troduction This paper is intended to provide update on dissertation research currently underway. Overall, my research focuses on the relationships between the growers, distributors, marketers and consumers participating in the commodity chain of a particular product, table grapes, as they are sourced from a single region and marketed throughout the world. Specifically, I am following the path of table grapes from fields near the city of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, through re-packing and distribution centered in the border city of Nogales, Arizona, to their ultimate destination in American supermarkets and homes. I am particularly interested in the role of U.S.-based transnational corporations involved in the global sourcing and marketing of fresh produce, including produce companies such as Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita, as well as supermarket chains including Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway. By focusing on a single region’s production of table grapes, and then examining the local and global implications of this production through a multisited ethnography of a linked series of contexts, my research is intended to shed light on the impacts of globalization on individuals, communities and business institutions.
This commodity chain study began with the table grape growers. I have spent the last nine months living in Hermosillo, conducting interviews, analyzing historical and statistical materials, and generally becoming familiar with growers and their world. I have also mapped out who the primary distributors in the area are, made contacts with some of them and gained a greater understanding of their role.
At the same time, I have been reading trade publications of the fresh produce industry, such as The Packer and Global Produce, in order to become more familiar with the industry in which my case study is located. I have conducted research via these industry publications and the Internet on specific companies involved with Sonoran table grapes and fresh produce in general, and also reviewed more of the literature on global food system change, particularly as it relates to the fresh produce industry.
Through the course of the research thus far, it has become apparent that my original proposal contained several assumptions about the roles and relative power of each link of the commodity chain that have since been proven false, or have at least required some revision. Thus after providing an overview of the Sonoran table grape industry, this paper will examine some of these underlying assumptions, and the factors that contradict them.
