Tobacco Capitalism: Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry

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Peter Benson

Tobacco Capitalism

Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry

Peter Benson

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English

Princeton University Press
30 January 2012

Agriculture & related industries; Tobacco industry

Tobacco Capitalism tells the story of the people who live and work on U.S. tobacco farms at a time when the global tobacco industry is undergoing profound changes. Against the backdrop of the antitobacco movement, the globalization and industrialization of agriculture, and intense debates over immigration, Peter Benson draws on years of field research to examine the moral and financial struggles of growers, the difficult conditions that affect Mexican migrant workers, and the complex politics of citizenship and economic decline in communities dependent on this most harmful commodity. Benson tracks the development of tobacco farming since the plantation slavery period and the formation of a powerful tobacco industry presence in North Carolina. In recent decades, tobacco companies that sent farms into crisis by aggressively switching to cheaper foreign leaf have coached growers to blame the state, public health, and aggrieved racial minorities for financial hardship and feelings of vilification.

Economic globalization has exacerbated social and racial tensions in North Carolina, but the corporations that benefit have rarely been considered a key cause of harm and instability, and have now adopted social-responsibility platforms to elide liability for smoking disease. Parsing the nuances of history, power, and politics in rural America, Benson explores the cultural and ethical ambiguities of tobacco farming and offers concrete recommendations for the tobacco-control movement in the United States and worldwide.

By: Peter Benson
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 482g
ISBN: 9780691149202
ISBN 10: 0691149208
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 30 January 2012
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Illustrations vii Foreword by Allan M. Brandt ix Preface xi Introduction 1 PART I:The Tobacco Industry, Public Health, and Agrarian Change Chapter 1: Most Admired Company 37 Chapter 2: The Jungle 63 Chapter 3: Enemies of Tobacco 96 PART II: Innocence and Blame in American Society Chapter 4: Good, Clean Tobacco 135 Chapter 5: El Campo 166 Chapter 6: Sorriness 210 Conclusion: Reflections on the Tobacco Industry (and American Exceptionalism) 258 Bibliography 275 Index 307

Peter Benson is assistant professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the coauthor of Broccoli and Desire: Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala.

Reviews for Tobacco Capitalism: Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry

Anthropologist Benson explains the shifts in US Growers' role in the multinational tobacco industry in the last half century through his focus on North Carolina's Wilson County, at the heart of US tobacco production. He bases his work on archival and ethnographic analysis of North Carolina tobacco growers and farmworkers and, more broadly, of government and industry perspectives. Choice

Commended for Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Prize 2012
Winner of 2012 James Mooney Award 2012
Winner of Delmos Jones and Jagna Sharff Memorial Prize for the Critical Study of North America, Society for the Anthropology of North America / American Anthropological Association 2013