomitantly, specialty coffee began offering consumers a higher quality product than conventional by focusing on the techniques and conditions of production at origin and the narration of a coffee’s unique life history. This appears to defetishize the commodity by putting human relations at the center of the narrative, but instead its enactment serves to reinforce inequalities and object agency. Specialty offers higher prices, but at a cost that is not purely financial. Once-independent farmers must now meet buyer requirements under conditions that clash with the notions of reciprocity and independent decision-making that underpin sociopolitical life. In 2009 CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, went into effect, and its implementation has bred distrust because it has begun dismantling state support systems. As first coffee and now the state have retreated from their roles as anchoring points for identity, Orosians express anxiety and fear about the future in terms that nostalgically recall a communal and cooperative past that, in contrast to today, epitomized Costa Rican identity and values. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although only my name appears as the author, any work such as this is the result of the efforts of hundreds of people, and I owe a debt to each of them. More than anything I am grateful and indebted to the people of Orosi, who are some of the most generous and warm-hearted people I have met. They answered my endless questions about coffee, and electricity, and water, and bus schedules, and cell phones, with patience and good humor. Had they been less willing to open up to me, this project could not have been realized. Gracias amigos. Sara Mooij and Toine Verkuijlin were my first friends in Orosi, and they provided a home, fantastic meals, and conversations that went long into the night. Not only did they make it physically possible for me to conduct my research by allowing me to stay at the hostel for a year for free, they introduced me to dozens of people in town, kept me abreast of happenings when I was gone, and helped me analyze and understand what I was seeing. Their son, Thomas, kept me laughing and on my toes. The staff at OTIAC/Montaña Linda – Rafa, Margarita, Julia, Katty, Fabian, Wendy, Gloriana, Marko, Naty, Adrián, Magaly, and Felicia – were unfailingly kind to this gringa who kept coming back year after year. Margarita Sánchez, Katty Ruiz, Magaly Mendez, Ramón Fernández, and Cindie Fisher became good friends, offering points and counterpoints to my own observations, feeding me, and introducing me to those with whom they thought I should speak. In addition, Katty and Cindie were particularly adept at introductions and helping me make connections, while without Ray I would not have been able to travel to Hojancha. Margarita, her daughter Thamara, and Magaly kept me laughing while providing insights into life and the state that I would have otherwise missed. Kenneth Ramírez, my research assistant, was not only an excellent photographer, he enabled me to visit and interview with dozens of people and then helped me put their stories into the wider Orosi context. Ana Beatriz Bravo proved an adept editor. ICAFE opened its doors and its library to me, and José Obando drove me around the Orosi Valley to show me ICAFE’s experimental fields. Elias, Linda, Ernesto, Nano, Sergio, Minor, and Dennis all provided essential insights into coffee production. Luis Arce and Luis Lamicq helped me understand tourism and the difficulties in promoting it and living from it in a town that had never had to struggle to attract visitors. Iván Molina Jiménez offered many hours of conversation about Costa Rica’s social and economic history, while Carmen Caamaño Morúa at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales provided critical feedback during the early stages of my analysis. Though I am sometimes critical of the industry, I truly believe that specialty purveyors have the best interests of farmers at heart, even if they do not, to summarize Foucault, always know what what they do does. Mark Overly of Kaladi Coffee in Denver was particularly helpful in understanding changing notions of quality, the connections between social justice and buyer preference, and the strange world of acidity. Sherri Jones of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence allowed a novice cupper into her intermediate class in Honduras and provided a wealth of knowledge about the industry’s growth and technical preferences, as did my classmates. The late Randy Wirth first introduced me to the world of coffee and inspired me to think critically about its origins and economic ramifications. His passion will be sorely missed. Bel Townsend, the first Dr. Coffee, helped me see the connections between waste and quality. All the people with whom I have spoken at coffee conferences, or while they were working behind the bar at a coffeeshop, also played a role in shaping the conclusions drawn here. Special thanks go to the International Coffee Organization, which supplied historical data on coffee production, trade, and pricing, and to the Specialty Coffee Association of America for allowing use of the flavor wheel and cupping form. iv At the University of Colorado, I have benefited from the institutional support of the Anthropology department, the Center for the Advancement of Research and Teaching in the Social Sciences, the Beverly Sears fund, and the Goldstein-Altman fund, all of which provided a number of small grants that let me conduct the early stages of this research. The Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund made the writing of this dissertation possible with a generous grant, which also allowed me to return to Costa Rica to present my findings to the public there. My fellow graduate students provided camaraderie and encouragement, chief among them Marnie Thomson, Dani Merriman, Chris Morris, Erin Baxter, Rachel Fleming, and Magda Stawkowski. Dani helped me see the geographical limitations of Costa Rica’s national identity and invited me into her Costa Rican home. She, along with Marnie and Chris, offered a writing support system that made the completion of this work possible. Marnie, especially, helped me to see the arguments I was crafting when I could not. She has read more drafts of my work than is reasonable for any one person, always with patience and intellectual acumen. Karen, Lesa, Grant, and Valerie were always available in the office to answer my questions, solve my problems, and share in my struggles. The faculty of the University of Colorado are without peer when it comes to student support and encouragement. Chris Hammons read drafts and helped me see the bigger picture when I lost the forest for the trees. The insights and courses offered by committee members Carole McGranahan, Carla Jones, and Kaifa Roland shaped and provided the intellectual impetus for this dissertation in more ways than I think any of us expected. Catherine Tucker’s work on coffee was additionally influential in shaping my thinking. My advisor, Donna Goldstein, has been a friend and advocate since my first day of graduate school, when I was a terrified teaching assistant for her class in method and theory. She has pushed me to write more clearly, think more deeply and more broadly, and to make connections that I could not otherwise see. Her wealth of knowledge of Latin America, agriculture, neoliberalism, and the politics of expertise, among other topics, were invaluable throughout the writing of this dissertation. This entire project is my mother’s fault. Had she not casually suggested one day in the fall of 2005 that it might be fun to open a bookstore/café, I would never have become interested in coffee or begun this research, and my life would have been the emptier for it.