Authors:
- Provides one of the first detailed studies of a labor-intensive agricultural farm on the African continent
- Connects agro-industrial labor questions to conversations in gender studies, social networks, and translocality
- Contributes to an on-going public debate on labor conditions on Naivasha flower farms, which together employ tens of thousands of workers
Buy it now
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.
Table of contents (7 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
About this book
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.
Reviews
“Wedding, birthday, and homecoming celebrations in Europe are made possible by migrant workers in settlements surrounding Naivasha Lake outside of Nairobi, Kenya. In this rich and detailed ethnography, Kuiper seeks to situate labor in the cut flower industry within a wider social and historical field in which the environment, gender, colonialism, and broader political economic factors all come to matter.” (Sarah Besky, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International and Public Affairs, Brown University, USA)
“Kuiper has provided us with a superbly crafted ethnography of the migrant farm workers whose labour the flower farms of Naivasha depend upon. This is a classic of its genre, and a timely reminder of both the resilience and fragility of Kenya's labour market.” (David M. Anderson, Professor of African History, University of Warwick, UK)
Authors and Affiliations
-
Global South Studies Centre, University of Cologne, Köln, Germany
Gerda Kuiper
About the author
Gerda Kuiper, Ph.D., is a cultural anthropologist with a regional focus on Eastern Africa, a thematic focus on economic anthropology and globalization, and a strong interdisciplinary commitment.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Agro-industrial Labour in Kenya
Book Subtitle: Cut Flower Farms and Migrant Workers’ Settlements
Authors: Gerda Kuiper
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18046-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-18045-4Published: 31 May 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-18048-5Published: 15 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-18046-1Published: 21 May 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 284
Number of Illustrations: 18 illustrations in colour
Topics: Social Anthropology, Ethnography, Sociology of Work, Social Structure, Social Inequality, Women's Studies