This ethnographic study explores the links between agro-industrial employment in the context of economic adjustment programs and the individual experience of employment and economic change at the household level. Author Greta Friedemann-Sánchez's challenges the current academic consensus that transnational assembly line industries reinforce patriarchal ideologies of reproduction and the exploitation of women.

Colombia is a major exporter of fresh-cut flowers. As in other global assembly line industries, women constitute a majority of Colombia's floriculture workforce. This ethnographic study explores the links between agro-industrial employment in the context of economic adjustment programs and the individual experience of employment and economic change at the household level. Author Greta Friedemann-Sánchez's challenges the current academic consensus that transnational assembly line industries reinforce patriarchal ideologies of reproduction and the exploitation of women. What from a global perspective may be perceived as exploitation can be seen from the local perspective as an opportunity within the community. Specifically, the study focuses on how the interrelated factors of formal employment, wage income, property ownership, social capital, and self-esteem articulate with women's resistance to male dominated households and domestic violence. Expertly combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies, Assembling Flowers and Cultivating Homes contributes greatly to the study of gender and power, household economics and structure, and Latin American society.

A globe-trotting, behind-the-scenes look at the dazzling world of flowers and the fascinating industry it has created. Award-winning author Amy Stewart takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes look at the flower industry and how it has sought—for better or worse—to achieve perfection. She tracks down the hybridizers, geneticists, farmers, and florists working to invent, manufacture, and sell flowers that are bigger, brighter, and sturdier than anything nature can provide. There's a scientist intent on developing the first genetically modified blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the most popular lily; a breeder of gerberas of every color imaginable; and an Ecuadorean farmer growing exquisite roses, the floral equivalent of a Tiffany diamond. And, at every turn she discovers the startling intersection of nature and technology, of sentiment and commerce.

DIVCultural history of the flower trade in New York City and the transformation of the cut-flower industry into a global commodity system./div

This ethnography analyses labour relations within the export-oriented cut flower industry at Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Though this agro-industry has attracted critical attention from journalists and non-governmental organizations, this book is the first comprehensive, social scientific analysis of the industry’s labour arrangements and production processes. Gerda Kuiper here interprets the work on the farms as ‘agro-industrial labour’: a labour system characterized by high levels of discipline and a strict rhythm of work, due to the demands posed by a highly perishable agricultural product. This framework enables the author to draw on insights from a wide range of anthropological and sociological studies on (agro-)industrial wage labour around the globe. This mixed-methods approach, deployed alongside rich ethnographic detail, allows the author to center the flower farm workers in her analysis.