Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail

Where does food come from? And what impact does its production have on the earth, on the women workers who move it from field to table, and on all who eat it? This study follows a corporate tomato from a Mexican field through the US to a Canadian table, examining in its wake the dynamic relationship between production and consumption, work and technology, health and environment, bio-diversity and cultural diversity. After tracing the tomato's journey through space and time (routes and roots), three case studies - a Mexican agribusiness, a Canadian supermarket, and a US-owned fast-food restaurant - offer a view of globalization from above (corporate profiles), globalization from below (stories of women who plant, pick, pack, scan, slice and sell tomatoes), and the other globalization (acts of resistance and alternatives to the corporate model. This work grew out of a six-year collaborative project involving feminist academics, activists and popular educators from Mexico, the USA and Canada. issues ends with signs of hope - creative responses by local and global movements for social justice and environmental sustainability.