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

Where does our 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? Tangled Routes follows a corporate tomato from a Mexican field through the United States 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 U.S.-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).

Tangled Routes grew out of a unique six-year collaborative project involving feminist academics, activists, and popular educators from Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Written in an accessible style and integrating over 100 photographs, this critical introduction to complex issues ends with signs of hope--creative responses by local and global movements for social justice and environmental sustainability.

NOTE: Canadian distribution rights for Tangled Routes are held by Garamond Press. All purchases and examination or desk copy requests within Canada should be directed to Garamond Press. The book can be accessed via the Garamond Press website via the following link: http://www.web.ca/~garamond/tangled.htm.

Deborah Barndt is a popular educator and photographer who teaches in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto. For over 25 years, she has worked with social justice movements in Canada, the U.S., and Central America. Her photographs have been published and exhibited widely, and her extensive publications include Education and Social Change: A Photographic Study of Peru, To Change This House: Popular Education under the Sandinistas, Naming the Moment: Political Analysis for Action, and Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food, and Globalization (editor).