The Soviet health care infrastructure and its tuberculosis-control system were anchored in biomedicine, but the dire resurgence of tuberculosis at the end of the twentieth century changed how experts in post-Soviet nations--and globally--would treat the disease. 

Anthropologist Erin Koch explores the intersection of the nation's extensive medical history, the effects of Soviet control, and the highly standardized yet poorly regulated treatments promoted by the World Health Organization. Although statistics and reports tell one story--a tale of success in Georgia--Koch's ethnographic approach reveals all facets of this cautionary tale of a monolithic approach to medicine. 

We are told that simply by sipping our morning cup of organic, fair-trade coffee we are encouraging environmentally friendly agricultural methods, community development, fair prices, and shortened commodity chains. But what is the reality for producers, intermediaries, and consumers? This ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee examines the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality. 

Focusing on La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto--a cooperative in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala--and its relationships with coffee roasters, importers, and certifiers in the United States, Coffee and Community argues that while fair-trade does benefit small coffee-farming communities, it is more flawed than advocates and scholars have acknowledged. However, through detailed ethnographic fieldwork with farmers and by following the product, fair-trade can be understood and modified to be more equitable. 

This book will be a must-read for anyone interested in globalization and the realities of fair-trade.