Authors: Fischer, Edward F.; Benson, Peter

Source: Social Analysis, Volume 49, Number 1, Spring 2005 , pp. 3-20(18)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

Abstract:

This article examines non-traditional export production of broccoli, snow peas, and other crops in Guatemala. Focusing on Maya farmers, exporters, and government development officials, we trace the production of the desire to grow these crops, to make some extra money, and to enhance local and national economies. We find that the export business has left farmers shortchanged even as it has opened new possibilities of algo más (something more or better). We examine how this empirical paradox has emerged from the convergence and divergence of power relations and affective desires that produce the processes known as 'hegemony' and 'resistance'. We conclude by considering alternative ethnographic strategies for understanding the multifarious connections between power and desire, hegemony and culture.

Keywords: DESIRE; DEVELOPMENT; GUATEMALA; HEGEMONY; MAYA; RESISTANCE

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/015597705780996291

Publication date: 2005-03-01

More about this publication?

• Social Analysis has long been at the forefront of anthropology's engagement with the humanities and other social sciences. In forming a critical, concerned, and empirical perspective, it encourages contributions that break away from the disciplinary bounds of anthropology and suggest innovative ways of challenging hegemonic paradigms through 'grounded theory', analysis based in original empirical research. The journal invites contributions directed toward a critical and theoretical understanding of cultural, political, and social processes, as well as the work of active ethnographic researchers who study the forces involved in the production of human suffering, poverty, prejudice, war, and violence.
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