Broccoli and Desire: Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala - Hardcover

“Broccoli and Desire tells the story of globalization from the ground up, focusing on the lives of ordinary people—the producers and consumers of a vegetable that many often take for granted. The authors, perceptive, boots-on-the-ground ethnographers, look beyond the usual neoliberal models to show how the local is transformed by global economic forces. Fischer and Benson have produced an excellent text that will be used for a wide range of courses.”—James L. Watson, Harvard University, Editor of Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia (Stanford University Press, 1997)
“For once, here is a well-researched book with an arresting title that actually delivers what it promises: fresh, new, outside-the-box thinking on a region that has been well studied. In Broccoli and Desire, Fischer and Benson use the deceptively simple question, how the Maya want, as a tool to break down globalization and other political-economy issues. In seeking to show why growing broccoli for export is both dangerous and compelling for Maya farmers, the authors have given us a compelling product—a ground-breaking study that is engagingly written and innovative in its conception.”—Matthew Restall, Pennsylvania State University

Edward F. Fischer is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Vanderbilt University. His publications include Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala (1996), Cultural Logics and Global Economies: Maya Identity in Thought and Practice (2001), and Tecpán Guatemala: A Modern Maya Town in Global and Local Context (2002). Peter Benson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University.