As an economic anthropologist, my research interests lie at the intersection of culture, agriculture, consumption and the global economy. I am particularly interested in exploring the opportunities and limitations that global markets and changing economic circumstances present to small farmers in the United States and Central America. I am currently beginning a new research project which focuses on the potential that agritourism holds for economic and community development in Kentucky. In the coming years, I plan to expand this research to encompass a multi-sited, comparative study of agritourism initiatives in diverse small farm communities located in Kentucky, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

I am also continuing my ongoing research on the impact of sustainable coffee market participation on coffee producing communities. As part of this project, I have most recently investigated the gendered dimensions of fair trade and ethical market participation. Fair trade has prioritized gender equality. However, in practice this mandate is underdeveloped. While fair trade publicity materials highlight the steps producer groups have taken in order to foster gender equality, women's projects are largely focused on non-productive activities outside the export agricultural sector. This research was recently published in Human Organization.

The central goal of my dissertation research was to evaluate the impact of sustainable coffee market participation on Maya cooperative members. I concluded that the market offered several benefits to producers, including higher prices, stable market access, organizational capacity building, market information, and access to credit. However, I also identified several key limitations of fair trade markets, such as increasing debt burdens, insufficient compensation, the potential for growing inequality and a lack of cooperative member participation in the fair trade movement's international decision-making and agenda setting. These broad findings are more fully analyzed in an article in Culture and Agriculture which forms part of a special issue which I guest edited. An intriguing finding of my work is that small farmers seeking access to the sustainable coffee market confront a rigid certification system whose requirements often appear irrational. For example, cooperative members were dismayed when certifiers insisted they cut down rapidly growing shade trees in their coffee plots which provided firewood for household cooking because they were non-native species. I explore this and other contradictions in the article titled “Migratory Imaginations: The Commodification and Contradictions of Shade Grown Coffee” published in Social Anthropology. Another noteworthy aspect of my research explores how the fair trade consumer market protects the secure organizational space that is necessary for producer initiated consumer development which in turn reaffirms existing cultural traditions of service and mutual aid within the community. Support such as this is absolutely critical in countries such as Guatemala which has a history of genocidal violence and human rights violations. I discuss this process in “Fair Trade Coffee and Human Rights in Guatemala” recently published in the Journal of Consumer Policy. This research is analyzed thoroughly in my book manuscript The Taste of a Different World: Growing and Selling Fair Trade Coffee in a Maya Community which is currently under review. The manuscript explores the ways in which fair trade and organic coffee production and market relations are shaped by local and Northern conceptions of Maya identity, small farmers and the nature of community in the 21st century. The manuscript examines the results of this new market's intersection with the community's history, cultural traditions and socio-economic relations.

Research Interests

Economic anthropology, sustainable consumption, alternative markets and globalization, agritourism, agricultural production and commodity chains; the anthropology of Latin America and Maya culture

About Me

Economic anthropology, transnational networks and globalization; agricultural production and commodity chains; international "green" and "ethical" marketplace; anthropology of Latin America, Maya culture.

Courses Taught

• ANT 350: Anthropological Perspectives on Globalization
• ANT 324: Contemporary Cultures of Latin America
• ANT 301: History of Anthropological Thought
• ANT 338: Economic Anthropology
• ANT 734: Economic Anthropology
• ANT 770: Globalization
• ANT 538: Beyond Economic Growth

• 2008   We Want to Be Equal to Them: Fair Trade Coffee Certification and Gender Equity within Organizations. Human Organization 68(3):258-268.
• 2007  Maya Coffee Farmers and the Fair Trade Commodity Chain. Culture and Agriculture 29(2): 100-112.
• 2007  Rethinking Free Trade/Fair Trade: Introduction to a Special Issue of Culture and Agriculture (Lyon, S., ed.) 29(2).
• 2007  Fair Trade Coffee and Human Rights in Guatemala. Journal of Consumer Policy 30(3): 241-261.
• 2006  Evaluating Fair Trade Consumption: Politics, Defetishization, and Producer Participation. International Journal of Consumer Studies 30(5): 452-465. (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/IJC)
• 2006  Migratory Imaginations: The Commodification and Contradictions of Shade Grown Coffee. Social Anthropology 14(3): 1-14. (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=SAN)
• 2006  Just Java: Roasting Fair Trade Coffee. In, Fast Food-Slow Food: The Economic Anthropology of the Global Food System. Wilk, R., ed. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.